Plastic Bag and Freezer Free Meat Preservation: Drying (includes effects of storage on meat preserves)

Generous spacing is critical. *I have since changed my slicing technique to create fatter, far broader meat pieces. I also dont chain as much, and have smaller dry rack*

Disclaimer: The suggestions and procedure given in the following article are adopted at your own risk. The small intestine is fine to eat if you know what the animal has eaten. Parasites, like worms, are common in game animals and infection can occur from eating raw intestines or surfaces which the stomach fluid touches. Bear often have trichsnosis which can be transferred from eating the meat raw; im not sure if drying destroys the larvae. Some things, you have to dive into unless there are obvious signs to not to eat it raw, like an intestine full of worms, which can be emptied, flushed to avoid infecting scavenging animals and cooked. Don't try to dry meat if you live in a dusty, urban, location with many chemicals and plastics that can float into your bathroom and onto your meat because they will. Clear out all non essentials like rugs. Also, plug your hot air vent in the bathroom well; this is another source of unwanted dust.

The following article includes how I dry meat, and my reasons for maintaining the practice. Doing so is the best way, to my standards, of preserving a harvest for the bush and your home if the goals are nutrient preservation, quick meal prep, transportability and to avoid the use of plastic bags or plastic lined wraps (though you can find enviormentaly concerned alternatives for this). 

Drying the meat and tanning the skin of a whole, large animal is a task that will take a few days. Keep your tools clean, when slicing meat and keep the meat away from the tools and surfaces which may have touched the stomach content. I find the choke knife (or uluit) makes jerky slicing, and most other butchering and hide processing tasks exponentially more efficient  than while using the conventional knife design - certainly if the thick bush craft knife is the alternative.

Today, it is common to butcher and freeze a harvested animal; not only does this come with a substantial monetary cost for the plastic bags, but environmentally, plastic bag use is entirely unacceptable. The plastic freezer  bags introduce a-lot of chemicals to the landfills and the environment in general and perpetuates their manufacturing. The plastic will get onto the food and act as an endocrine disruptor, encourage the development of cancers, among other negative physiological  and psychological effects. 

The worst part is that these effects are not confined to the species that use them and that carelessness is our responsibility. You may try to convince yourself and think “BuT tHeRe is nO othEr wAy!” :,(... There are and there is a price for not using them.

Drying the harvest potentially saves on electricity for running a freezer and the burn and nutrient deterioration of prolonged storage.

Here are more facts. The water molecule is very small - H2O. When the molecule reaches 0c (and 100c) it acts in predictable ways; when it freezes, they form rigid, jagged, and sharp structures. Vitamin and protein molecules are comparatively enormous and as a result when in the presence of water molecules which reach a freezing temperature, they get destroyed; these vital compounds in the meat and lipids (fat), create both flavor and nutritional value. In my view, it is a violation to the animal as a once frozen piece of steak can have half of these nutrients immediately destroyed, a deterioration which seems to increases with storage time. 

If its winter and you are outdoors or you must freeze the food, flash freezing is the way; this simply means separating the meat and blowing air on it in as cold an environment as possible. Using this method you can avoid as, much as possible, the formation of ice crystals between the food cells and the water “vitrifies” instead - so its said. I still avoid freezing. Keep this in mind if you think its "easier" and smart to stuff a chest freezer with fresh wrapped meat; the closer packed the meat, the longer the freezing process, the worse the damage to the "meat" before it all fully freezes.

Hanging whole meat, it will rot unless it will be eaten quickly, is cool (like 2-0.5oC preferably), breezy, stored in a chemical-dust free environment and smoked. If outdoors, flies and their larvae soon appear. A high temperature will also encourage bacterial proliferation. 

I have experimented with hanging meat in the fridge and eventually this results in mold and yeast covered meat. This surface mold may be cut away, but the spores will spread easily if agitated. The meat inside also undergoes a enzymatic break down which I find undesirable. Addutionaly, a pink producing backteria proliferates; the effects of which, i am still trying to fully understand.

I have also experimented with Weck jars and Mason jar heat canning; the process cooked the meat, destroying heat sensitive vitamins, required glass jars and other special equipment, takes a-lot of heat energy, you can lose jars full of meat from a bad seal, and the heat of the food and sterilization process caused the plastic from the disposable lids to get into the food. 

