Since we have quite a few hunters on here I thought this might be an appropriate question: What to you do after a successful hunt, like right after shooting the animal, to help the meat taste less gamey? I'm mostly talking big game here but post up about whatever you've had success with.

Whee,

You've asked an age old question, to which I don't think there is a good answer.

Some elements of meat care are obvious: cool the meat as soon as possible, keep dirt, hair and flies off, don't let offal or waste (urine/poop) or scent glands contact the meat.

But gamey taste? I really think it is more a function of the animal's diet than meat care. Around here, few people eat coastal bear because it tastes fishy, not surprising because rotting fish make up a good percentage of the diet. Sometimes you get a duck that tastes like fish, other times you get a nice grain fed bird that tastes like, well, duck. I've had mature moose that tasted like beef and young moose that tasted gamey.

Time of year also matters, and it should be no surprise that a male animal in the middle of the rut will taste much more wild than an early season critter that is not chock full of testosterone and poor judgement.

All that said, I watched a video of a guy butchering a deer and he was convinced that gamey taste came from little glands, buried deep in the haunches, and he showed how to open up the roast to remove the offending little nubbin.

If I shoot something and don't love the taste I usually make jerky, pepperoni or sausage. Spices and a blend of pork will usually mask a gamey taste.

I'm looking forward to hearing what other hunters have to say.

Allan

I believe it's largely the way you kill it. If you do a head/neck shot that drops him in his tracks it will be much better tasting than if you do a body shot & haft'a find him after he runs off. It's what I was taught, & have never had a "strong" tasting critter.

Easy.......shoot a grass fed Angus.

The two largest issues with game meat "gaminess" is species and habitat.

I've shot caribou on the AK Peninsula that were mild and tasty......and caribou in the interior that might gag a maggot. Moose meat is as close to lean beef as it gets, but mule deer tend to be a little gamey, generally.

I once saw a flock of mallards near the head of a stream on Kodiak in January. Next day I loaded the shotgun in the cub and went back there. Hiked up there and shot two of them.....real beauties and fat as can be.

Cooked one that night for supper, and that was the nastiest tasting duck I've ever tasted. And I like roast mallard. A few days later, I went back and shot another, but this time I checked the gizzard to see what he was eating.....it was full of salmon eggs.

I didn't shoot any more of those.

MTV

Don't know how to make "gamey" tasting meat taste less so - have learned some to avoid.

First one as a teenager was a Mud Hen - (coot?) There is a reason for the MUD on the front end.

Helped skin a black bear in the Sierras one time. Smelled so bad it was difficult to stay with the skinning.
Vowed to never eat bear meat. Ii know it may have been an isolated incident .

Have had wild Mt. Goat and it was good.
Oddest item was roast Coyote. Stringy and dry but similar to pot roast flavor.

Worst dressing of a deer I ever saw was some jerk hung the deer up and went at it with a small hand axe.
On top of spilling everything all over it was also one of those years of (meat bees) or yellow jacket outbreaks.
After everything slid out on the ground he just packed up and drove away.

Whee, Kill it first shot where it lays or is standing, get the blood out of it and the guts out, open it up so it will cool, even get the hide off if you can keep it clean, keep it out of the sun. cool asap.
If you can keep it in a cooler, let it hang for awhile.

Strong gamey taste n smell.
1Make sure it is in rut!!
2Shoot it in the guts while you run it another mile before it lays down and dies,
3Take a few pictures then decide to gut it,
4Don't worry about the dirt grime and all the other stuff on it.
Ya pretty much have something ready for Sausage and Jerky!!

My experience!

Thanks guys. I understand the species and diet thing but its the care afterwards I'm wondering about. I was reading some online magazine articles that said much of the same stuff M6RV6 said: Kill it quick, dress it, cool it, etc. I started getting confused when some articles said let it hang to get the blood out (something about 40 degree days?? If its 20 deg let it hang for 2 days, etc), others said soak the meat in milk, other said let it sit in an iced cooler to drain the blood ( with the cooler drain plug out) and on and on. I was just wondering what you guys do.

My wife will barely try wild meat so I want to do my part to make the meat taste the best I can...or I'll probly never get to hunt big game again. I'm going after nice grain feed white tail deer so diet and species are on my side.

This is based on my experience...

Step 1 to get your wife to eat wild game: don't have her help you process the meat.


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Cook on pine plank. Throw away meat, eat plank.

gbflyer wrote:Cook on pine plank. Throw away meat, eat plank.

GB I know u got some good recipes for Sitka Black tail and those govt moose up the bay

Elk and Axis are my favorite game meat, try to keep the freezer full, but friends and family always raid the stash haha. Mule deer from the Rockies were generally super gamey, however the Mulies in west Texas are really good.

Others have already said enough about field care of the meat. Ideally, I get it cleaned up and into a walk-in cooler asap to hang for 2-5 days before processing, 36 degrees or so. I've done hide on and off and cannot tell any difference whether it's game or beef. The good thing about leaving hide on is it keeps the outer layer from drying out.

