Meat in coolers
07-29-2006, 10:34 PM
#11
Join Date: Nov 2005
Location: Cheyoming
Posts: 870
RE: Meat in coolers
I'd always been told you shouldn't re-freeze meat. If you freeze it in transit, you gave to thaw it out, cut it up, and re-freeze it right?
Just keep it cool 'till you get home. Game meat is a lot better dining fare aged a few days anyway. They age meat b7y cooling it down, not freezing it.
To answer your cooler question, I see a lot of guys with old freezers on their trucks geading back east and they work great for icing down your meat. I would wrap it in trash bags to keep the water off the meat though.
Good hunting.
Just keep it cool 'till you get home. Game meat is a lot better dining fare aged a few days anyway. They age meat b7y cooling it down, not freezing it.
To answer your cooler question, I see a lot of guys with old freezers on their trucks geading back east and they work great for icing down your meat. I would wrap it in trash bags to keep the water off the meat though.
Good hunting.
07-29-2006, 11:03 PM
#13
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: Rocky Mountains, Colorado
Posts: 1,964
RE: Meat in coolers
Au Contrare, consider reading more carefully.
THEN,
No, he is is butchering and processing and packaging while in the field.
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The question was how many smaller coolers would it take for an elk with the meat packaged.
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Per my experience 200 pounds of processed, packaged, finished meat is a fair sized elk.
I'm going elk hunting for the first time this October. My hunt is about 850 miles from my home. In the past (pronghorn hunt in Wyoming -- 1,300 miles from home) I butchered my meat and packaged it, put some dry ice in the bottom of my cooler, put about a 1/4" layer of newspaper on top of the dry ice, put the meat in, put another layer of 1/4" of newspaper on top of the meat, and put more dry ice on top. I closed the cooler lid and sealed as best I could with duct tape. This worked very effectively for pronghorn meat, freezing it rock solid and keeping it frozen. Now to my question.
If you freeze it in transit, you gave to thaw it out, cut it up, and re-freeze it right?
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To answer your cooler question, I see a lot of guys with old freezers on their trucks
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if you get an Elk with 200# of meat, throw him back and shoot you a grown up!
07-31-2006, 07:01 AM
#14
Giant Nontypical
Thread Starter
Join Date: Jul 2004
Location:
Posts: 6,357
RE: Meat in coolers
game4lunch:
My intention is NOT to freeze, unfreeze, butcher, and then refreeze.
My intention is to butcher and package on site, in Colorado, then freeze and return home. I would prefer to butcher at the trail head, but may resort to doing this work in a hotel room. I butchered two pronghorn antelope without excessive difficulty or mess in a hotel room in Gillette, Wyoming a few years ago. The work has to be done sooner or later, might as well get it done sooner in my view. Also, once the meat is butchered, packaged, andin a cooler with sufficient dry ice . . . all worries are over because that meat is going to be well frozen and out of harms way. I know I would be nervous all the way home transporting "cool" but not frozen meat that still needed butchering and packaging. I would be sitting in some restaurant in Amarillo, Texas, thinking about the 95 degree heat outside (have you been in Amarilllo in mid-October?) and worrying about the heat inside my truck where my elk meat was sitting, wrapped in a tarp.
EKM: Thanks for your detailed reply and advice.
My intention is NOT to freeze, unfreeze, butcher, and then refreeze.
My intention is to butcher and package on site, in Colorado, then freeze and return home. I would prefer to butcher at the trail head, but may resort to doing this work in a hotel room. I butchered two pronghorn antelope without excessive difficulty or mess in a hotel room in Gillette, Wyoming a few years ago. The work has to be done sooner or later, might as well get it done sooner in my view. Also, once the meat is butchered, packaged, andin a cooler with sufficient dry ice . . . all worries are over because that meat is going to be well frozen and out of harms way. I know I would be nervous all the way home transporting "cool" but not frozen meat that still needed butchering and packaging. I would be sitting in some restaurant in Amarillo, Texas, thinking about the 95 degree heat outside (have you been in Amarilllo in mid-October?) and worrying about the heat inside my truck where my elk meat was sitting, wrapped in a tarp.
EKM: Thanks for your detailed reply and advice.
07-31-2006, 09:05 PM
#15
Typical Buck
Join Date: Apr 2003
Location: Cologne, MN
Posts: 510
RE: Meat in coolers
Not sure how strict the DOW people are in Colorado but if you butcher while at trailhead and then DOW stops you, wouldn't there be a problem with showing evidence of sex?? I've always left the bull sex organ attached to one quarter. Anyone shed any light on that?? I've heard of people losing their harvest for incorrect tagging indifferent statesso I was just curious how they would handle that.