Know that drying large amounts of meat is a process  that requires your care for days, attention of doing a thorough job, then meticulously hang the pieces, and the meat will never again be a ripe steak you can throw on a skillet or roast. Additionally,  drying does expose the inner meat to light, oxygen, dust, and spreads bacteria particularly if you are not carful with tools. 

However, what drying meat also does, is make it easer to store, and to transport and use a-field.

The best way to eat dried meat is by pounding or grinding it to a powder; this really makes the nutrients easy to  assimilate. Often times, I find that most meat that is chewed dry, simply does not break down in my system.

As can be seen in the top image, drying does not need a drying machine, but air circulation, generous spacing, and a means through which the moisture can quickly and easily escape are critical. Avoid stomach content, bad blood, and other dirt reaching the meat and spreading through contaminated tools as this will encourage yeasts and bacteria to proliferate during the drying process.  Its better the hanging environment is cool than warm. A high temperature will expedite bacterial deterioration, surface yeast growth, like if you hang the meat too fast in a poorly ventilated room. High heat also increase enzyme activity. These all are undesirable. Rainy periods outside the bathroom will also prolong, the drying process. Cooler temperature do not seem to slow evaporation but it does slow down the issues associated with high temperature drying. A big key to ensure that a white and green yeast does not develop and that the meat surface dries as quickly as possible, is to keep the strips WELL SPACED. 

It may be the case, indoors, that you can’t get moisture off well spaced meat meat and move it out of the room fast enough to keep up with your cutting speed and thus the yeast develops on the final product — hang the meat at a slower rate. Allow the strips to dry more before you add more to the room. In a spare fridge, you should be hanging the whole meat (with lower shelves removed). It can stay there safely for at least five days. Slow drying will also allow you to remove dry or dryish ones from the rack before adding new slices.

Save rack space and keep the spacing by chaining the pieces and making strips as long as possible.  In the bathroom, keep the floor underneath clean. The pieces will sometimes fall, so prevent this by allowing them to harden a little before adding another.

When the piece is quite dry, and there is more meat to hang, you can remove the piece and throw it on the top rack to finish the dry fully.

In the past, the aim would be to make a “saddle” of meat. The dried pieces would be as large as possible; outdoors this should be your aim. It prevents the many small scavengers from making off with all your meat. It also saves time and space. 

Making these saddles requires practice. Indoors this will save time but the big pieces need space and will eventually curl (you may need to open them back up, even if you used a tooth pick to keep them open).

Indoors, large pieces dry slowly and you have to chop the dried piece later anyway to fit in a jar,( but it saves the time it takes to hang your meat). The scavenger problem is also non existent.

I use a wood chisel to break apart pieces of soft wood, to make tooth pick like splinters. Insert the wood splinter from the side of the meat slice as opposed to through the flat face; this will substantially increase the clinging strength of the wood while chaining; when dry, the wood is difficult if not impossible to remove and may be reused as a tooth pick. 

Taking your time while cutting to make longer, thickish strips is best and you will find it saves time down the road. Knowing how to make long strips of jerky, fast, for hanging is a skill that takes time to develop.

I think the most dangerous bacterial organisms occur when meat is put in plastic containers or already cooked, then the item become contaminated. Bacteria in food can have many effects and various bacteria/yeasts/molds have psychological effects too - alcohol, a well known example. You don't want to eat rotting meat thats green or souring - most people know this, but some "high meat" eaters disregard this truth. For road kill, cut away road grit, green meat, and souring, almost peach color meat with a funky smell which is a sign that the meat sat at too high of a temperature for too long - its almost a yeasty smell; flush these - don't feed them to the animals.

When cleaning game avoid bad blood; this can be blood that may have mixed with the stomach content or bacteria in the wind pipe or mouth, particularly if you are going to slice it and let it hang at room temperature. If you cook it fast enough, meat that was contaminated is a non issue. You want to avoid the stomach or intestinal bacteria getting on meat; this is not to say you cant eat the raw stomach lining or the content when it’s fresh. 

