Gutless… wondering…
General Topic
I know a lot of people prefer this technique to reduce an animal to fairly easily transported pieces, rather than dragging out the whole thing. Makes sense.
But I recall reading something years ago about how if meat cools too rapidly (or maybe it’s if it cools while off of the bone?) The author of that article was saying that you can get some thing he called short shocking or something along those lines.
This suggestion was that allowing the meat to cool too quickly allows it to shorten up… I guess that would be rigor setting in… And supposedly it can make it the meat come out tough.
So I’m curious as to whether those of you who have done it both ways have noticed any deafness and how tough the meat turns out to be when you go gutless??
That likely applies to boneless meat, which doesn't really have anything to do with gutless.
I can't say I've noticed. I've done quite a few animals using the gutless method and then deboning immediately.
You're thinking of "cold shortening" which is caused by rapid freezing. . Gutless butchering won't cause it unless you are working in Sub zero, windy temps
Reading the title of the thread, I thought this was gonna be another political post, but this time about Biden.
We eat a lot of deer in my family and I absolutely can tell the difference Between different deer and how they were cared for. It just makes me laugh when folks say they can't taste a difference between a big old rutted up buck and a one & 1/2 year old doe. BULLPOOP.....I've deer hunted VA,WVA, MD, over the last 40 years and gut ASAP has always been the norm. When I moved to the eastern shore of VA I immediately started seeing almost everyone With non gutted deer ????? It's not that they do the gutless method but rather they bring them home hang them and gut them into a big bucket. Its just how it's always been done here..... This completely dumbfounds me for several reasons, dragging the extra weight, bringing the guts home ,slowing the cooling process by hours, etc.
Now I'm absolutely not a sophisticated person but when it comes to deer I must have sophisticated taste buds because I can taste the difference between a deer gutted ASAP and one that's had the guts left inside for hours.
If for whatever reason one prefers the gutless method it's your food and none of my business how you care for it.
But there's nothing that can be said to convince me there's no difference and I believe you'd be hard pressed to find a professional butcher to agree with leaving the guts in a dead animal for any amount of (unnecessary) time.
Timex……..not 100% certain, but I’m betting the OP is most likely talking about breaking the animal down upon recovery and tagging it.
"OP is most likely talking about breaking the animal down upon recovery and tagging it."
I think that's the case as well. I know that when we kill a deer, hog, and for that matter ducks, chickens, or whatever we get it broken down, on ice, and cooled as soon as is possible. We have always done that and will continue to do it that way.
Sometimes you get tough meat and sometimes you don't. Generally it is with older animals. I have used both the gutless method and traditional field dressing and can't tell a difference. However, I did have one animal that I processed gutless, an elk, that was so tough that you could barely eat it. It was cold that morning and all the meat was processed cleanly and quickly and bone in. The only boneless cuts were tenderloins, backstraps, neck and loose meat. The tenderloins were the only "steak" cuts that weren't nasty tough.
T roy and timex the OP is talking about field butchering into primary cuts without opening the abdominal cavity. I've done it three times. Once on a VA whitetail just for practice before a Kodiak Blacktail hunt, once on a Newfoundland moose, and once on a Kodiak Blacktail. The meat cools out even faster than the usual for me field dress then hang the skin then butcher. There is no cold shortening because there is no rapid freezing. The moose was hung at 30-36 F average air Temps for two days and then packed on ice for the 3 day trip home. The blacktail was hung in meat bags at similar Temps and then flown home as checked baggage in a waxed meat box. The whitetail was packed out on a pack frame in meat bags (2 trips I'm a wuss) and hung for a couple of days then butchered. Yeah timex I've seen the same thing in Eastern VA and can tell the difference. I was given some deer sausage once that I had to throw away. If I don't kill at home where I can get the 4 wheeler or tractor to it and get it winched up and gutted in the butcher shed within a few minutes to an hour I'll gut in the field. I actually gutted one last week that was only 300 yards from the butcher shed. It was in a ravine and I wasn't up to dragging the extra weight up the steep incline
Ive processed dozens and dozens and dozens of elk and deer in the field - between gutting and gutless - and never noticed a difference.
Never noticed a difference either. Gutless method is pretty much the only way I break everything down now. After a few times it gets easier and quicker. I don’t bring whole animals out anymore unless I can get close with vehicle. Even my whitetail I break down the gutless method and pack them out. So much easier where I get back in on public ground, and no difference in quality of the meat.
Fish - I absolutely believe that fish taste different depending on if they have been bled out or not before cleaning. So I believe method, time after death, cleanliness, aging, how they died, etc can be a factor.
Deer seem to be less consistent than fish to me. To the point of the OP; I've cleaned many deer with the gutless system that were not tough.
Uhhh, Timex: Look up the gutless method. It has nothing to do with taking home or transporting an animal with it's entrails in. It is a method of rapid break down of the animal for packing it out. The most common way we do it out West here.
Yeah... Timex, there's absolutely no sense in wasting the time or dealing with the extra mess of gutting an animal out if the carcass is going to stay in the woods or on the mountain anyway. Leave the guts in and remove the meat, that's the gutless method.