Alsatian, I understandyour concern about tarping it where you are heading as there is quite a difference in temp as opposed to me heading for MN. It was a concern for me too and I was checking it at intervals but never had an issue. Last two trips though I did bring a little freezer as it doubled as a food cooler and then meat hauler on the way home. It was light enough for me to lift into truck solo yet it would hold a full elk.
Alsatian, I understandyour concern about tarping it where you are heading as there is quite a difference in temp as opposed to me heading for MN. It was a concern for me too and I was checking it at intervals but never had an issue. Last two trips though I did bring a little freezer as it doubled as a food cooler and then meat hauler on the way home. It was light enough for me to lift into truck solo yet it would hold a full elk.
07-31-2006, 10:10 PM
#16
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: Rocky Mountains, Colorado
Posts: 1,964
RE: Meat in coolers
Actually, as I understand it, here in Colorado once the meat is in its processed and packaged form then all sorts of DOW BS regulations become largely moot and they have much less they can legally hassle you over. They like the tag to stay in the cooler with the meat, and we always throw the evidence of sex in a baggie and throw it in the cooler also just to humor them, but the way I've readthe regulationseven the evidence of sex and tag requirments become weak oncethe meatis processed and packaged.
When they have one of their check points set up on the exit route coming down from the mountains they tend to check everyone that comes along and hassle folks over the most minute trivia as though everyone is guilty until proven innocent --- the "sorry, the meat is all processed and packaged" approach definitely rains on their parade a bit, humor them, but IMHO the law has swung strongly into your favor. My $.02.
When they have one of their check points set up on the exit route coming down from the mountains they tend to check everyone that comes along and hassle folks over the most minute trivia as though everyone is guilty until proven innocent --- the "sorry, the meat is all processed and packaged" approach definitely rains on their parade a bit, humor them, but IMHO the law has swung strongly into your favor. My $.02.
08-01-2006, 06:54 AM
#17
Giant Nontypical
Thread Starter
Join Date: Jul 2004
Location:
Posts: 6,357
RE: Meat in coolers
Well, there are many ways to skin a cat, and clearly many ways to get the elk meat home in good condition. I thank everyone for their advice. For this trip I will go with the multiple small coolers solution. In the future I may recruit partners, buy a trailor to haul extra gear, and may considerbuildinga coolerto fit in the trailor likeone of the earlier posts described. That sounds like a workable idea.
I think EKM is about right on the proof-of-sex story. I phoned the Colorado DoW a couple of years ago when I first began researching this hunt, and the impression I got was that post-final processing no proof-of-sex was required. Additionally, some of the sticky details about transporting the meat all together (the way I read the regulations it seems one is being directed to keep all the meat together, maybe my reading is poor), all at the same time do not appear to be such a stumbling block either. I'm going to be doing a solo hunt and packing out my meat, if I am successful, on my own. Hence, I will be making several trips and invariably some of the meat will be separated from proof-of-sex and not all meat transported en masse.
EKM: I have heard that warning about over concentrations of CO2 in a closed vehicle before. While I don't know if that is a real danger, it sounds plausible enough to me and I don't want to be the guinea pig that demonstrates that the risk is real. On my return trip from Wyoming with pronghorn meat a couple of years back I periodically opened all the windows in my truck (Chevy Suburban is what I'm referring to as "my truck" -- maybe most people envision an open bed pickup when I say that) to disperse any over concentration of CO2. This helped keep me fresh and awake on the long drive, too.
I think EKM is about right on the proof-of-sex story. I phoned the Colorado DoW a couple of years ago when I first began researching this hunt, and the impression I got was that post-final processing no proof-of-sex was required. Additionally, some of the sticky details about transporting the meat all together (the way I read the regulations it seems one is being directed to keep all the meat together, maybe my reading is poor), all at the same time do not appear to be such a stumbling block either. I'm going to be doing a solo hunt and packing out my meat, if I am successful, on my own. Hence, I will be making several trips and invariably some of the meat will be separated from proof-of-sex and not all meat transported en masse.
EKM: I have heard that warning about over concentrations of CO2 in a closed vehicle before. While I don't know if that is a real danger, it sounds plausible enough to me and I don't want to be the guinea pig that demonstrates that the risk is real. On my return trip from Wyoming with pronghorn meat a couple of years back I periodically opened all the windows in my truck (Chevy Suburban is what I'm referring to as "my truck" -- maybe most people envision an open bed pickup when I say that) to disperse any over concentration of CO2. This helped keep me fresh and awake on the long drive, too.
