hey fellas, this season i have cut my hunting down considerably due to my move to NH for school. i do a little hunting out here but not nearly enough as i lack the gear i have at home, hunting buddies, and land. When i go home to NY i plan to hunt like a mad man for the week that im there, and what little time i have in december over christmas break with the odd weekend hunts thrown in. my problem is of course that i only have any where from two days to a week to make meat, and if i kill a deer on day two of a two day hunt i wont be around to bone out the meat and butcher after the cooling process is over. I was taught to hang my deer for about a week depending on tempature and then butcher, just the way ive always done things. but now im faced with a lack of time for the cooling process. So overall my question is, is there anyway i can maybe speed up the cooling process a little bit? i Thought about maybe boning out my meat in the field and packing it out, kinda like they do with elk i guess ( i say i guess becuase i have no expierience elk hunting lol). i just wana get some hunting done, and make some meat. but this   lack of time problem is really pretty bad. any thoughts? there must be some way?  thanks guys.
-cory

What to do I allways gut& skin my game as soom as possable let the air in the rib cavity open up the brisket and put a stick in the ribs to hold the body cavity open haung if possable 24hr min and you will have good meat , if you remove backstraps and done out your hinds put in game bags and haung to cool I still would rather take the deer home whole that way I do not loose any sausage meat  

A couple bags of ice inside the body cavity, works well in the early season, here in the south.

thanks guys, ill try both. keep em coming.
-cory

Here's what I do.  Some people won't agree with it...but it's how I do it.

When I down a deer I find it.  If it needs dragged to an area where I can work then I'll drag it.  If it was a short quick trail I usually don't have to drag it anywhere.

I go to the truck, drive as close as I can.  Grab the mid-sized cooler out of my truck that has about a gallon of cool water in it.  Take the cooler to the deer.  Bone the deer out right there on the ground.  No gutting. Do the front left quarter, grab some of the neck meat on that side.  Do the left backstrap, do the left rear quarter. Flip and repeat on the other side.  Getting the fillets has a slight learning curve to it but it can be done.  Get in there and you'll feel em. The rest is pretty straightforward.

All the meat goes in the cooler.  The cooler is then carried (okay, honestly...it gets dragged alot, but it makes a nice seat while you rest) to the truck.  On the way home I get a bag or two of ice.  When I get home I fill the whole thing up with water.   You can let it sit in that cooler as long as you want SO LONG AS THERE IS STILL SOME ICE IN THE WATER!  Change out the water several times and add new ice as needed.  I've left meat this way for up to a week. That water is colder than your frig. I've cooked backstraps literally 10 or 15 minutes after the animal died.  I can't tell a difference but hanging the meat and letting sit in water, that you keep fresh, would accomplish the same thing...so do that as long as you'd like.

I'm on my own property so I don't have to worry about the carcass. (Bones and gust together, wrapped in a tangle of hide.) We've got more than enough coyotes to take it. It's been years since I fooled with anuses and esophagus.  Every now and then I "dissect" a little out of curiosity to look at the heart/lungs/trachea.

Some feel that this method wastes meat.  I'll admit you probably loose about a pound off the rear quarters in an effort to stay away from the butt hole. One buddy gave me quite a hard time about it.  The following week I watched/helped him clean a "hung" and skinned deer. When he acted like we were done I quickly got another two pounds of meat off the carcass and told him to never "lecture" me on being wasteful.    (Granted, it was sausage or jerky meat.)

If I ever learn or want to learn to tan the hide I'll have to go back to the old way.

Here's what my butcher buddy showed me.  Freeze a couple of galon milk jugs of water in the freezer.  Carry em with you in a cooler.  Place em in the body cavity.  After hanging, place em in the body cavity, and put a fan blowing on the carcass.  Leave the hair on.  My butcher friend usually cuts em up the next day if it is warm out..

Zilla has a good point about gallon milk juggs ive been doing that for years.  I frezze up some milk and soda bottles and i have them to put in deer cavitym to help cool it down

The milk jugs are a great idea. You should have those in the garage fridge and freezer anyway so as you are not cooling dead air. I purchased a large old refrigerator for the garage and the summer adult beverage now and again. When I get an animal I take out all the shelves and put in a 3/4" piece of plywood cut for the bottom, pile the meat in. Done this with more than half a dozen boned out Elk. NEVER has any meat been lost.

We use the ice slurry for our texas deer when the heat is on.  They cool out fast and are great eating.  I do drain the water and put in new ice at least once a day though to move some of the blood out of the mix.

We have cut and vacume sealed the meat the next day.

Mike

The cooling process you described sounds more like an aging process by hanging it for a week. I have an extra frig in my basement for this. I skin the deer, remove the hams, shoulders and cut the body midway across the backbone. Then place the "chunks" of meat in the frig, on the shelves and not touching each other. After a week or 10 days I remove the meat, trim the air dried very outside off and cut and wrap the good, tender meat underneath. Pat

wow thanks guys, think you may have saved my hunting season lol.  i really appreciate all that info, ill probably end up using a combination of all your ideas. i especially like the hanging with milk jug idea, good call. ounce again thanks guys and good hunting.
-cory

what wingnut said, except add a quart of vinegar to the slurry

Try milk jugs filled with water first then frozen.Stick them in the cavity and it will cool your meat down quickly.

The best tip for cooling meat I have received came from my butcher when I first started elk hunting.  He advised, before doing anything else, take my knife and cut from the back of the base of the skull along the spine to the middle of the back, then proceed with gutting or cleaning the carcass.  He claimed the first part on any elk or large deer that soured was the top of the shoulders and neck because the heat could not escape through the hide, even when the cavity is iced or filled with snow.  With small whitetails I haven't had much problem cooling the meat, but with large bucks, mule deer, and especially elk, this tip has saved me a lot of meat over the years.