Thread: Refrigeration for your hard earned venison

Originally Posted by kiwijames

Yes. The refrigeration cycle will always do that. Even the commercial units have this problem. It is fine for Coke cans and packaged product as they are sealed. Anything exposed to the ambient condition will dry out. Keep your venison in the original packaging as long as you can or, if ageing try a vacuum packer or plastic bag. Vacuum packing is my preference. This is the same reason you get freezer burn and lumps of ice in your sealed frozen products. Mini climates in the bag with wet and dry bulb temperatures approaching equal, force the water out of the product and is then re-frozen during the run cycle. It can't go back.
The fresh fruit and meat industries have very large cooling coils to not only rapidly chill but also reduce water loss from their product. Lighter carcass weight = less money for your product so is money well spent. Every kilo of defrost water is a kilo of cash lost.
Even the wine guys suffer with what they call "Angels portion". The porous oak casks the wine matures in will leach out some water content and can get up to 5% lost through the the cask in refrigerated storage. This also bumps up the ABV%

Hi kiwi James
Thanks for all the tips in this thread. Appreciated.
I do this (above). Bone it out in the field then hang in a single door Skope type chiller for 3-4 days and yes, I get the “crust” on the outside too, which I then need to trim off. Then it gets vac packed into the freezer. Are you saying that I’d be better and get less wastage if I left the deer skin on? I’d be happy but the dogs wouldn’t ! 😂

Originally Posted by stu#71

Hi kiwi James
Thanks for all the tips in this thread. Appreciated.
I do this (above). Bone it out in the field then hang in a single door Skope type chiller for 3-4 days and yes, I get the “crust” on the outside too, which I then need to trim off. Then it gets vac packed into the freezer. Are you saying that I’d be better and get less wastage if I left the deer skin on? I’d be happy but the dogs wouldn’t ! ��

the skin is less permeable than membrane so you get less moisture loss thus less crust. you'll find that it is better with the skin on. Just more hair on the meat.