How much meat have you lost?

[Rock_skipper]

Lets be honest on here.

Nobody wants to admit it, but we all still loose meat.

How many clean out thier frezzers after 2 years?

 

[anchskier]

What does 2 years have to do with anything? I am still eating steaks, ribs, and hamburger from 2006 and 2007 moose. Perfectly good. Package and freeze it correctly and it can last a long time. I lost a small amount of hotdogs a number of years ago, but I think that was a function of the extra processing and I made some mistakes in the packaging leaving too much air around them. Other than that, I can't recall ever dumping any meat.

 

[Rock_skipper]

I was just talking to some people and they were afraid of eating meat that was frozen over two years. ( myself give me beans that are 15 years old and meat that is'nt freezer burned to the max and I'm good to go, lol)

 

[Old John]

Lets be honest on here.

Nobody wants to admit it, but we all still loose meat.

How many clean out thier frezzers after 2 years?

I sort and inventory our 2 main freezers annually. I keep different types of fish & game in different milk crates or open totes. I label my fish by type and year (i.e. R-13 = Reds in 2013, H-13 for Halibut, etc) Game meat I separate by cuts (i.e. Burger in one crate, ribs in another, roasts, etc.. Makes it easy to find what I'm looking for when the lady in Charge of Laundry & Morale sends me to the freezer to get something for supper...

 

[anchskier]

I was just talking to some people and they were afraid of eating meat that was frozen over two years. ( myself give me beans that are 15 years old and meat that is'nt freezer burned to the max and I'm good to go, lol)

I would probably be worried about store bought meat over more than a few months really, but not with game meat that I harvested, butchered, and packaged. Basically, if it doesn't look bad, smell bad, or taste bad, then it is fine with me. Heck, that stuff from 2006 and 2007 tastes just as good as what I got last year.

 

[Yukon Cornelius]

I just dumped some meat. I only have a small freezer and I had to store some meat on the porch. A couple of weeks ago when I was traveling the temps got up above freezing and I ended up loosing three gallon bags of pike filets, a salmon, and two muskrats. Not that much meat, but i was pretty bummed about loosing that meat. Especially the muskrats.

 

[Anythingalaska]

I've never had to dump/throw away any meat or fish. I'm usually running out, or close to being out about around the time I start harvesting said species again. About the closest I've come to it, is finding some old filet of fish buried in the bottom of my freezer that has had a hole poked in the bag or the seal failed; so the meat is completely freezer burned and covered in ice. Then I just use it for bait!

 

[AGL4now]

I think it is very rude to inquire about MY meat.:lol::lol:

 

[akgun&ammo]

My worst was basically a whole buffalo due to having it processed and their allowing it to turn green before getting it to me...

got to be to much hassle unwrapping a frozen package to find green meat

taught me not to trust that processer anymore


Chris

 

[Rock_skipper]

Ouch!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[JR2]

Neighbors had three freezers full of moose, bou and fish thaw while they were on the slope working. Came home and found two black bears in the freezer shed having a feast. All because of a gfci breaker.

 

[Fin Chaser]

My dads house burned down last year, which is bad enough. His detached garage was OK but then he realized a few days later that the fire dept had cut power during the fight which thawed both his garage freezers full of fish. He seemed more upset about that than the house torching, and it was a nice house...

Scott

 

[swampdonkey]

What does 2 years have to do with anything? I am still eating steaks, ribs, and hamburger from 2006 and 2007 moose. Perfectly good. Package and freeze it correctly and it can last a long time. I lost a small amount of hotdogs a number of years ago, but I think that was a function of the extra processing and I made some mistakes in the packaging leaving too much air around them. Other than that, I can't recall ever dumping any meat.

What he said.....
I suckbag "everything"!!
If I see any freezer burn starting on the edge of a fillet, I'll go through and find anymore in question and pull 'em. They are now going into the smoker. Including halibut...
Game meat gets eaten rather it's this years or 4 yrs ago... Still good in my book....

 

[JBrown1]

My dads house burned down last year, which is bad enough. His detached garage was OK but then he realized a few days later that the fire dept had cut power during the fight which thawed both his garage freezers full of fish. He seemed more upset about that than the house torching, and it was a nice house...

Scott

Your dad is a good man...

 

[Sid]

one whole moose to a Mama bear an her 2 small ones about 17 years ago on the Big SUE down below the bridge off the Denil HWY bouut 55 inch
neaver got the horns they got the horns to, I think neaver went back to check to check SID roud:
PS could be longer in years I forget

 

[Steve_O]

I have lost two freezers over the last 3 years but luckily I found them in time to offer meat of various flavors to all my friends. (Amazing how many friends you have during that time!) The worst loss I had was in Montana when I had just processed 4 deer and packaged them all and placed them in our freezers but failed to realize that the GFCI breaker was on the circuit where they were plugged into. I went TDY for a couple of weeks and came back to find a nasty mess in my freezers. I was heart broken as that was my first deer season in Montana and had gotten 3 Muley does and one small white tail buck. Was really looking forward to those steaks...

