questions about glands in chicken and freezer baging em.

[nifftiness]

Hi. I recently had 21 meaties and i took them for proccessing yesterday. The people that did it were amazingly fast. Done in 25 min if that. I was supprised on how much gunk was still inside them though when i got home that i was able to scrap out with a spoon. But im kinda picky about that. The neck and part of the chicken the glands are in were still on the bird also. I had read that you need to take the glads off or it gives the meat a weird tast.
Do you cut the chicken glands off? Or leave them?

My other question is, After i freezer bag them can i still leave the chickens in the fridge for 1-2 days for the meat to "relax" or will it deffeat the purpose if i freezer bag them first? And when you freezer bag them do you freeze them first then bag them or bag them first? I freezer baged some and the juices were being sucked out so it made me question if i should have frozen them.

Any advice would be great

 

[Dogfish]

I remove the tail, which has an oil gland in it. Other than that, I don't search for other glands.

Bagging the chicken, then letting them rest 24-48 hours is fine. The bags will have a hard time comforming to the bird if you freeze them first, and there will still be plenty of moisture in your bird after sealing them.

As far as cleaning the interior of the carcass is concerned, once the entrails are removed (digestive tract) you should be good. An ovary, testicle, liver or a lung will not cause an issue if you freeze the bird within 24-48 hours and thaw it in the same time period before cooking. Clean as much as you want though. They are your birds.

 

[nifftiness]

Thanks so much for the reply, I wondered if i needed to go through and reclean the inside or if i was waisting time. Sounds like waisting time, lol. Ill stick to cutting the pope's nose" or tail off. And bagging thawed. Thanks again, funny how much you can second guess yourself on the first time.

 

[Dogfish]

You won't hurt anything cleaning them.

 

[mstricer]

Where to you find food saver bags big enough to put a 8 lber in?

 

[terri9630]

Quote:
I didn't. I had to part out all my birds.

 

[Dogfish]

Use the rolls and make your own bag. I recently ordered shrink bags from Cornerstone Farms (Thanks Jeff, or whoever else posted a link) and will use those in 5 weeks when it is time to butcher. Looks simple enough, and they will be cheaper as well.

 

[Renee']

I was disappointed with the performance of my Food Saver machine and disgusted with the price of the bags. After burning up two Food Savers (yes I used them a lot) I tried the Ziplock hand vacuum bag system and I absolutely love it. I have only used the quart bags for bacon, pork, and beef. I think a chicken would fit quite well in the gallon bags. Has anyone tried the gallon size Ziplock bags for their full sized birds? If yes, may I have some feed back?

 

[mstricer]

I haven't been able to find any that are big enough. Even with the rolls the largest is 11 inches and trying to stuff a 8 lb CX in it was impossible. Even large poultry bags were small and I couldn't vacuum seal him.

 

[nifftiness]

My chickens only weighed about 4 pounds, so I had plenty of space in the 11 in bags. Mabe ask at your local meat store for the larger ones. They might be able to sell you a roll of their bags or tell you where to buy them?