Why do people age meat? By far and away, the #1 reason is that it increases the tenderness of the meat. A distant 2nd is because some people favor the flavor of aged meat. But first off, what is aging? It is basically controlled rotting.

In the old days, all the good steak houses would hang Rib primals (whole segment, 6-12 ribs) on a hook in their cooler and let it age. This was called dry aging. This was done in a walk-in cooler.

To properly dry-age meat, you’re supposed to hold it at 32-36 degrees, a certain level of humidity, and for a certain time period. Not many people have that capability, much less us hunters. Now I bet over 99 percent of the meat is wet-aged in a Cryovac bag (an airtight plastic bag).

What does that mean? If it’s aged in a bag, that creates an anaerobic condition (lack of oxygen), so a different flora of bacteria grows. That changes the environment. So, compared to meat that is hung in the open (aerobic-oxygen is present), it will age differently.

There are different kinds of bacteria. Pathogens are bacteria that make you sick or kill you. There are also good bacteria that don’t hurt you (Ex, ones added to make yogurt).

Many years ago, I worked for a company that was experimenting to obtain a shelf life of 100 days in a Cryovac bag. The Australians said they could do it, so of course, we had to. If I remember correctly, it had up to 22,000,000 TPC (total plate counts), but it was all good bacteria. It looked fine and I ate plenty of it.

So how does this all fit into the hunting scene? Aging can be a touchy subject, so let’s make some disclaimers right off. You can get by with aging beef longer for a couple of reasons.

1. You’re doing so in a cooler that has a controlled temp.

2. Beef will usually start out much cleaner than your wild game due to the environment. So the initial bacteria load is lower on beef.

When you age your game, it’s usually in your garage or shed, and the temperature varies according to the weather. Too warm is not good, but if it is frozen, then it is not aging. Equally important will be how clean your carcass is. If it has hair/dirt on it, there will be a higher load of bacteria present. The dirtier it is, the less time you have to age.

At a bare minimum, you want to at least let it go through rigor mortis before you bone it. If it’s boned out before going through RM, it will be a lot tougher. Think about it. It is going to shrink up anyway, but if it is still held to the bone by the ligaments, it can only shrink so much. If you bone it hot, it will shrink up twice as much. In the backcountry, sometimes you don’t have a choice, but given the opportunity, let it hang at least 18 hours. Or if you can just quarter it out so it’s still attached to the bone, that would be the next best option and put it in the fridge.

One good thing is that most bacteria will give you indicators (NOT ALL WILL THOUGH). If it starts to get a slight off odor or turns a slight off color, don’t panic, just cut it up and freeze it. I know it sounds complicated. That’s because it is. So how have people survived? Because sometimes we worry way too much. I remember my nutrition professor from South Dakota said when they had a horse die, they’d tell the Indians. They’d always wait three days to come get it. They lived. It’s just that I am giving you rules of thumb to go by.

One of my past bosses would age his Cryovaced Beef Ribeyes in the fridge for at least 6-8 weeks. Anymore, I won’t even cut up a Ribeye unless I’ve aged it for a minimum of 45 days. I’ve even held them up to 90 days old. Now bear in mind that was beef in a Cryovac bag in a cold fridge.

One last note, don’t age your meat loose in the fridge. It will pick up odors. Here’s what I would recommend for you to do. Start off cautiously. Age a few days and progress on from there. Now there’s no doubt that I’ll hear from both extremes. One camp will tell me they got sick once off some venison that was two days old, and another will tell me how they buried goose eggs in the sand in Vietnam for 40 days. I was on a radio show the other day talking about this subject, and the host told me he had a buddy that only cleans his birds one day a week. They’d hang and age the other 6 days.

Hopefully, I’ve sparked your interest to experiment with aging your meat. It will surprise you as to how much more tender it is. Let’s end on a quote from Ben Franklin, “After three days, fish and company both start to stink!” Don’t age fish.

TIPS:

• Five things make your meat tenderer. Letting it go through rigor mortis before boning, aging, young animals are more tender, using tenderizers before cooking, and cooking your meat more slowly.
• Remove the hide. It acts as a blanket and spoils your meat, but if it’s super cold, you can leave it on and it won’t dry out as bad.
• Game does not have a thick, fat cover like beef and will dry out faster.
• A hanging carcass derives most of the benefits of aging within the first nine days.
• The end of a cut will dry out like jerky. Before you cut your steaks, slice off a thin layer of dried-up meat.
• Don’t cut your meat into steaks to age. Cut steaks deteriorate much faster due to oxygen and bacteria hitting all sides of the meat. Either hang the whole carcass or as primals.
• If it’s hot, then you have no choice but to bone it out and get it in the cooler/freezer right fast.