Bear Meat - Do you mix it ?
Bears
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I've shot 2 bears, both about 15 years ago. One tasted awesome, the other I threw away. It stunk when I cooked it and tasted worse. It was likely poor field care, but I did everything the same as on the first one. I now have a bear tag in Colorado. Question: Do you mix your bear meat with other meat products and spices or just eat it the same as other wildgame. After my bad experience, I'm a little hesitant. Plus, now I'm married with kids and don't want to turn my family away from it. This will be a fall bear, the others were spring bear in Canada (not that it likely makes a difference.)
You are going to get all sorts of different reviews on this but in my experience it's definitely not my favorite. I've shot 6 bears my first one when I was 14 years old was only 133 pounds my biggest has been 400 on the nose and they have all been less than desirable the only thing that I've ever done with it that I can truly say I enjoyed was making stew. Some people say soak it in milk I have never tried that. I typically take Just enough meat home for couple batches of stew and donate the rest. Good luck this year
Bjunkie - so you are saying maybe my second wasn't poor field care, just a bad tasting bear. Makes me feel better. I'm really hoping to enjoy the meat like I did on my first bear.
Bear is better than beef. If we could raise bears like cattle, no one would eat a cow again. Rub a chunk of meat down with whatever flavor you like, let it sit in the frig overnight then grill with oak, apple, alder, whatever wood you might have for adding smoke and YUM!
This is from last tuesday and it didn't make to leftovers.
FYI, it was from a really big boar killed in BC this spring that I hauled around in my cooler for 5 days til I flew out of Seattle home. Kept it cold and clean. Tasted great.
Never had a bad Bear and I have shot 13 of them. Wife told me it is time to shoot another one as we are out of Bear meat now. Burger get about 10% beef suet mixed with it.
Bear is delicious, our family eats it twice a week minimum. Also have friends that love it.
The only "bad" bear I've eaten there was just no taste in the backstraps, not a "bad" taste, just no taste at all. I prefer to grind mine up into ground meat and spicy sausage - lots you can do with it.
Some guys add pork fat in the processing (5-15%).
Excellent eating........in most cases. Has a lot to do with what they've been feeding on! Spring bears in Canada sometimes have a slight berry taste to them!
I am not trying to say anyone is a bad hunter or person but if your meat doesn't taste good something went wrong in the handling. If you had it butchered you either didn't get your animal back or the butcher didn't handle meat properly.
We have literally eaten hundreds of animals including 5 bears and have not had a bad animal to date (22 years).
Now there are likely some very rare cases where there is something seriously wrong with the animal. That happens and could have happened.
I don't mix anything with my wild game outside of olive oil into burger OR if I am going high-end I will make a mixture of foie-gras.
As far as spices are concerned I have a couple recos of books at home I will share. Having a couple good books will help expand your cooking ability.
Just remember with bear since you have to cook it thoroughly that slow cooking recipes are awesome. I would highly recommend a new digital pressure cooker as well.
One of my families favorite recipes right now is smoked meat loaf. Not very complex but the smoke flavor turns boring meat loaf into a culinary delight.
Killingstuff I am coming over at 6! That looks great.
Gotta get it cooled down asap including skinning if possible
Sage - great tip on the cooking. As I stated in first post, I figured it was field care issue - actually hoped it was a field care issue and not a typical bear meat issue. Very glad to know that my experience on first bear (delicioius) is repeatable. Always appriciate everyone's input.
what it tastes like has a lot to do with what it's eating... spring bears eat mostly grasses, bugs and carrion... taste will depend on the area and how long its been up... fall bears up high are eating lots of berrys and will taste great, the ones down low and coastal bears will be eating fish... they taste like it
Killinstuff, that looks absolutely delicious!
Anyone who doubts we are carnivores just needs to look at Killinstuff's pic!
I like the taste of black bear and feel it tastes like beef. My only complaint (my wifes not mine) is it gives me terrible gas. Not only lots, but offensive!
Of the 6 bears I've shot the one thing they all had in common is that they all came from northern maine and the same butcher did them all. I will say that you don't get back to camp till dam near midnight and by 6 am it's cut up and thrown in the freezer. I know with deer meat I let ice melt over it with the drain in my cooler open for days. Never had any other bear meat so from the sounds of it I've been missing out. I'm going to a different camp this year anyway so we'll see
My bear meat all goes to sausage, pepperettes and smokies! The butcher mixes it with pork