Deer meat temperature question

[the blur]

I picked up a deer at a refrigator truck this morning. They are giving away field dressed deer to soup kitchens. 38 degree's in the truck. Hunters dump their deer at the DEC check point, and toss them in this refrigator truck.

It's 60 degree's outside. I come along, get a deer from the truck. (shot 3 days ago.) Drive 2 hours to my town, drop the deer at a local back yard butcher. He butchers in his garage. No refrigator on site.

9 hours later I get the call to pick up the meat. give him $100 for butchering.
I have my IR temp gun.
All the meat is at 53-54 degree's. and I assume it has been at 50 degrees for hours sitting on his work bench.

Is this meet any good ?

[Pahoo]

I'm guessing that your meat, should still be good. I have seen worse care on venison and it was still good. You would not get away with this if it was pork oor any other domestic animal. You know, if you have any doubts, scrap it as it isn't worth your worry. Another option is to get it processed into sausage or sticks but as they say, it will cost you !! ...



Be Safe !!!

[davlandrum]

I would bet it is fine. We have processed deer at 4 days without the benefit of a refrigerator truck.

[mitchell koster]

One way of having really tastey venison is to leave it till its got mould all over it and then you cut it offf and cook it and its some of the BEST tasting venison you'll ever have!!!!!!!!!!!!

(BTW the meat wll be fine IMO)

MK

[davlandrum]

That would be a little "over-aged" for me...

[hogdogs]

While the meat will likely be fine, i would locate a different cutter.

Ask a restaurant with an excellent reputation what the local regs are on meat temps and storage...

treat this donated meat as good or better than the regs require... If it were for yourself and you didn't mind questionable handling practices... Cool but this is for others.

I think florida commercial regs would deem that meat "unfit for human consumption" since it got up to above 45-48 (IIRC) and yet to go back into cold storage...

Brent

[davlandrum]

bswiv would know those numbers, I'm sure.

[Buzzcook]

9 hours is a long time to be above 45f.

While the meat is probably ok, I couldn't serve it in a restaurant.

Find a faster butcher.

[YARDDOG(1)]

[Find a faster butcher]

^^^This^^^^^^ ; )
Y/D

[musicmatty]

Interesting question for sure. The whole situation doesn't sound good to be honest. The meat comes out of a Temperature controlled cooler/refrige and is transported for 2hrs without continued cooling??? Then left for some hrs again without refrigeration, only to be transported again for a couple more hours?? Not good. I wouldn't even consider it myself.

You can transport the meat all day long if the temps are in the low 40s and then get it in a controlled Temp cooler ideally. Once it's stored in a Controlled Temp setting such as a Fridge for a few days of aging and cooling...you don't want to remove it agian for several hrs..no way.

[bswiv]

Two different questions involved here.

One is whether the practices violate "regulations" instituted to protect public health. Fact is that they do.

That said you have to realize that the "regulation" set up to food that is destined for the commercial food pipeline are VERY restrictive, often bordering on the insane ( My opinion based on what I've seen in the seafood industry. )

And that brings us to the second question, whether the meat is still good.

Given that the recounting of time and temperature are as stated I would not hesitate to eat it.

We in the food industry, and the regulators that watch us, tend to the over cautious........which is how it should be when you are selling to others.

In our personal lives we wander back into the relm of reality. Life is better if you life there.

Finally, as to the butcher. I'd be more concerned about how clean his place was and what reputation he has. Those are better indications in my "real" world as to his fitness.

[the blur]

Thanks for all the responses. I take it the meat is still good from the majority of the answers here.

Next question:
I took a tour of a cruise ship butcher shop. These guys butcher in a temperature controlled room at 36 degree's. Very clean operation.
No rusty band saws. stainless steel tables.

Is that what I have to look for; for a once a year butcher shop ?

Maybe I'll start a new thread

[davlandrum]

Could you just cut it yourself?

I assumed you had it processed because you were donating it. I know some places, donated meat must be processed by a commercial processor. But bubba in his garage is not a commercial processor, so I am really not clear on why you used him.

[the blur]

I'm not a butcher, and I have no place to butcher, nor do I want to.
We live on 60'x100' properties, and we don't have block and tackles in our garages.

What is a commerical processor?

I asked 2 local meat market butchers, and they said their USDA agreement won't let them butcher deer, or any other wild game animals. Their meat comes without a hide, & without a head; and they just cut the slabs up.

I prefer a guy that works in a fridge, with a vacumme pack sealer. But that seems hard to come by.

I know they do that up in canada where they have $5000 moose hunts; and the outfitter has it prearranged with a professional butcher. But that's hard to come by in the suburbs.

[Scorch]

9 hours later I get the call to pick up the meat. give him $100 for butchering.
I have my IR temp gun.
All the meat is at 53-54 degree's. and I assume it has been at 50 degrees for hours sitting on his work bench.

Is this meet any good ?

Weeeeeellll, maybe. It will taste a li'l funny, have kind of a "funky" smell, and probably smell a little when cooking it. These are the early signs of spoilage. For warm-blooded animals, temperatures above about 48 degrees begin tissue deterioration and spoilage.

I prefer a guy that works in a fridge, with a vacumme pack sealer. But that seems hard to come by.

Ideally, cutting and handling meat should be done in a sanitary, refrigerated environment. I have butchered deer in my garage, but temperatures in the garage were right around freezing at the time.
Look in the yellow pages for "game processing".