 

[Frostbitten]

Lost 2 caribou quarters to a wolverine back in 2003. We hung them in the brush a few hundred yards up the hill from camp to cool overnight. Went back the next morning and 2 quarters were missing. We found the first one about 20 yards away, the game bag was all chewed up, and the critter peed all over it. Found the second quarter at the opening of the wolverine's den. It was also peed on and all chewed up. We saw the wolverine 3-4 times after that...they are very cranky critters! On the same trip, we had two sets of antlers taken from camp. We found one and it had been chewed up...never found the other one.

We took those quarters back with us and cleaned them the best we could. We kept trimming until we couldn't smell urine anymore.

 

[BrownBear]

How many clean out thier frezzers after 2 years?

We're on a one-year cycle. We know how much we need in a year, and any excess goes to thankful neighbors before it ever hits our freezer. Calls for keeping the freezer organized, but that's part of the job, too.

Only time we've lost meat in 50 years was the time a freezer quite while we were gone for two weeks. Rot so bad, we didn't even bother to try salvaging the freezer. Didn't trust it after it quit the once.

 

[ruffle]

Both the 21 cu. ft. upright energy star-rated and the antique Montgomery Wards 18 cu. ft. upright are full each Fall (knock on wood....). By April I'm consolidating the smaller freezer into the larger freezer. By June or July, I'm consolidating the larger into the smaller. At each transition, the freezer being emptied is cleaned (more or less).

In the June/July transition, the fresh salmon to be smoked are rolled in multiple layers of industrial plastic wrap with 5-8 fillets to a bundle (resembling a tight bed-roll), and left to cold-cure to allow for lower-temp smoking.

When moose season rolls around, those rolls of fillets have typically been smoked and sealed, and we then re-load the larger freezer with the new moose. By that time, I have (typically) 15-30 days of moose left, of various cuts and sausage grinds. We put that on its own shelf, where it can be easily identified, and, despite 'testing' the new moose and sausage, we primarily eat the older moose until it's gone; proper rotation of stock.

That said, I have one package in the smaller freezer right now of ling cod from 2 years ago (which I need to prepare with a friend and his wife, as he claimed ling cod can't be cooked without turning to rubber, so he gets to try our awesome tempura beer-battered ling cod with home-made tartar sauce, just to show him he's wrong, and to let him know to keep his lings, or give them to -me-!

I agree with the poster(s) who stated that meat can be effectively kept in good condition if it's wrapped right, and kept cold. We've had beef from a local harvest be just fine after 4-5 years (the 'lost package' phenomenon...)

The only meat we've really 'lost' (we knew where it was, -and- what happened to it, so it wasn't ever really 'lost') was when the vote was taken about packing meat out, and the majority decided to debone the ribs, neck, etc.. As soon as that casing tissue is opened to the direct air, the break-down of meat begins, regardless of how well you tend your meat. We lost between 20 and 30 lbs that year, and were angry about it. We pride ourselves in not losing more than the scrap cuttings that are typical with butchering, and loss of any meat is unacceptable to us. If you're going to kill an animal, respect it enough to make certain as little waste as possible ensues. otherwise, don't kill the thing.

 

[Catch It]

Never lost anything in the field to weather or animals but with moose we accept that the shooter is now the camp wench that will be flogging, rebagging, spritzing and generally babysitting the meat.....with a beer or such of course. Have also made meat runs to my buddy's shed (about an 8 hour round trip with boat and truck time) to get it in the shade, bear fence up, and fans on it.

I try very hard to assess and repack anything that gets a bad seal and either put it on top for immediate consumption, or repack. That said I've had lost packages, but rarely every more than 5-10 lbs per year. I check the lights on my freezers nearly every time I walk by them cuz of the stories we see above. Freezer burned fish becomes bait for butt or traps, same for any red meat for crab traps. I am a chronic inventory rotator, and if I hit February and it looksl like the fish is more than I can get eaten by June, I start giving it away early so that folks get the stuff as best I can offer instead of dumping year old stuff on them in June.

For me red meat well packed is definitley fine after two years (and more), and I'm just finishing some 2011 moose burger and it's as good as the day we ground it. I do try to get on the ribs in the first year though, they tend to get a little tang to them after that.

Freezers happen, heatwaves happen, animals happen......what I cannot excuse is folks that hoard the stuff and watch it all go freezer burned. If you've had a good year, be generous cuz in this state (and others) it will always come around if things get lean.