Aging in the fridge?

[greyfields]

Well, let's say it takes you 75 minutes to get to 38 degrees. Are you going to drop dead? Probably not. The guidelines I have are to chill below 45 degrees within 4 hours of slaughter, and anything that does not reach that must be discarded. So it seems the 1 hour may be a bit on the conservative. side.

 

[MissPrissy]

Quote:
I raised broilers last fall. So it was cold when we dispatched and processed them. We let them bleed out 15 - 30 minutes before we did anything with them. After that time period I scalded, plucked, eviscerated in about 15 minutes, maybe 20. They were then placed in a cooler of ice water. I never checked the temp of the water as it was only about 40 air temps when we processed.

Get your equipment and supplies together and get everything ready to go BEFORE you start dispatching.

Greyfeilds, you take yours to be processed don't you? You don't do the butchering yourself?

It is an entirely different ballgame when you are doing your own birds for your own freezer. You can only work with them one at a time unless you have experienced help. If you can dispatch and dress and have them in ice water in under an hour each bird you will be fine but at that rate you'll be standing there dressing birds all day. You will get quick doing them after a while and will have your birds dressed in under 15 min.

 

[greyfields]

Quote:
Absolutely! They do a better job and are quicker dispatching than I could ever hope to me. Less pain for the beasts as well as myself.

Plus, the birds look like they've been through a blender when I do them myself.

 

[theOEGBman]

Thanks for the advice! It helped a lot.

 

[CoopDelisle]

Quote:
Hmm. One can't help but wonder if all the frantic killing of bacteria has made us even more susceptable to it. I was thinking about Laura Ingalls Wilder's stories of the way her mother would prepare food, such as when traveling in a covered wagon across the prairie, cooking up a prairie chicken and making gravy, and then the next day finishing the meat and gravy for dinner. Of course, that is no refrigeration at all. She mentions this kind of thing as a way of life and she lived to be 90.

 

[Cuban Longtails]

We freeze ours in water, just enough to cover the meat and press the air out of the freezer bag to prevent frost bite. We do not have a foodsaver.

 

[theOEGBman]

Quote:
My grandma told me the same thing yesterday!