*Unless it will be soon cooked, very quickly dried or frozen, NEVER, EVER - wash meat or bones with water; this simply spreads what may once have been a small, isolated amount of bacteria and mold spores, all over everything.*

Try to use your knifes leading edge and pull the meat away as you slice to avoid spreading with the large surface area of the blade.

I have glass jars which I fill with tangles of sinew, a few bits of fat for rendering, parts that don't lend themselves to drying or eating raw, silver skins, bones, and "questionable" bits for roasting in a slow cook later. I have also been experimenting with sausage for these bitts as well by using the casing derived from the same animals intestines - emptied and cleaned with water.

Meat which undergoes the drying process can develop a white yeast if the surface does not dry fast enough and stay dry; the cause is often poor spacing, not enough air circulation, knife contamination, a dirty cutting surface, rain (outdoors), or a combination of these. The yeast makes you moody and stressed out if eaten, possibly anxious, possibly develop a preoccupation (awarness is not a bad thing) with spiritual, intangeble subjects and beliefs (demons, god).

Outdoors, yeasts may dry and leave a slight green; you don't want it, but it wont kill you; it often appears if weather is not on your side.

Whether drying outdoors or in, it is even more difficult to avoid yeast development if the drying process is undertaken near after or during times of high precipitation.

Eating chewed spruce needles and or other antibacterial plants may be effective at keeping unwanted intestinal bacteria down.

If you eat the dried stomach lining or small intestine, the former is great for calming the body and mind, your digestion, it's best to do it away from the other meat.

Dry only the small intestine which is full of liquid green and tan stuff; this is where most vitamins are absorbed. You can and should keep the colon, which are the last few inches; don't eat what's inside as you would be eating shit. Generally, when the content turns from a liquid to a dryer solid, it is transitioning from nutrition to waste. Only bother with the intestine if the animal comes from a clean forest, not grain field foraging location.

Know what the animal has been eating and the condition of its health. If it has accidentally been eating plastics (like forestry tree markers) or toxins don't eat the stomach - check it first - animals sourced from logically chemical free environments should be safe. If the intestine has much fat, you can pick off the fat and render. In an outdoor setting you can unravel the small intestine and hang to dry. Eating intestine is an “acquired” taste. 

In the bush you cant always keep all things clean and free of gut effluence so in this case, if your eat things which may have come in contact with the intestine, it is best to have a deworming protocol if you suspect yourself to be a susceptible or an infected host.

Meat must be defatted while butchering as fat deteriorates quickly while exposed to air; this task is critical for a bear; unless a fatty piece of jerky is what you are aiming for - which can be fine in small quantities when eaten after stored in a ventilated area. If left on, therefor fatty jerky must be vacuum sealed asap.

I wont cook everything to sterilize it; doing this would do more damage to my immune system and over all health in the long run. The nutrients in raw meat are important for a robust health. I've eaten many raw bits of parasitesed animals and have yet to notice a worm infection. Dealing with trichinosis from bear is different, but ill leave the choice and research on the subject to you.

Returning to the dehydration process, I have used a tiled bathroom as there is dripping which is easy to clean and I can close the door to prevent dust and much small plastic fibers from getting into my food. When drying outdoors, everything is clean and there is a cleanup crew. 

In-doors, I use old racks to hang.

If a yeast appears it looks like accumulated surface salts when dry; these peices can be sorted out later. I rinse the yeast from the dry surface just before consumption which seems to work; a brief rinse will also washes plastic dust away that will have landed on your meat surface when dried indoors.

The yeast/molds are probably ones which our species has become quite adapted too in our evolutionary history of eating dried meat; however, as jerky is not a cultured product avoid providing an environment for them as best you can. 

The effects of strip spacing can be illustrated in the following example: think of two buckets of water holding the same volume of water, both sitting on a concrete driveway. One bucket is splashed across the concrete, the other is left in the bucket. Which sample, of the two, will evaporate fully first?

You need as many fans as possible moving air as strongly as possible over the lot of meat. I suggest in a large bathroom, there should be at least 3 regular or 1 large (12”) room fans on to achieve proper circulation.  

