I'm amazed at how many people are uninformed about this technique.
At my house we have not bought ground meat or steak in 20+ years because we always use venison (elk, whitetail and axis).  When we entertain it is usually with a couple of families and we all have kids so it is usually 8-15 people.  Serving venie burgers or grilling fillets is an economical way to serve large groups and in my opinion it's better eats than you could purchase.  What amazes me is the shock people experience when they find out it is venison.  When I question their shock the answer is always the same, "I don't like venison".  When further questioned what is revealed is that all the venison they have tried is "tough and tastes gamie".  Keep in mind most of those we entertain are hunters themselves and come from hunting families, they just don't eat the meat unless it is in sausage.
The key to good venison (or any red meat for that matter) is to age it prior to consuming or freezing.  10 days to 2 weeks is best.  This can be done by hanging the carcass in a cooler or barn if it is cool enough or a frige after it has been boned out.  I use the later.  I put the meat in bags, close them up and come back in 2 weeks.  The purist will say it has to have air circulating around it but I have found in bags works well.  Also, if it is left open the outer layer of meat crusts over and will need to be trimmed prior to prepping.  What happens is the meat naturally decomposes, I hate using that term because it is synonymous with rotting.  YOU ARE NOT EATING ROTTEN MEAT.  When you open the bags be prepared for a "rotten" smell, it is the blood.  Simply dispose of the blood and bag, rinse the meat and enjoy.
What you will find is this does away with the need to bludgeon a fillet to prior to cooking and you will have a meat taste to the venison, not the "gamie" taste so many associate with venison.  What you will also find it that you can simply season the meat to taste with no marinade necessary to cover the "gaminess".
Hope this enlightens some of you guys that where unaware of this process and allows you and your families/friends to better enjoy the great outdoors we have been blessed with.
If you are grinding the meat this process is not necessary.

As a side note, this process is trying to make it's way into the commercial cattle industry, again, I should say as most Europeans and old timers have been doing this with cattle for centuries.  Alas that is another topic.

Perry

Meats like venison , should be aged at a CONSTANT temperature (35 degrees for 14 days is the recommended), not something I can do here in the northeast in my barn.

I'd guess that most people don't have the necessary facilities for dry aging an entire carcass.

Especially when brining home several at a time. I use my fridge and two large ice chests, I typically age them 24-36hrs and have never had a complaint. The stuff I do at home is actually better than what I pay the processors to do.

This is something I need to learn about. Thank you I will look it up.

Sorry, but I don't know what benefit aging gives.

1) We usually shoot 8 or 9 deer in two days
2) South texas doesn't get cold enough.  It doesn't even freeze on Christmas week (that's when we go)
3) I don't know what gamy taste is.  I have heard about it.  But I am not sure what it supposed to be.
4) I've never had tough deer.  They all melt in your mouth.  Soooooo tender when cooked fresh.
5) We process (all the kids) ourselves so we don't have place to hang 8 to 9 deer for 14 days.

If you think fresh kill melts in your mouth, after aging you'll be beside yourself !

In all seriousness, study up on it.  It makes a huge difference.

P

When I lived in Kansas my buddy owned an HVAC business and had a walk in meat cooler (and a complete butcher shop) in his garage. We typically aged our deer 7-10 days in the cooler before butchering them. Best venison I've ever had, and I miss it.

I've talked to several deer processors over the years and some famous venision chiefs.  They all about said aging deer past 5 days is a waste unless the deer was ran hard or took a long time to die.

I've been processing my own deer for 15+ years now and process 10+ deer a year.  I never let the deer sit in the cooler past 7 days and always a minimum of 4 days.  I've never had anyone complain about my venison.

This argument is like Chevy vs Ford.

We used to hang it outside at room temp for about a week or a bit more.  Till the meat got a crust on it.  Then processed it.

If you got the correct temps then hell yea,  I prefer 7-10 days and the extra days is simply the convenience of when I can get to it.  I'll go without sleep before I let a hanging deer spoil.

