How to age venison

I wish you to harvest at least one big game during this hunting season (caribou, white-tailed deer, bear or moose). If you do achieve the desired success, I hope that you will properly age your venison. The aging of game meat is a subject that intrigues many large game hunters, and for good reason!

As many know, this practice is likely to make your meat incredibly more tender and tastier. It'd be crazy to skip it! The dry-aging method is the most popular with hunters and it produces meat of exceptional quality. However, the most advanced dry-aging methods have the disadvantage of requiring much more space than vacuum aging, and their degree of success is strongly correlated to the level of control over temperature. Regardless of the method chosen, the final result will heavily depend on the aging time.

In order to make the most of your precious venison, both in terms of taste and texture, you can entrust it to professionals who have all the necessary equipment and who will take care of it for you. You could also simply ask them for their advice.

The experienced butcher to whom I have entrusted the processing of my big game carcasses for several years recommends leaving the skin on game meat quarters for as long as possible to protect the meat against dirt, bad weather and flies until it's final processing. If you absolutely must remove the skin to reduce the weight for float plane transport, wrap the quarters with cheese cloth (available in-store).

My butcher pointed out that in the case of caribou and deer, it is dangerous to let quarters age for more than four to five days, whereas for moose quarters, a week is the limit.

Ideally, the carcass of the slaughtered animal should be kept in a well-ventilated, cool and dry place where the temperature does not exceed 5 °C (40 °F).

If you kill a large game at the beginning of your hunting expedition and are slow to return home, clean the wounds thoroughly and let the blood drain off to avoid the fast rotting of your hard-earned venison. At the price we pay for excellent-quality meat, game meat is worth its weight in gold!