Select fans which may be taken apart and the main surfaces wiped or cleaned; doing so would be prudent to perform prior to every drying session or at least when they seem dirty as they may be cover with blood, molds, and dust. Be careful with your fans and avoid damaging due to handing and dismantling. The bathroom ceiling fan is surprisingly helpful, verging on necessary when left on during drying for the first couple of days.

If you live in the city - I would avoid this process of storage - but if not... you may have to cover the window fully or slightly with a cotton filter (I use a shemagu)s dust can easily travel through the screen and onto your strips while drying; this can be an issue as dust may include harmful man made chemicals that are undesirable even when accumulated over the short period which the meat is hanging; chemicals like plastic dust which is an endocrine disruptor. A further step to take later may be to rinse well each piece before consumption.

I hang up a quarter and slice meat from there when you can. A common cutting surface like a cutting board can transfer bacteria. Pull the meat away as it is cut and try to touch it as little as possible.

Slicing strips is easy but when cutting a saddle, cut into the meat the width of a jerky strip; as you cut sideways, fold the saddle over flat so it’s laying on the meat ahead of it; the meat to be cut then will be twice a thick as you would make a jerky strip. When finished, you should have a big broad piece of meat as thick as a strip of jerky should be; doing it this way makes a relatively uniform thick piece of saddle as broad and big as needed.

Meat should be at 0 degrees, blade at 45 degrees and cut meat at 90-120 degrees.  if the blade is too close to the meats it will catch and move it, make it more difficult to slice and it will also transfer and spread more bacteria.

Make sure all your tools and surfaces are as clean as possible before beginning the process described above.

If hanging the meat is not possible, use a wood board to slice the meat; I thickly tallow grease the surface to seal it; this prevents staining, makes washing with only water easy, and inhibits bacteria and other mico organisms from spreading and thriving on the surface. Alternatively, you can use a metal scout pad to clean the surface often. This will remove old surface layers of wood and grime so the new one can be used to cut on. Glass boards are easy to clean but dull tools and may shatter.

Washing with water, an un sealed wood cutting board spreads bacteria; consider a brief lye water rinse to disinfect after cutting dirty meat.

Never, ever use a plastic cutting board. 2x8 or 10 or 12 hardware store, untreated lumber, 20 inches is a great cutting board.

Defat meat with much fat. Bear meat must be fully deafatted before hung. There are a few reasons for this: fat inhibits dehydration and the meat under will often rot, fat will go rancide while drying and this is harmful to your heath, and rendered fat is easier to cary and store long term. You should dry very little fat because it has a unique taste but most fat especially from bear (porcupine having a simmilar fat) MUST be rendered. Liquidy, unsaturated fat will oxidize rapidly (compared to tallowy saturated hard fat) when exposed to air and aquire bulk bin peanut taste (the taste of rancid fat) rapidly when hung to the air. 

When the meat is fully dry, particularly if it has fat (this will deteriorate quickly due to light and oxygen) it must be vacume sealed. Rancid fat will aquire the smell of bulk peanuts. If you have limited vacume jar space, fat should be meticulous cut off during butchering and rendered. I often chose to dry specific slices of the outer body fat and render the cavity. Outdoors most fat must be rendered or smoked (the fat will still oxidize with time) but I dont know much about smoking.

The meat that is fully dry should be vacuum sealed in a glass jar. Dried, stored in a vac sealed jar with push down snap lids will last a long time in the fridge. If vacuum sealed in a jar, outside the fridge, is a second best option.  Old jars without suction, stored in a cool dark place, are OK too, but not as good. Another good option is to use large 18L pails with air seal lids and to store in a cool dark location; however, every time the pail lid is opened, the whole bucket will be exposed to new air. 

You can chop, chew, or pulverize (with stones or wood) removed tallow when ready to heat render; but when first butchering, store submerged in water in the fridge until it is ready. Avoid storing it fresh in a jar longer than four days for bear or spoilage organisms will take in.

When ready for rendering, the fat chunks must be submerged in the hot water, beneath the floating oil, to render the fastest; you will therefore find rendering in a titanium kettle on the stove to yield the highest quality product as the oil may be skimmed quickly. Fat hides in the rendered oil floating at the top; this floating oil can absorb more heat than the water beneath so stir while rendering keeping unrenderd chunks under in the hot water.