We’ve done the gutless method for probably the last 6-7 years and can’t tell any difference as far as toughness or tenderness of the meat in comparison when we gutted and drug them out. When we do the gutless sometimes we debone on site and some times quarter w/ bone in and haven’t noticed any difference either way.
“Ive processed dozens and dozens and dozens of elk and deer in the field - between gutting and gutless - and never noticed a difference.”
^^^^that. The only difference I’ve noticed is I keep the meat much cleaner doing gutless.
I believe you are referring to freezing meat to fast. Gutting or gutless is gonna start getting meat to ambient temps. I butcher in the field and never had immediate access to freezer so never an issue. We do catch a lot of big tuna here and the care of those fish make a visual difference in quality and can change its market value drastically. We will bleed out fish and let it lay on the deck for about 15-20 minutes to cool down after the fight before we “shock” it into an slurry of ice
Ive always done the gutless method on trips out West. The last time in WY antelope hunting, I broke down all 3 animals in less than an hour after each recovery and then on ice. However, I went ahead and deboned the meat each night at camp. Wish that I had left it on the bone until we got home as the meat was uncharacteristically tough.
I figured out that if I let the packages "age" in the fridge for 5 days before cooking, it was tender like I had always known from previous hunts.
This was the only time I have ever had an issue. I don't think it was from the gutless method, but from deboning too quickly and then straight on ice after that. Pete
On my whitetails, I bring the deer back to camp, skin them, and cut meat off the bone. For those that say taking meat off the bone makes it tougher, how do you explain the backstrap? Unless the hole deer is left to age, that meat is off the bone.
I gutless method all my western game. Then pack out and then put into a freezer that has been running. Takes quite a long time to cool down quarters and meat in game bags even when putting in a freezer. I will risk cooling to quickly. Especially on archery pronghorn when the temp is usually over 80 degrees. A freezer is just so much easier than dealing with ice or even dry ice in coolers.
After I do gutless, I have to start gutting to get the heart, liver and kidneys out.
I know a lot of people prefer this technique to reduce an animal to fairly easily transported pieces, rather than dragging out the whole thing. Makes sense.
But I recall reading something years ago about how if meat cools too rapidly (or maybe it’s if it cools while off of the bone?) The author of that article was saying that you can get some thing he called short shocking or something along those lines.
This suggestion was that allowing the meat to cool too quickly allows it to shorten up… I guess that would be rigor setting in… And supposedly it can make it the meat come out tough.
So I’m curious as to whether those of you who have done it both ways have noticed any deafness and how tough the meat turns out to be when you go gutless??
LOL, Ambush! There IS that!
Sorry about the double- no clue how I did that that time…
But yeah, I’m wondering because I think I am going to have to get my tail pretty deep in the woods before I’ll run across many deer out here on Public….
So do you guys ever hoist the deer for gutless? Might be even cleaner and, probably a lot easier on back/knees….
I have a hoist that weighs next to nothing….
Half at a time, roll it over once first half is done…..don’t forget tenders by going in just behind ribs. We will sometimes hang a quarter from hook or limb like you would on gambrel on elk to de-bone meat into a game bag. Takes some stress off knees and back.
When it's 9 1/2 miles round trip, you're not dragging anything anywhere. I've only been involved in three animals that were gutted in the last 20 years, so I'm not much one to say. Getting virtually any elk out without horses is impossible without doing the gutless method.
Never seen a difference in the quality of meat from a gut less and most often it's perfect vs. some animal that was bouncing around in the back of a truck all day at 75 deg before getting to a meat locker.
There is no question that extremely rapid cooling of boned meat increases toughest due to "cold shortening", or whatever is the correct term. You can actually watch it happening under really cold conditions.
For most people, this really isn't an issue as most animals are taken in temps above freezing. And even out west, most who use the gutless method don't bone the meat immediately. Throw in the tendency of some folks to not even get the quarters off the carcass for a couple hours after the kill, (pictures, simply finding the animal, etc.) and it can be a rare event, but it is real.
The most common problem is taking off the backstraps (no bones) and throwing the meat in the snow or even in a game bag is very cold conditions. You will see the warm meat "quiver" as it tries to contract. Normally when still attached to bones, this "shortening" actually serves to break down the fibers, and this is what happens as meat cools on the bone. If done too quickly on a boneless chuck of meat it will contract without breaking down the fibers and become very tough.
I have used the gutless method on well over 100 elk and deer, and with normal care it won't be an issue. Boning meat too quickly in extremely cold temperatures is actually the culprit, not the use of the gutless method. Obviously with the meat left on the carcass when doing old fashioned gutting, it is far less likely that the hunter will get around to boning any portion of the animal before it has a chance to cool.
Bill
Thanks, Gents…
Yeah, my brother & I packed leg bones down off the hill…. Once.
My first bow-kill was a little mulie buck; I brought down more than was strictly necessary and that pack weighed #110 on the bathroom scale… but that was 25 years and a blown ACL ago.
I thought this was about Pelosi !
