Age you Blacktail

[SeaScene]

Before the great recipe is the care of the harvest. I have always just butchered up my blacktail after the harvest and not "aged it"..... no problems with table quality. Just wondering if anyone has noticed an advantage to "age" blacktail. In Ontario we used to always hang up our whitetails but then that was bigger deer and seemed to benefit from hanging up for 4 to 5 days. Thanks....

[r106]

I don't age any deer. The idea behind aging the meat is to allow a controlled decomposition of the connective tissue and fat in the meat aka marbling. Since there is next to no marbling in venison there is next to no gain in aging it. The only real benefit to aging venison is allowing the meat to relax and blood to drain. So there are benefits to a short hang but anything over 2-3 days is pointless. Honestly I have cut and wrapped almost immediately and the only difference was when it thawed there was more blood in the packaging.

[adriaticum]

There is tons of discussion about this topic on the forum.

http://www.huntingbc.ca/forum/showthread.php?102156-Aging-my-buck&highlight=aging+meat

http://www.huntingbc.ca/forum/showthread.php?73561-hanging-your-deer&highlight=aging+meat

http://www.huntingbc.ca/forum/showthread.php?87500-How-long-do-you-hang-your-meat&highlight=aging+meat

http://www.huntingbc.ca/forum/showthread.php?88253-how-long-is-too-long-to-hang-meat&highlight=aging+meat

http://www.huntingbc.ca/forum/showthread.php?87235-Advice-on-hanging&highlight=aging+meat

[markomoose]

I don't age any deer. The idea behind aging the meat is to allow a controlled decomposition of the connective tissue and fat in the meat aka marbling. Since there is next to no marbling in venison there is next to no gain in aging it. The only real benefit to aging venison is allowing the meat to relax and blood to drain. So there are benefits to a short hang but anything over 2-3 days is pointless. Honestly I have cut and wrapped almost immediately and the only difference was when it thawed there was more blood in the packaging.I agree with you 100% r106.The only time I don't cut & wrap right away is if other shit gets in the way of what I'm trying to accomplish.

[Chopper]

Honestly If its really cold " late in the year " I like to hang them for a couple days. If its early though ... they get heavily cleaned with vinegar ... Like they always do ... then I hang them in my garage for one night with a extremely high volume fan I have ... Just so the outside tacks up real nice ... then I cut them up.

In short ... I agree , no real need to age deer