Bet you have never tried this!!!!

[PaulaJoAnne]

No clue where this post should belong, so here it is!

We had an old hen that needed dispatched.
We had no idea how old she was until we took a look at her egg supply.
She had maybe enough left for a couple dozen eggs. Tops.

So, we decided to try a grand experiment.
Most if you probably have heard about aging game birds.
Not the nasty old way of waiting till they turned green, but
dry aging them for about 4 days.

We went ahead and hung the dry carcass in a cupboard in our arctic entry on Sunday night.
We removed all the inards, but left all the feathers intact.

We will be plucking the chicken tonight and adding a dry rub, and putting her in the cook smoker.
I will also be adding the cavity fat back inside for the cooking process.

The goal is to see how tender it ends up.
If all is good, we will be doing this with two other birds Thursday night, so they will be ready for our Seder meal on Monday.
I will keep you all updated here, and with the next two birds will be putting together a blog post as well.

 

[redhen]

Let us know how it works out...

 

[debilorrah]

Paula let us know how it goes. I am going to ask for this to be moved to the meat birds section before you get flamed.

 

[Thomas423]

Quote:
How did you see her egg supply? Hens have a predetermined supply of eggs?
This is new info to me. Please explain further. Very interesting.

 

[twentynine]

80* and 100% humidity here ain't no way, that thing would be poison in two days.

 

[cluckers&quackers]

The egg supply~ I just got done reading an article about this in Backyard poultry magazine. It says that if you examine a hens innards you will find a cluster of undeveloped egg yolks along her backbone, approximately halfway between her neck and tail. Depending on the hen's age and how long she has been laying the yolks will range in size from head of a pin size to nearly full size. It also says that From the day the hen enters the world she carries with her the beginnings of all the eggs she could possibly lay during her lifetime.

It is a very interesting article on the process of egg laying, I didn't know this either.

Hope this info helps

 

[HEChicken]

cluckers&quackers :

It also says that From the day the hen enters the world she carries with her the beginnings of all the eggs she could possibly lay during her lifetime.

Same for all females, including humans.

PaulaJoAnne, I'll be interested to hear the results of your experiment. We don't plan to retire our layers either but will process them when they are on the waning side of high productivity. We don't have an arctic entryway so I was thinking crockpot, but I'm always open to other ideas.​

 

[PaulaJoAnne]

Quote:
If you can get ahold of a small fridge, you can set the temp to what you need it to be, and hang them in there.

 

[PaulaJoAnne]

Ok, Morning after.
We found she should have been hung another 2 days or so. Still a bit to tough to enjoy, but not nearly as tough as old birds we have had in the past.
The carcass did show improvement for sure, but since the temps in the entry do flux up and down, from 20 to 40 or so, it really slowed down the process.

Those of you who live in a warmer climate, can do what we will do for the next one.
We have an apartment size fridge out in our shop, and we will set the temp to 40 degrees, and hang the next one for 6 days, and then do a test on the feathers.

When you age a bird, you have to leave the feathers on, and then you have to dry pluck them, to prevent tearing.
This bird was still difficult to pluck, though they had loosened up from the first day a bit.

The other thing we noticed, was how clean the carcass smelled.
None of that chicken smell that we associate with butchering.

Here is a detail on what we did.
Dh slit the throat and bled it out well.
He then gutted it, removed the tail (easiest way to deal with the oil gland, as it will give a bad taste if left in) and cut off the head.
We reserved the fat and organs and put them in cold storage.
After wiping the inside out well with a towel ( you can use paper, we just do not use paper products here) we hung it by its feet in the arctic entry (will do 40 degree fridge next time).
It is very improtant to make sure no water comes in contact with the carcass.
Hang the carcass for a minimum of 6 days, and then pluck it and take off the feet.

I plan to try the crock pot method, and the smoker method with different old birds we have.
One thing about the crockpot, is if you stick a fresh old bird in it, it will tenderizeit, but the meat is still dry.
Not all that enjoyable in my opinion.

We have a very busy weekend at the Outdoors show, and then Passover on Monday, so we are going to wait a bit on the others.
I will be making stew out of this one as it needs more tenderizing before we can consume it fully.

 

[dancingbear]

Quote:
I keep seeing this, but I've often left in the oil glands, and cooked the chicken with them intact, and it never changed the taste of the bird at all. First few birds I processed, years ago, I didn't even know about the oil glands, and they were fine. They're an unpleasant texture, if you bite into them, kinds of greasy/waxy/grainy, but that's all. Once cooked, they're just firm little oval pellets that peel right out. I usually remove them now, but sometimes I forget, and it's really not a problem. I think it's just one of those things that gets passed along without question.

I've found that if I set the crock-pot on low, they turn out fine, not dry. Brining can help with the dryness factor too. But, I'm always looking for ways to make an older bird more tender for other methods of cooking. I love the crock-pot birds, but it's nice to have more choices. I always let mine age in the fridge at least 2 or 3 days, before I either cook them or freeze them, but that's also after they've been plucked and rinsed. I'm wondering if one, no pluck, no-rinse, vs. another one fully cleaned, plucked, and rinsed, but equal length of time aging, would turn out different?

Your method sounds like an interesting way to process an older hen, I'll be watching to see how your next one turns out. I've heard of hanging deer to age with the hide on, in colder climates. Likewise with wild geese. So why not a chicken?
Nice experiment, thanks very much for posting it!