I was a bit delayed in dealing with a roe carcass.

Animal was processed quickly but left to hang in the chiller rather longer than normal. There's some 'bloom' ie an amount of fungal furring on the inside. I've eaten meat like this before (washed off and well cooked) and it was the best but this is for a land owner, is it safe to give to him? Bear in mind if I poison him I may lose the stalking.

This is a interesting topic!

I wonder how people around the world take care of the game after the hunting is done.

Here in Sweden we start the moosehunting when temperatures are way to high to let the meat hang enough to be tender if not a cold store is used. I hunt for moose with a few friends and we have a good coldstore to put our meat in. We useally let the moose hang for a week in +5-8 C. We once had the problem you facing now. We had a moose cow hanging for ten days before we took care of the meat.

There was some gray fungal stuff on the meat but we cleaned the meat with saltwater and could not find the meat bad in any way. It was wery tender and tasted just fine.

If you have bacteria growing on the meat you can se really small clear "blobs" on the surface. The meat also smells different than usual.

The limited experience I have with roedeers is that they dont need as long time in the coldstore than moose do to be tender.

I don�t think I got you a answer for your question but I really looking forward to se what people will say about this topic!

I�m off to the shooting range now for some skeet and running moose

Stefan.

1894:

Hell, I thought all your Brits let me hang until it stunk, like the fabled grouse or is that grousi?

I am not a butcher, but I think Stefan made some valid observations, wash it off with a light saline solution and look at it and smell it. If it is not green and doesn't really stink, I think it will be fine. Also, I am not sure how chilled your "chiller" is, but that growth is exactly what we strive for in aging prime beef so I think it will be fine, you might have to trim it a little where it seem appropriate. And finally, this piece may be an exception, but cooking wild game well done is a travesty against flavor, in my opinion. I know you guys do it differently over there, but anything past medium rare is OVERCOOKED, unless it is some kind of roast or tough cut. Of course, that is why I nearly starved to death in London until I found some Chinese restaurants near the theater district. Hint, spicing something up is not done by letting the chef walk through the kitchen with an open can of pepper in his hand. LOL

We let our deer, elk, and beef hang til fuzz grows on it. The outer "skin" gets so black and dry that you have to "skin" it again.
I`ll eat anything that don`t stink and didn`t hang in a celler un-gutted til the head fell off....hehe.
I think 40f is about as warm as we let it get.

Cook and eat some yourself. I don't like to let it hang 'till it's gray, but I do like a week at 38F in 50% humidity if I can control it.

I have had country hams get furry quite often when I was growing up. We never threw one away, and never got sick.

I would wash it in a salt and mild cider vinegar solution, "skin" it again in the doubtful areas and get outside of a bait of it. It is probably the best you've ever had!

Don

Another thing that can be done to any type of meat if it discolors is to soak it in vinegar then rinse with water. The vinegar pulls out the discoloration, and leaves no taste whatsoever.

Cook and feed it to the land owner. If he doesn't get sick it was okay.

------------------
"If you can keep your head about you when all others are loosing theirs and blaiming it on you..."

With a 30lb Roe carcass, why take the chance?? Either keep it for yourself or feed it to the dog.

I have heard countless old timers here and in Idaho talk of the old days when all they had were ice houses. They claim to have made a practice of hanging their game untell it got fuzzy. Then they would skin off the fuzz, clean the meat with salty water cut and pacage it for the freezer storage in town.
Maybe it was old timers pullin a kids leg maybe not but they seemed to all know about the practice.
I hang mine as long as it stays in the 30s,or lower with the hide on to keep cats out (I hang mine in the tree in the front yard) Then cut and rap it. Tastes great every time.
X-Ring

There�s a rule of thumb that many here in Sweden go by, that says you should let your animal hang at least 4 days in a temp of 10 degree Celcius, 5 days in 8 degree C, 2 days in 20 degree celcius etc. So the sum of temp for the total # of days is 40 or somewhat above. I don't know how to recalculate this to Fahrenheit so I hope you'll understand what I mean anyway.

Otherwise trust your nose, if it smells OK, eat it!
Peter

Just one more variation on the theme. The way I was tought to age our deer in GA, USA is to quarter and skin it. Then put it on ice in a cooler and cover with water. Leave it a week or two. Change the water daily or every other day. Add ice as necessary to keep things cold. Then process and freeze. The Florida boys in camp put a handfullof salt in the water but it makes the sausage too salty in my opinion. More than one way to skin a cat(or deer). One of my friends said he left a deer in a root celler in maine for more than a month. Forgot to work it up. When he came back it was very mossy. They tried the meat and it was the best ever. I would probably eat it if it didn't smell like carion. If it is poison and you die please post and let us know not to do that. Thanks "D"