I've done it both hide off and hide on (bitter cold temps).  The both work but the hide on really really sucks to take that hide off when your deer is borderline frozen.   The upside is hanging with the hide on eliminates the crusting on the surface.  In marginal temps you are way better off to get rid of the hide 1. because it acts like a blanket and 2. You want to get rid of the soft foamy fat and connective tissue that will be the first to spoil.  The tallow on the rump is a lot less of a problem as far as spoilage.  

As far as the meat quality I find it much better than a shot in the am and wrapped by the next day.  You simply retain too much moisture.  My proof to my self on that is the quick processed burger doesn't make a patty worth a damn without falling apart.  It's too wet.  The deer hung for a time has no problems and to me tastes better.  

Just my $0.02 and experiences.

Here is an excerpt  explaining the science behind aging meat.  The article is specifically addressing beef but the science holds true of any meat.


"Dry-aged meat is crazy expensive. But oh man is it delicious. The dean of food science writers, Harold McGee, writes in Lucky Peach Issue 2 about what makes it taste so good—and what makes other things taste, well, not so good.

Proteins, carbohydrates, and fats are the building blocks of living things, but they don't have much flavor in their natural state. They are bland to begin with. That's why we cook them, why we season them, why we transform them — to make them more appealing to us.

But sometimes we can get our food to make itself more delicious, by treating it in a way that creates favorable conditions for the enzymes that are already in the food to work together in a certain fashion.

Enzymes are molecules that exist in foods-and in microbes intimately involved with food-that can transform those basic, bland building blocks. They're nanocooks-the true molecular cooks. Dry-aging, ripening, and fermentation are all processes that take advantage of enzymes to make foods delicious before cooking.

Most meat, by contrast, is prepared for the market very quickly. The animal is slaughtered, the various parts of the muscle system are separated and packages, and then they're distributed. That's about it.

Dry-aging beef means that once the animal is slaughtered and butchered, portions of the carcass are allowed to rest in very carefully controlled conditions (cool temperatures, with relatively high humidity) for a period of time—often several weeks, and sometimes up to a couple of months.

When we create such conditions, we allow enzymes to do their work. And we end up with a complexity of flavor—savoriness, sweetness, some bitterness-that just wasn't there before. There's no cooking method that can generate the depth of flavor of a dry-aged piece of meat.

What happens is that enzymes in the meat's muscle cells begin to break down the meat's proteins, fats, and glycogen—a carbohydrate—into amino acids, fatty acids, and sugars. One amino acid generated by dry-aging—the most important and flavorful one, in fact—is glutamate, which is part of MSG. other amino acids have flavors somewhat similar to MSG; others still are sweet.

Dry-aging beef also causes it to lose some of its moisture. Meat begins at about 75 percent water; after dry-aging, it may go down to somewhere around 70 percent. It doesn't sound like much of a change, but what it means is that the flavors become more concentrated, and the tissue itself becomes more concentrated, too. Dry-aged meat is still juicy when you cook it, but the juices are even more delicious than usual.

In short, it's wonderful, delicious stuff. It's also really hard to get your hands on, and when you can find it, it's often very expensive—you really have to pay through the nose for it, because it's very expensive to produce. The meat has to be kept in a controlled environment for a long time, and that eats up money. And then you lose a fair amount of the meat's weight, too: you're evaporating moisture, and the surface of the meat begins to spoil, as well. It dries out, it develops unpleasant flavors, and sometimes it develops a bit of mold. It's not harmful, but it needs to be trimmed off before the meat can be sold"




P

its called wet aging when you put it in a sealed bag and has been going on for a very long time by meat producers/packers, temp is critical in keeping/ storing meat. I prefer mine fresh to the freezer.

Yup!

This.

I typically quarter out my deer and place in the frig. I then debone the meat the following day or two and you cannot tell the difference from beef.
I do not marinate my venison. Marinating is for poor processing of meat.
Also, a QUICK kill makes for better tasting meat. JMHO

Do you skin them first?  or just field dress then hang?  I assume you don't want them freezing.

While I have someone else cut mine up(primarily because I don't have the time or the space to do it) my timeline has typically been this....

Bring deer to cutters same day it is shot. Last year on opening day of muzzleloader it was 55 degrees. Not good hanging weather.

