Walk in deer cooler

[Howboutthemdawgs]

Anyone have one? I want one but I’m not sure how big of a pain or expensive it is. I have way too many deer and need to start stacking them up and it would make life easier.

 

[Turkey Creek]

Yep Google Cool Bot. We have run the Cool Bot system for probably 7 or 8 years now for our nursery stock and other uses throughout the majority of the warm months. If you INSULATE the heck out of a say a 8' x 8' size room you can run a 12K BTU window A/C unit and keep it under 40 degrees even during temps over 90 degrees. Cheaper to build and repair than a commercial walk in cooler.

 

[H20fwler]

One of my good friends has one, he uses it almost year round. Put it in twenty years ago. It’s maybe 10’X14’. In summer he uses it for sides of beef and hogs.
He probably runs his 7-8 months of the year.

He said best thing he ever did was add electric hoist for it on ceiling track.
Lots of our friends use it to hang deer in fall for a few days. He has a dry erase sign in board on door for guys to write their kill info on to keep the warden from getting excited.

Also have a good source for repair to get to it within 24 hours if something breaks on cooler motor/electronics at a bad time.

 

[Howboutthemdawgs]

Yep Google Cool Bot. We have run the Cool Bot system for probably 7 or 8 years now for our nursery stock and other uses throughout the majority of the warm months. If you INSULATE the heck out of a say a 8' x 8' size room you can run a 12K BTU window A/C unit and keep it under 40 degrees even during temps over 90 degrees. Cheaper to build and repair than a commercial walk in cooler.

My buddy has a cool bot system with a rail incorporated into it. It’s sweat but too rich for my blood. He had me looking at cool bots tonight. Starting at $5200 for prefab. Would probably see how difficult it would be to tackle myself

 

[yoderjac]

Anyone have one? I want one but I’m not sure how big of a pain or expensive it is. I have way too many deer and need to start stacking them up and it would make life easier.

I've been using reach-in coolers I bought from restaurants going out of business. The work well for me. I remove the shelves and put a bar across the top so I can use meat hooks. I quarter my deer and hang them inside. I can generally get 3 deer, may 4 if I squeeze, in. I don't let them hang for more than a week before I butcher and I rarely have more than 2 in a cooler at a time, even when I hang deer for friends.

The big issue is refrigerant. Since I only pay a couple hundred dollars for one, they are not worth fixing if they get a leak. Old refrigerant like R22 is very expensive and tough to find. That will be an issue with a traditionally cooled walk-in.

My neighbor just bought a walk-in at an auction for a couple hundred dollars and said I could use it anytime. I don't know if the cooling system is still in good shape or not, but the box is worth that. He said if the compressor is bad he will give the coolbot idea a try with it.

I just had one of my reach-in coolers die at camp. It is an old R-22 and won't hold a vacuum over night. I'm now using it for outdoor storage under my pavilion at camp. I converted another old box into a herbicide locker. I just put a small oil filled heater in it for winter and put the shelving back in on side. I have a 30 gal drum of gly in the other side with a pump. It keeps herbicides and paint and stuff like that from freezing in the winter.

Thanks,

Jack

 

[buckdeer1]

The cool bots work good and they can be made in fact on drury outdoors latest show they show the one they just made.I hunted with a guy in Wy that had one.basiclly a device that fake a window AC unit into getting colder

 

[b116757]

I had a three door commercial refrigerator that would hold a lot of food when my wife was fooling around with catering we sold it a few years ago when she gave up the catering hobby. We are missing the refrigerator space and I’m currently looking at picking up a two door commercial to replace our home owner series refrigerator. As long as you quarter the animal a two or three door commercial refrigerator should work well for most deer processing.

 

[Wind Gypsy]

My buddy designed his cabin/future retirement home in MT with a walk in cold storage in the basement that is insulated from the rest of the house. Best part about it is it doesn't need any refrigeration help to stay cool enough for most of hunting season.

 

[yoderjac]

The cool bots work good and they can be made in fact on drury outdoors latest show they show the one they just made.I hunted with a guy in Wy that had one.basiclly a device that fake a window AC unit into getting colder

Yep, they basically take over control of a window AC unit. I think the key is sizing the window unit to the cubic footage of the box. I'm considering one after ew build our retirement home. We will have an in-ground basement. I'm thinking that without the sun like you have on an outdoor unit plus the fact it is underground that I could probably get a way with a pretty inexpensive unit. As I recall from some research I did a few years back, there are certain AC units it works with and perhaps not with others. One would want to delve into that before buying the AC unit.

 

[buckdeer1]

The ones I have seen are a room built inside a building,wouldn't you have to quarter everything to get in basement

 

[yoderjac]

The ones I have seen are a room built inside a building,wouldn't you have to quarter everything to get in basement

You get more vertical space with a walk-in, but quartering is part of my butchering process, so it doesn't matter if I quarter before I hang or after.

 

[356]

I have a friend who is a mortician and has an old walk-in cooler...you get the idea. Based on the recommendation of a local butcher who serves high-end clients, he recommended aging the deer 14-28 days. Since he is an avid deer hunter and does this for his own venison, last year I aged my harvest 21 days. While I did get a little dry-aging waste, the meat was excellent, and likely the best venison I have enjoyed....not earth changing better, just tender and flavorful in a non-gamey way. I am hoping to use the same cooler this year, but will try 14 days to reduce waste. Since I have access to some smaller walk-in coolers, I am considering getting one myself. The cost of running 220 and moving the cooler will make the cost about the same as using a Cool Bot, so I will need to explore both options as well.

