After butcher question

[Mike Conowingo]

I butchered 40 meat birds yesterday. I usually do ice bath method in coolers. This time I put the in the fridge in huge bag. About 14 birds in and I noticed the fridge wasn't cooling down. I got 80lbs of ice and started to layer ice in them. That helped but from the start of the first bird to that point was about 1- 1.5 hours. I never had chickens not go in a cooler of ice immediately and worry about the length of tge warm bids in the stcked up before I iced them. I checked this morning and there is lots of ice and very cold birds. However I noticed a smell. Not horribly strong but it's and odor. I worry that the first 14 didn't cool down properly or more and may have an issue. The birds weren't submerged in water either. With the cooler method I add ice constantly and fresh water so maybe it purges them more so. I wanted to try a different method and not keep the bids submerged in water. Has anyone done this method before? Any advice or input anything to check for?

I will bag them shortly for the freezer and break some down.

I added pictures to show what I am seeing. Last ice was added at 10:30 am when I finished yesterday started to butcher at 6am.

The bags are food grade fo 55 gal drums and marinating food. Very heavy duty.

 

[HenriettaPizzaNolan]

How long was it between dispatch and when you got the ice in there?

Also, I'd pick up individual birds and smell them. Having that large amount of chickens in the fridge might just give off a stronger raw meat smell, but not necessarily rotten. I'd inspect each one as you are bagging or parting them out. Usually your nose will know right away if something is off.

My gut tells me you got the ice in there soon enough though. A few hours should be alright, since my first time processing I was so slow it took me a few hours per bird to even get them on ice. Those birds were fine and tastyyyyyyy.

 

[Ridgerunner]

A refrigerator or freezer uses heat exchange. It takes a while for them to reduce the temperature of whatever you put in to a certain level. The greater the volume and the warmer the product the longer it takes. It's not just meat, you can get the same thing when refrigerating or freezing veggies from the garden if you have a large volume. If you have enough volume and they are warm enough you can thaw other stuff in the freezer before it can catch up. If I have much volume I try to pre-cool meat or veggies before I freeze them.

The other problem is that if you stack much meat or veggies the stuff on the outside insulates the stuff in the middle. If you have a volume like 40 birds the ones on the outside can be cool or even frozen while the ones in the middle are still pretty warm. Layering with ice was a great move.

The only thing I can suggest is to smell the meat before you use it. If you are not comfortable don't eat it and risk it. I'd think you will be OK but I am not there.

 

[Mike Conowingo]

Thanks for all the replies.

I actually got rid of 6 that smelled of rotten eggs. I even cut into them to be certain the smell was all over and not on the surface of the skin. I smelled all of them and asked my family to smell them as well. We were in agreement on the ones that I thought smelled bad.

Next time I will stick with the cooler method as I haven't had an issue that way. I hate the idea of wasting the birds and the extra cost adds to my overall price per pound.

 

[HenriettaPizzaNolan]

Thanks for all the replies.

I actually got rid of 6 that smelled of rotten eggs. I even cut into them to be certain the smell was all over and not on the surface of the skin. I smelled all of them and asked my family to smell them as well. We were in agreement on the ones that I thought smelled bad.

Next time I will stick with the cooler method as I haven't had an issue that way. I hate the idea of wasting the birds and the extra cost adds to my overall price per pound.

Glad to hear you found the culprits. Sorry you lost some birds, but better safe than sorry. Yeah, there's nothing wrong with the cooler method so if it ain't broke don't fix it! Live and learn though. I wouldn't have guessed this would happen either.

 

[FunClucks]

Glad you sorted things out. Sorry you had to toss some chicken, but better safe than sorry later.

If you want to do the cooler method but not submerge in water, put a layer of ice in the bottom of your cooler. Use one of those large plastic bags you show in your picture and layer the chicken (inside the bag) on top of the ice. Add a layer of ice on top of the chicken, fold the large plastic bag over and add a layer of chicken, add another layer of ice, etc.

I put ~2 inches of ice in the bottom of the largest Igloo cooler they make, then on top of the ice I lay out individual chickens that I've parted out and sealed in gallon ziplock bags. Some of the bags have the carcasses for stock. Then another layer of ice, then another layer of sealed, bagged chicken. When the water shows up, when it gets to be too much, I drain it since I don't want it to get into the bags. Haven't had any issues with that so far.

After 2 hours on ice, I transfer the bagged chicken to the fridge to rest for ~3 days. I can re-use the ice for the chicken i process the next day, since the outside of the bags are clean. The chicken does not get saturated by water - it drains prior to bagging.

I'm doing 2-4 chickens a day, and it takes me 1.5-2 hrs per chicken from coop to cooler. All have been tasty with no bad smells. I was processing in March, so there is that.

So I think you can come up with a solution to cool the chickens without submerging them in water with the items you have on hand. Good luck figuring things out!