My guy has a big walk-in cooler. Typically since he works for the town highway and does the cutting on the side, it will hang cape on in the cooler for 2 or 3 days  max. He is good about getting them cut and out the door quickly.

Once it gets back to my house we split it up and package it. Last year we got 2 on monday and another on Tuesday so we just picked all 3 boxes of meat up at once. This was a 2 day process of packaging and food saver sealed bags.

So in total from time the deer was shot to in bags in the freezer mine are 3 to 5 days depending on the time of season. All my meat is tender unless I screw something up cooking it. I know old timers who used to hang them outside for weeks later in the season when the weather was cooler. Not for me.

We age for 7-10 days in a fridge, then rinse, re-bag and freeze.

When the icemaker is working, we sometimes age in a big cooler instead.

I will put deer and antelope in a fridge for 2-4 days deboned. Any longer and it seems like it starts to dry out too much.

That's exactly what I do. Much better than what comes from the processor. I think the brine/water draws the blood out and cleans the meat. We drain the bloody water daily and put more ice in. We let ours go for four days.



It's to hot here to hang meat unless you have a big cooler. I think the reason I've never complained about my stinky bucks or big boars having a gamey taste is the aging in the ice water. I've never had an inedible animal.

If you take your deer to a processer around here, it is going to hang in the cooler between 2-4 days anyway, just due to the amount of deer that come in.

I will typically quarter them and then let it sit in a cooler with ice(water drained twice a day and fresh ice daily) for 3-4 days before I bring it in from the garage and finish processing.

In my experience the single biggest factor in improving the taste of venison is to get the animal opened up and cooled down or on ice as soon as possible. Typically where I hunt the temps during mid day are well above freezing and some guys will drive around for hours with an un-field dressed deer. Makes for off tasting meat IMO.

Interesting. I have been eating venison for about a decade and some are better than others. I took a year old buck from Texas to California in a cooler - added ice every day and made a few stops along the way. By arrival, the previously frozen meat was thawed but still cold from the ice pack. This venison had 4 more days of aging than what was my previous experience.

In California, I cooked it up for the tree-hugging relatives and they couldn't believe how good it was. There were left over beef steaks but the venison was wiped out.

After I killed a small doe last weekend, I iced her down and waited 4 days before cooking and "wow," how the taste is compared to venison that was eaten right away or from kill to freezer to thaw and immediate cooking.

I'm completely sold on letting it age (in ice or a fridge).

I quarter right after the kill, then place the quarters in the fridge for 3-4 days before processing. Works great for me. I love venison.

Typically what I do is a little different, but may actually end up doing the same thing.

Step one of good venison is getting it gutted out ASAP.

Step two is as soon as it gets home, up in the tree it goes, out comes the hose, and I spend 10-20minutes spraying the inside and outside of the deer down. All the blood, leaves [if any], dirt or any other foreign material gets washed away. The hosing also cools the meat down quickly. When I'm done, it looks like something you would see hanging in a professional meat locker.

Step three is let it hang [temps permitting] for a few days.

Step four is when I then skin and quarter it up. The "bulk meat" [neck, rib, back strap meat] goes in shopping bags and heads for the frig for a few more days. The shoulders and hind quarters then get wrapped in garbage bags and put in the FREEZER. GASP !!!!!

Then step five. AFTER HUNTING SEASON is over, I pull the quarters out and put them in the frig to thaw and age as I have time to deal with them. I'm often cutting and wrapping deer into January.I have no one but myself to do the work and I'm VERY picky about how the meat is trimmed. It takes me many hours to do a whole deer myself, so I do a piece at a time to keep the duty reasonable.

I've never had ANYONE say the meat is "gamey" and more often than not people are astonished at how tender and juicy it is. I do marinate during grilling season, but it is to add a different flavor to the meat [I really like McCormick's Mesquite] not to hide the "gamey taste".

I thought I was an odd one for doing as I do, but a few years ago Outdoor Life had an article about doing as I do. They said don't waste or lose your hunting time dealing with the butchering of your deer, freeze the quarters until AFTER the season [or until you have time]. The author also said he never noticed any difference in the quality of the meat.