What is a commerical processor?

A commercial processor is a butcher who is licensed by the state to process (butcher) game animals or domestic animals not killed in an approved slaughter facility. In order to do this, he must have separate processing and handling facilities for the non-inspected animal carcasses, which is expensive so it pretty much eliminates most meat cutters.

[Al57]

Given the facts & numbers you gave us, your meat will be fine if no other factors were entered in such as being pushed hard after being shot, a grossly long time from kill to field dress, esp in warm temps, poor field dressing practices, etc. .

[Pahoo]

I'm not a butcher, and I have no place to butcher, nor do I want to.

Your call but it can be done with a minimum amount of space and equipment. I butcher mine while it is still hanging. That last piece left hanging, is a ham or hind leg. Then you just lift that one off. I trim out or bone out on a small table. i usually don't go for chops, just roasts, loin and burger. I usually keep one ham to jerk out in the summer, for the coming hunting season. I bag and seal my trimmings and freeze it. Then when my shop is ready, they grind it or process it as I designate. We have done as many as thirty deer, in a 40 X 40 garage.

Our local shops, wait till the end of their day, to process venison. That way they just clean up for the following day of their normal beef or whatever work.

"Happiness is a warm Gut-Pile" ....

Be Safe !!!

[myshoulderissore]

I'm with Pahoo (and many others) with this, I live in an apartment, and I just used a card table covered with a piece of visquene and tossed a tarp up so the neighbors didn't get offended, and butchered my deer on the balcony. It was my first time, so had a friend show me what to do, but it turned out to be quite easy.

[Slamfire]

Bud I worked with set up a factory in China.

The one and only cantina would hang a beef off a tree limb at the beginning of the week.

As needed, they would carve on it for their customers, till it was gone. Took about a week on average.

Don’t know what the local temperature, but Bud said there were a lot a flies around that carcass.

Maybe third worlder's are more resistant to food poisoning.

This is a link to aging deer.
http://www.chefdepot.net/agingwildgame.htm

[Huntergirl]

It takes a little imagination to butcher your deer in a small space, but I've done it often, and without block and tackle. These days, I skin it and bone it out right at the kill site, then into game bags with ice. Once home, the cutting and wrapping is easy.

[Buzzcook]

I took a tour of a cruise ship butcher shop. These guys butcher in a temperature controlled room at 36 degree's. Very clean operation.
No rusty band saws. stainless steel tables.

Is that what I have to look for; for a once a year butcher shop ?

Well it wouldn't be a bad choice. There are professional butcher shops that will take game. Some require that you skin the deer first. Google or search your local yellow pages for one in your area. The one I have used in WA. charges 65 cents a pound. So it pays if you do the rough cuts first.

bswiv is right that we in the food industry are a bit more paranoid than is necessary for private consumption. But that's the ground I know and advice I give is from that professional view point.

He is also right in that you should be looking at cleanliness for a amateur butcher. Bleach solution or iodine based sanitizers should be evident. Equipment that easily cleaned and kept separate from the butchering area before use and in a separate area from clean tools after use. The butchering should also be done in an enclosed area that has been cleaned and sanitized.

The health department tells me the "danger zone" is between 45f and 140f. That is the range at which bacteria grows best. Ideally they want the time in that range to be as short as possible. The time limit I've been given is 4 hours from one extreme to the other.

It would be unlikely that hunters are going to meet the ideals that I'm expected to have in the kitchen.

If you're going to use a small time butcher then help him out. Gut, skin, and quarter Bambi, then but him on ice asap. If he doesn't have refrigeration, leave your ice chests, with fresh ice if needed, for him to use.

[jimbob86]

we don't have block and tackles in our garages.

Easily remedied.

2 pulleys, a couple of S-hooks and 30 feet of 3/4" rope from a local hardware store should be all you need. Works for me.

[shortwave]

I'd bet most of us have seen some of these fly-by-night, so-called processor's that we wouldn't let our dog eat anything from them. I had a guy from work tell me of a place which he regularly used. I took a deer there and wanted it cooled quickly as the temp was in the mid 50's.

Upon arrival, I saw a mound of probably 10-12 deer next to an old wooden,dirt floored garage. The deer were laying in the direct sun and it was hard to imagine what the temp. of the deer on the inside of the pile were. Flies buzzed the pile and it stunk.
The doors of the garage were open and two guys were cutting deer up on what looked to be rough cut lumber tables dripping in blood. I sit in my truck looking in disbelief as this was clearly the nastiest,dirtiest place I'd ever seen for processing deer. I didn't see any running water and a kid came passed my truck carrying a 5 gal. bucket of water, stopped and told me if I wanted my deer cleaned ,put it on the pile and fill out a piece of paper they had there.

I had to just smile,said ok, put my truck in reverse and left.

If the place isn't clean, I leave. Plain and simple.

Talk to some of your butcher shops and ask them who processes deer in your area. Talk to other hunters and ask the same. Don't know where you live but if you could say the state and county here on TFL maybe some fellow hunters here could help you out with a place.

[markj]

Cabelas has the hanger and block and tackle setup for deer at 15.00 go get a few and have at it. We had over 25 deer first day hanging was a neighbor hunt, we all get together and push the deer to each other until our tags are filled. Then we butcher.

[davlandrum]

Never used a block and tackle for deer, didn't realize I was doing it wrong

I have had the misfortune of having venison that was processed with a saw :barf:

Never again.