AnswerID: 383107 Submitted: Monday, Sep 14, 2009 at 16:05
Flywest
replied:
Depends is the answer,
Ran a small deer farm and venison supply business to 60 odd SW restaurants for about 8 years or so, and managed not to kill anyone "Garabandi style" with food poisoning - by being on the conservative side with use by dates on product.
How long it will last depends on things like:-
1. The process of meat handling from slaughter onwards.
2. The Ph of the meat when packed
3. Whether carcass freshwater washed at slaughter
4. Whether smoked (Because its usually brine pumped first)
5. How much air is removed in the cryovac process
6. How steady the temp within the refrigerator (how frequently the doors opened and closed.
6 weeks was considered a max use by date for refrigerated - 4 weeks is safer.
6 weeks is in a
cold store room where temp remains constant and doors aren't opened all day every day, 4 weeks in a normal household refrigerator where the doors open and closed all day every day.
For me - a traveling
fridge, where conditions might not be "ideal", 3 weeks tops.
Frozen cryo packed - 6 months to be safe - but 12 months possibly.
Getting back to 1 above - handling of carcass at slaughter, - this affects the ph and longevity of the meat for cryovac storage. An unstressed animal at slaughter will not display any evidence of ecymosis, or blood spotting, which shows up usually first in the liver in mild cases and then other muscles especially those around the inside of the chest cavity, diaphragm - (eye of fillet).
Stressed animals at slaughter - where even slight ecymosis is evident, won;t keep as well in cryovac because usually the Ph of the overall carcass will be elevated, and this can provide a better environment for bacteria to culture.
Next - the cleanliness of evisceration - a good slaughter man will effectively remove the urinary tract including the whole gall bladder un-ruptured and, in the same way will remove the entire anus and colon etc tying it in a knot to prevent spillage, and then take out all the stomach contents in one go without puncturing the stomach and spilling any grass contents on the carcass itself. If at the same time he removes the throat and ties it off and avoids spillage there as well - all the potential contamination points for the carcass are eliminated.
This means a carcass can be produced with minimal bacterial contamination, and where this is achieved - then much reduced use if freshwater to wash out the insides of the carcass is then reqiuired.
Fresh watre is full of bacteria that can potentially start the bacterial decay process of the carcass.
All of these potential contamination sources - increase the rate at which bacteria can multiply within the cryovac bag oxygen deprived environment.
Less contaminated carcass - that's hygienically handled thru the butchering process lasts longer in cryovac than, one that didn;t fare so well in the slaughter process.
The same slaughter men team at an abattoir might handle 5 or 6 hundred carcasses a day - and even being as skilled as they are, they might get 9 out of 10 animals thru the chain process without spillage or contamination - but there will always be the odd animal where spillage of gut content etc - even tho thoroughly washed will still contaminate the carcass with bacterial source that will result in quicker rate of spoilage than the one next to it where no gut content spillage and minimal washing as a result afterward occurred leads to less contamination.
Me - after years at the abbs putting the deer thru each week - and after doing my own on farm slaughter for household needs - can tell the difference in taste of a carcass that's been contaminated & one that hasn't - that digested grass taste - is hard to remove even with thorough washing.
Slaughter men pride themselves on NOT contaminating carcasses - but we are all human and errors occur occasionally that lead to contamination.
Me doing just one carcass for farm consumption can take my time and be extra careful with every step of the process, so as to avoid contamination - buut its a lot different forthe guy earning a living as a slaughterman who will produce maybe 15 or more carcasses in the time it takes me to do one.
Within that 15 carcasses - he might contaminate one by accident - a slip with the knife is all it takes, in either the skinning ir evisceration process.
Hard as it might be to believe this treate,ent affects the longevity of the meat you put in your cryovac process.
Max storage times has to allow for the worst case scenario / contamination at slaughter or butchering stage i.e. the lowest common denominator.
Lots of red meat will last 6 weeks cryovac sealed in a refrigerator in ideal conditions from stat to finish - but some of it wont and its the ones that won't which have to set the limit on length of storage.
Hope that hasn't put anyone off eating meat!
It's a good man who can slaughter his own meat (or worse work at an abattoir) and still eat meat!
Overall its not an entirely pleasant business, but if there weren't a special breed of men and woman who worked at abattoirs - we'd all be mightily hungry or tired of veges & mung beans!. ;o)
Cheers
Reply 5 of 7
