HF STAFF REMARKS “Few people have more experience in getting wild game from the field to the table than Brad Lockwood. His passion on this topic led to the development of his Koola Buck products that are all about properly caring for game meat in the field. As the co-host of Outdoor Edge’s Love of the Hunt TV show and career butcher, Brad’s insights on meat care come from a practical and experienced point of view.” — Jerrod Lile, Huntin’ Fool CEO
There’s nothing like the feeling of finding that hidden treasure at the end of a well-navigated blood trail, looking over the fallen treetops and spotting your animal. First, you let out a big sigh of relief and then the celebration begins. After high fives, handshakes, backslaps, a lot of congratulations, and recaps of how the amazing hunt unfolded, the barrage of pictures begins. However, somewhere amidst all the excitement, the sobering thoughts of how much work is laying in front of you begins to settle in. As I’ve said many times, once the animal is down, the real work begins.
Putting good quality wild game meat on the table begins in the field at the time of harvest, and just as each hunter’s experience level varies, so does their knife skill. No matter what technique you use to make little pieces out of big ones, there are a few simple but often overlooked details that can help every hunter ensure that they are taking home the best table fare to their family.
The first decision you need to make is based on the temperature of the day. Is it 40 degrees or 70 degrees? Can I take these large quarters of meat out of the field whole or should I consider deboning the animal and pulling the bones up and out of those dense slabs of meat, allowing the body heat to evacuate from the muscle tissue? The bone and bone marrow of large big game animals can trap heat deep inside the dense muscle tissue, and this trapped body heat can cause bacteria to grow rapidly as well as poor flavors and odors to begin forming down near the bone of your precious game meat. I would recommend in temperatures above 50 degrees that you do your very best to pull the bones out of those large quarters and allow the body heat to dissipate from the carcass. If the temperature is below 40 degrees, you would be safe to bring the quarters out whole with the hide on or off. The USDA has designated 40 degrees or below as a safe cooling temperature for all meats. If the temperature is much above that, say 45-50 degrees, I would at least remove the hide from the quarters to assist in allowing the body heat to escape from the carcass.
When excitement is high and everyone is working quickly, remember to be careful. This is when accidents happen. Always remember, safety first! Knives don’t care what meat they cut; your game animal or your skin is fine as far as the knife is concerned. A very important food safety issue to keep in mind is cross contamination. How often do you skin your game animal with one hand holding the dirty hide, oftentimes covered in urine and other contaminates, and then grab directly onto the hind quarter or precious backstrap of your wild game animal? Did you clean your hands? You would never consider doing this at home or in your processing room, so why would you do it in the field? Slow down, take your time, and use some water and wet wipes to clean your hands before handling your edible meat products. Oftentimes, I will skin an entire side of the animal back, lay out a tarp or rain cover that I carry with me in my pack, and then I will clean my hands as well as I possibly can and then start handling the meat.
Obviously, you don’t want dirt and all the other unmentionable contaminates that can exist on the outside of the hide of an animal directly on the meat, but once the meat has been contaminated, the bacteria that has been taken from the hide and placed on the meat will grow very rapidly. This is how foodborne illness occurs, so take your time and remember this simple process – skin first, clean your hands, and then debone and handle your game meat.
Something else that is always overlooked is the knife. Do you use the same knife to skin that you use to debone the carcass? If you do, this means you cut through the hide and who knows what else around camp during the skinning and field dressing process only to take the same dirty knife and use it to dig deep down into the hind quarter of the animal, pushing all that contamination right down into your tasty game meat. Cross contamination is a very serious issue and I’m definitely not saying you will ever be able to completely eliminate it, especially when you are processing animals in the field, but you can be more aware of what you do and how you skin and handle your game animal.
One very helpful product that can be used to reduce the growth of surface bacteria and cross contamination is an antimicrobial carcass spray. Koola Buck makes a portable aerosol can than can be sprayed directly on the carcass to lower the growth of surface bacteria, which will help significantly in these remote situations. The antimicrobial spray combined with their game bags, which are treated with the same patented formula, can reduce surface bacterial growth by up to eight times the amount of a standard game bag. What does that mean for us as hunters? It provides a safety barrier in warm weather conditions to reduce surface bacteria growth, and it will significantly lower the bacterial growth of any cross contamination that may have occurred.
As you remove the meat from the carcass, don’t overload your game bags! If you pack 50 lbs. of boneless meat in one bag, the body heat will have a hard time getting out of the center of all that boneless meat. I’ve personally experienced a couple issues regarding overloading game bags. On a warm Colorado elk hunt, we overloaded our game bags, packed them into panyards on the horses, and hauled them five hours off the mountain to a chest freezer at the outfitter’s home. When we pulled the game bags out of the plastic panyards, the meat felt just as warm as it did when we packed it on the mountainside. Needless to say, I was very concerned, so we hurriedly packed it into a chest freezer, not giving it a second thought that even though the chest freezer was cold, there was no airflow at all. As the game bags froze, the center stayed soft for a couple days. As we began processing the meat, I noticed the odor of the meat was not correct and we ended up throwing away a significant amount of game meat that we had worked so hard for. No hunter likes to have that happen.
Always remember, don’t over pack your game bags and if you place your warm meat inside a chest freezer for a quick fix, be sure to place a small fan inside the freezer to circulate air. This will allow the meat to freeze much faster. If you have the option of hanging the animal in a walk-in cooler, this is much more efficient at drawing the body heat from the carcass because of the airflow. Many options are available for hunts, like the portable walk-in cooler system by Koola Buck. This portable unit with its 360-degree airflow design was developed for this exact application.
To sum it up, the safest way to ensure that your wild game meat is at its finest when it lands on your table is to get it cooled off quickly and to keep it clean. The best way to get the meat cooled quickly is to properly skin and debone it in the field, get air circulation around the meat, and store it in small enough caches that the heat can dissipate. Keep in mind that this method is pretty much mandatory for temperatures above 50 degrees. Keeping meat clean in the field requires patience coupled with a commitment to avoid cross contamination. This step is easier on paper than it is on the mountain, so you should consider using every possible tool, including antimicrobial game bags. Koola Buck’s science-backed game bags reduce the growth of surface bacteria, helping reduce the impacts of cross contamination and giving you a significant safety barrier in warm weather. We all care so much about the meat we take home to eat and feed our families, so I’m really hoping these few tips will help you on your next harvest.
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