Another meat safety question. Elk not recovered for 24 hours.

[Pucky Freak]

Last week I thawed out my last deer by putting the whole frozen quarters in a cooler. Unfortunately, I forgot about it and when I opened the lid it was about 1 day too late. The inside of the muscle groups where still cool, but blood had pooled in the bottom and had begun to sour.

Determined not to let all the meat go to waste, I hosed down and scrubbed the quarters, then trimmed off 1/4” from every surface to reach the pink healthy tissue below. Next I cut up into 1x1x6 chunks and soaked overnight in a slurry of ice, vinegar, lemon juice, and salt.

Next day l wrapped each individual chunk in shop towels and squeezed the moisture out, then unwrapped and ground the meat into burger.

For each step the sour smell progressively improved. The odor was detectible if I put the bowl about a foot from my nose.


I thoroughly pan-fried 1/2 lb for a taste test. Again the odor was detectible, but it did not fill up the kitchen. It was noticeable if I directly inhaled the steam from the pan.

Lastly, added taco seasoning to mask any off-flavor and tried it out, a little piece at a time. No off taste whatsoever. I ate it all and now six hours later no intestinal upset. I’ll post back if anything changes


35 lbs taco meat. I lost about 10–12 lbs from what I trimmed and discarded.

 

[npaden]

We are still eating on my son's elk.

The stuff that was the most iffy got a "XXX" added to the label on the freezer bag. Probably about 45 or 50 pounds worth. We did have a roast that somehow must have been extra tainted because when we cooked it in the sous vide the bag inflated and started to float and pushed the top off the sous vide container. I poked a hole in the bag to get the air out and let it go back down in the sous vide container and it was horrible smelling. Stunk up the entire kitchen! We threw that one out.

Just ate some this weekend though, and we've eaten some that did have XXX on it that turned out fine once cooked, not sure what the deal was on the one that inflated.

It isn't the best tasting or most tender elk I've eaten though. Normally we sous vide steaks for 6 hours or so and we've taken to cooking these for 24+ hours. Roasts that we normally cook for 24-36 hours are now going for 48+ on this one. I think part of that is that he was old and tough, part is probably something to do with us taking so long to recover him.