quick question on bleeding out and I cannot find the answer

[HeatherLynn]

How long do you let the chicken bleed out? My husband cuts the entire head off but I assume we are supposed to let them bleed out for a while. I cannot find this and i swear i read somewhere you were supposed to or the meat was rubbery.

 

[Jeeper1540]

*bump*

 

[Sunny Side Up]

This is just my $.02, maybe some individual or some entity like your County Extension or the USDA has done more exacting studies. I just simply let them hang and bleed until the blood stops dripping out. I slit the throats, which is supposed to keep the heart beating reflexively and forces more of the blood out.

I've butchered chickens at a friend's house who wrings the necks, then stuffs them in a cone and chops off their heads. It seems that the birds he does that way have more blood oozing out on the cleaning table than the ones I do by slitting. The meat also seems pinker/redder on his birds than mine.

You can experiment, let them hang for a certain amount of time, or until they stop dripping, and then see how they look when you get them on the cleaning table. If there still seems to be more blood oozing there, try hanging them for longer.

I don't know about retained blood making the meat rubbery, I don't think that is a factor unless perhaps you didn't bleed them out at all. I think that the retained blood has more to do with appearance (blood-filled veins in the meat) and spoilage factors (more blood makes the meat spoil a bit faster).

 

[Steve_of_sandspoultry]

We chop the heads off and just wait until the blood stops flowing.

Steve

 

[HeatherLynn]

Ok, cool beans. My hubby had me help today. My brother just does it till they stop dripping too which is what he did but I thought I heard someone say they had to bleed out longer than that or the meat got rubbery. When we went to skinning, cleaning and quartering them there was actually very little blood amazingly enough. Thanks for confirming. We have several more to do but I would not let him finish till I knew for sure.

 

[Dogfish]

Usually about 2 minutes for us when we were doing our last batch. It starts out at a good flow, then settles down to drips at a minute. Bird is fully dead at 120 seconds. They usually flap a bit around 90 seconds, so a cone is advisable.

 

[ChIck3n]

Yep, just go until it is just a slow drip. I've never had rubbery meat from not letting them hang longer. I mean, if the blood has all come out, bleeding the chicken longer won't help much.

All the chicken you buy in the stores are flying through those processing plants at a pretty decent speed, and they never have a problem with rubbery meat.

 

[Sunny Side Up]

I think the rubbery texture is more a result of not letting the meat rest long enough, or from cooking the meat too fast, too dry, or at too high a temp.

 

[rungirl]

I don't think the rubbery chicken meat comes from the bleeding either. The first time we butchered we ate one of the freshly killed birds for dinner that night and it seemed rubbery, kind of tough. The rest of the birds sat in the refrigerator for a few days and I noticed they were tender when they were cooked. So from then on, I always let the birds "rest" in the fridge for a couple days before I freeze them. It seems to make a difference.

 

[Sir Birdaholic]

Quote:

My DW's favorite saying......"COOL BEANS!"