I rough skim the floating oil into a jar, store the this render in the fridge until all the stored tallow or fat (bear) oil has been rough rendered and jarred; then i go back and re melt all the jarred oils to really clean out the protiens and liquid that will cause molds and other forms of spoilage to long term stored jarred tallow. The finished, jarred product can be transported without cooling and will last a very long time; this will be a very good source of energy when needed.

Bear fat doesn't lend its self to chewing, so chop it to prepare it for rendering. Also, with bear when butchering, consider hanging the fat in the fridge over storing it in a render jar until ready to render. Hanging fat will oxidize but will dry on the surface as opposed to harbouring a environment for bacteria and moulds to proliferate. A third option is to also submerg the fat chunks and peices to be chopped and renedered in cold water and store it in a cold place. The past people may have submerged chunks in cold running water until they could render it? This will keep it from oxidation and a great deal of bacterial deterioration. The fat should be free, for the most part, of bad blood or rot. Never freeze anything, especially fat. 

The rendered fat will if not stored in an air tight container go rancide in a month to a noticeable degree, so pemmican is not in any way a "last-forever" food as many sources claim. Rendered tallow and particularly marrow or other "oilern" tallows, develop rancidity when stored in containers with the smallest air entrances - immediately; becoming a concern when the product is pushed over a month and a half.

I belive, the healthiest way to store fat for consumption is to dry and then air seal in a jar, store in a cool, dark location like a fridge; stored in a fridge will last a quite a few months, outside in a cool dark pace (in the vacuum sealed jar) probably no more than two. Drying and vacuum sealing in this method preserves the nutrients in the oils, enzymes and vitamins better than freezing. You don't want the fat to be out in your drying room longer than is necessary, as air oxidation begins immediately. 

Drying meat from small game will leave much sinew in the product as the sinew is far too small to be fully removed; these must be dried and then chewed thoroughly to moisten and remove meat, liquify and swallow oils and the moist sinew left, thrown in a stew or cooked later. 

The fat which is rendered must be done with care - don't burn those oils by letting them sit longer than necessary in the heat.

Freezing the fat wet has had a hugely undesirable effect on the nutritional potential and quality of the raw fat, just like freezing the protein pieces.

When the meat peices are dry you can simply snap them as this leaves the sinew strands intact. The sinew  can then be pulled from the meat, piled and cooked for soup.

If you don’t like the texture of dried meat, load a jar with strips of dried meat, rinse and wash by filling the jar with water and draining. Put a lid on the damp strips of meat and put the jar in your fridge. In a day, the meat will be soft and chewy.

*Also, it is very important to beat and crush your dried meat to a powder with some stones or a large mortar and pestle (use ear protection or the sharp, loud sounds will make you develop hearing loss later); this makes the meat tastier, far more digestible and nutritionally accessible, and all around enjoyably. 

Another method of preservation is to cook the meat with heavy tendon (so the liquid jells well when cool) and place in a clean glass jar hot. Put the jar in a fridge with a lid or fat on top. Meat stored like this will not hold much more than a week and a half in the ffridge. It is gone if the surface is liquid and the body solid. You may try washing the top to save what is underneath. Use your nose.

Store bought mason jars work well for storing food as a machine will vacume seal the lids. Any jar though can work well for cooking and storing the cooked meat in the fridge. Soak the paper lables of the jar in warm water and scrape what you can away. Rub a "sticky" surface with a slicking oil of any kind and use a scour to easily mix the two, then wash away the residue.

Note: When I write vacuum seal jar, I mean using a special adaptor which suctions the disposable lids of standard mason jars closed - I do not mean heat preserving.

Beyond this adapter by FoodSaver, there are other methods to suction seal a mason jar, such as special canisters and large vacuum sealing machines. On that note, the hose that attaches the machine to the suction lid above broke at the plastic connection. The break was convieneant as after having cut off the broken end I found I could simply put the plastic hose over the hole in the tool shown above and I seems to suction the 250ml jars even better than with the original end.

We cant explain all the good and bad things that happen, innitally, or the experience of living our lives purely through adollecent reasone. Destruction does not have an affront face but chooses to cowardly linger in chaotic pocessions and faceless physical and mental tricks. Be fearless, vigilant, determined, and never stop fighting.