How long does everyone's meat typically last? We try to have it gone within 1-1.5 years but sometimes it lasts a bit longer depending on the size of deer I shoot. I hear if frozen properly it can last mutliple years except it will start to lose some of its quality after a year and only really goes bad if it gets freezer burn. I know vacuum sealing is better but I just use freezer paper and just pulled out some round steaks from last years kill and it looked/tasted perfectly fine - no freezer burn. So what do you do??
As long as it's not freezer burnt, we'll eat it. I've found stuff more than two years old that was still edible. (I ground it into burger) My non-frost-free freezers keep food much longer than the frostless freezers. Frostless freezers can burn your food in couple of weeks if it's not packaged good.
The only thing I have that's getting kind of old is the burger, I've never tried it so don't know exact details but I've heard of people kind of soaking the meat in milk to remove freezer taste if it's been in there for awhile. But like I said I don't know since never tried it.
Agree on the freezer burn rule. I have pulled deer and elk out of the deep freeze that are two and sometimes even 3 years old. The meat will not go bad, it is all in how you package it. I vacuum seal all my meat, and then also package it inside zip lock freezer bags. This gives it a double layer of protection to ward off freezer burn. Also, if you have meat that is freezer burnt just slightly...sometimes you can just cut the outside later off and the underlying meat is fine. Worst case scenario, if I find some meat that has went too long in the freezer, I will cut the outside portion off, grind it up and make jerky or sausage out of the meat.
I wrap mine in Reynolds freezer paper, double fold the edges and tape it down and don't recall ever having any freezer burn issues.
Never been able to test mine as it usually gone by the end of the next season. I wrap mine in shrink wrap then in heavy duty freezer paper. I would give I've 2-3 years comfortably. Sent from my ADR6350 using Tapatalk 2