Also, wet aging is something to consider. Thaw out the meat and let it sit in fridge a few days, some do it longer. Wet aging vs. dry is beneficial because you don't lose any meat. That's mainly a tenderness thing, dry aging gives its own distinct flavor.

If your not doing the all the work yourself, getting the meat straight to an excellent game processor is worth the money IMO.

Shot what thought was big dry cow moose out of King Salmon...turned out it was a big old rank bull that had dropped it's horns Hung it in the State cooler for 45 days just above freezing. Dry crust was 2 " thick but meat was great and could cut it with a fork. Its all how u take care of it

Back in the Air Taxi days we flew lots of Dudes out across the range to established guide camps for trophy hunts. Most didn't want to pay the price to ship meat home. Guides would get over loaded with moose and caribou meat that was borderline spoiling. Guides would call us to come and pick up meat then give us the meat and pay for the charter. It was a win win for us. Divided up with pilots. Some looked really bad but after some serious trimming ....lots of editable meat ...hamburger, sausage, hot dogs, steaks and roast's...Miss those days Talking hundreds of # s.... You would not want your wife to see the trimming whee...maggots

Hey Don,how the deer taste from your old buddy Mike from west of Bliss?That was the first time I met you.It was quite a interesting way to hunt!

buzzbomb wrote:Hey Don,how the deer taste from your old buddy Mike from west of Bliss?That was the first time I met you.It was quite a interesting way to hunt!

Mikey had his own way of hunting

Meat care is the primary determinant of meat quality. Outside of not hunting during the rut (especially with caribou), proper meat care will go a long ways towards making sure you have tasty meat.

I'm not sure how things are done where you are, but in reading stories and watching shows, I've almost always seen that standard practice with whitetail is to leave the animal whole apart from removing the guts. Based on my experience hunting in Alaska, that always surprises me. Yes, gutting the animal does help to cool the meat, but it's not enough in my opinion. The animal should also be skinned and the quarters removed from the carcass in a reasonable amount of time. Actually, if the animal is skinned first and then quartered, gutting it isn't even necessary. Once all the quarters are removed along with the backstraps, you can then make a small slice in the abdominal wall right near the spine in order to access the tenderloins. It's a way less messy method if you're quartering the animal on the spot, and it's also more effective at cooling the meat than just removing the guts.

Keep it clean, dry, and cool and you'll be most of the way towards many excellent meals. All of the other stuff matters as well - time of year, food source for your animal, etc, but you can't always control all of those factors.

Good luck on your hunt!

One other thought: many times people expect wild game to taste like some farm or ranch raised meat--and it's not going to. Deer is deer, antelope is antelope, elk is elk, bear is bear, moose is moose, etc. So don't say, "It tastes just like ___________", because it doesn't, and it's not supposed to. But it can still be mighty good, if it's taken care of properly, and cooked properly.

I'm not a hunter, so I can't add a thing to what's been said about taking care of the meat properly, but as a pretty fair cook, I can say that if it's already been taken care of properly and then cooked properly, most of the time it'll taste good. Just like beef or pork or even chicken, though, any game meat can be ruined by over-cooking it, over-spicing it, etc. And just like any other meat, if it's already not all that good, i.e., it's old, freezer burned, improperly processed, etc., no kind of cooking will make it good.

Cary

Cary wrote:So don't say, "It tastes just like ___________", because it doesn't, and it's not supposed to. But it can still be mighty good, if it's taken care of properly, and cooked properly.

This might be the exception to prove the rule, but camel tastes exactly like beef.

rw2 wrote:

Cary wrote:So don't say, "It tastes just like ___________", because it doesn't, and it's not supposed to. But it can still be mighty good, if it's taken care of properly, and cooked properly.

This might be the exception to prove the rule, but camel tastes exactly like beef.

Have to take your word for it--never ate camel. I have eaten the other meats that I listed, and they all have their own flavors. I think bear comes closer to pork than the other meats compare to any domesticated meat, though it's much grainier and greasier.

Cary

This is what we've been taught, and it seems to work (over here we shoot a lot of game because deer are considered a pest, and so trial and error is an option when you eat more than one a month).

* instant death
* immediately bleed out
* cool the meat rapidly
* let the meat breath
* hang the meat for as long as possible (depending on the ambient temperature).
* alternatively, let it bask in marinade for as long as possible
* season it mercilessly
* don't tell people it's going to taste gamey
* avoid eating grass-fed angus so you don't know any better.

I'll add my vote to the "clean quick kill" school of thought. Adrenaline can flood the body in fractions of a second, not tens of seconds, if the animal is alive. We prefer headshots for eating animals, provided you are good enough and close enough to hit the brain-matter. Bowhunters need not worry about the flavour... haha!

Then of course bleeding them rapidly and completely, to get as much of the bodies natural chemicals out of the game ASAP. If we go on to hunt another, we always lie them on a slope with the cuts on the low side. Ideally we butcher them immediately to get the meat cooled down, and hang the cuts as soon as possible.

Of course you can't turn mutton into lamb, and the same goes for game - what they eat, and what they are; that's where good taste begins.