 

[Troubles Trees]

When I lived in Colorado, we used a corner of my friends garage and framed in the walls to make it 8'X12' inside. We used 2X6 walls so we could use R-19 like an exterior wall of a house, then used 2" foam board instead of sheetrock on the inside (used sheetrock on the outside of the interior walls). He bought a small window 10,000 BTU AC unit that performed ok, it maintained 40 degrees on an 80 degree day, 45 degrees on a 90 degree day. I found a really old and much larger BTU (I don't recall the exact size) AC window unit (R-22 refrigerant) and that pulled the space down to a solid 35degrees which made it perfect for the purpose.

I found a trolly system at a farm auction and installed it on a 10' I-beam so we can hang up to 5 deer, a little ambitious because we only had 4 hanging at one time. The trolly really only lets us slide the deer to one side to make more room in there. The trolly's were meant for farm stuff, it was really more than needed but for $100 I got all 5.

 

[yoderjac]

I have a friend who is a mortician and has an old walk-in cooler...you get the idea. Based on the recommendation of a local butcher who serves high-end clients, he recommended aging the deer 14-28 days. Since he is an avid deer hunter and does this for his own venison, last year I aged my harvest 21 days. While I did get a little dry-aging waste, the meat was excellent, and likely the best venison I have enjoyed....not earth changing better, just tender and flavorful in a non-gamey way. I am hoping to use the same cooler this year, but will try 14 days to reduce waste. Since I have access to some smaller walk-in coolers, I am considering getting one myself. The cost of running 220 and moving the cooler will make the cost about the same as using a Cool Bot, so I will need to explore both options as well.

I find aging is related to the age and size of the deer. His recommendation may be right for larger bucks up north. The purpose of aging is to keep the meat cool enough that bacterial action is retarded while allowing enzymes to break down muscle tissue tenderizing the meat. In my area, deer are small enough that anything under 1 1/2 years doesn't really require aging. If I hang a young deer for more than a week, the muscle is so broken down that it becomes mushy. It seems older and larger deer benefit more from aging. In our area, even a good buck doesn't go too much over 160 lbs. I generally won't age more than 2 weeks.

For most of the does I shoot, hanging in a cooler is more about retarding bacterial action until it is convenient for me to butcher rather than aging for tenderizing.

Seems like even processing technique may depend on location...

 

[birdog]

Coolbots work very well. If you decide to go that route pay very close attention to how you build the cooler. The most important thing to remember is your vapor barrier goes on the outside of the wall and not on the interior like on a house. Even better is vapor barrier on the outside, taped and then spray foam for the insulation. A friend of mine built his and used vapor barrier on the inside. The cool air on the inside sucked warmer moist air from the outside into the walls which caused a lot of mold in his insulation which eventually started showing up on the inside. Tape all of your seams!

 

[Super55]

Last year I bought a used 8x12 walk in cooler for a grand and put a cool-bot cooling system in it. It works good but I will plan on adding extra insulation on it. It holds temp at about 38 degrees. I can plug it in and have the thing down to needed temp in about an hour. Overall it has been a good investment because I use when I butcher my pigs and cattle too.

 

[Telemark]

This is something I have a lot of experience with from hunting in Europe. The vast majority of hunters I know have access to a cold room, and those who don't have such access manage to judge the aging process with a "tenderizing gadget" or with simple math.

The common practice here is to age deer for 40 "day degrees". Everything here is in Celsius, so that's how I will explain it. The day degrees are figured by multiplying the average temperature by the number of days. A deer hanging in a room that is 10 degrees Celsius should hang for about 4 days. If the room is 5 degrees, the deer should hang about 8 days. And so on. Lower temperatures and longer aging times are said to give superior results.

As for the cold rooms, they are simple insulated rooms build anywhere it's convenient to have one, and cooled with what seems to be either an air conditioning unit or a heat pump. The few people I know with a cold room in their house use the warm air blown off the heat pump to heat a greenhouse or basement.

The construction of the cold rooms is simple 2x4 framing with waterproof bathroom paneling on the inside. The rooms are nearly airtight. The flooring is usually either vinyl or epoxy. A drain doesn't seem to be necessary, but it helps to have something that tolerates water so you can clean up inevitable blood/mud from the floor.

Another thing to consider is humidity. Even at low temperatures, mold can form on the meat if humidity is high. I haven't seen a pattern with this. Some places need it, and some don't.

In my opinion, a cold room is an excellent addition to any hunting camp or hunting family's house. It makes the process easier and dramatically improves the results of the harvest.

 

[Howboutthemdawgs]

This is something I have a lot of experience with from hunting in Europe. The vast majority of hunters I know have access to a cold room, and those who don't have such access manage to judge the aging process with a "tenderizing gadget" or with simple math.

The common practice here is to age deer for 40 "day degrees". Everything here is in Celsius, so that's how I will explain it. The day degrees are figured by multiplying the average temperature by the number of days. A deer hanging in a room that is 10 degrees Celsius should hang for about 4 days. If the room is 5 degrees, the deer should hang about 8 days. And so on. Lower temperatures and longer aging times are said to give superior results.

As for the cold rooms, they are simple insulated rooms build anywhere it's convenient to have one, and cooled with what seems to be either an air conditioning unit or a heat pump. The few people I know with a cold room in their house use the warm air blown off the heat pump to heat a greenhouse or basement.

The construction of the cold rooms is simple 2x4 framing with waterproof bathroom paneling on the inside. The rooms are nearly airtight. The flooring is usually either vinyl or epoxy. A drain doesn't seem to be necessary, but it helps to have something that tolerates water so you can clean up inevitable blood/mud from the floor.

Another thing to consider is humidity. Even at low temperatures, mold can form on the meat if humidity is high. I haven't seen a pattern with this. Some places need it, and some don't.

In my opinion, a cold room is an excellent addition to any hunting camp or hunting family's house. It makes the process easier and dramatically improves the results of the harvest.

Good info. So how is humidity controlled?

 

[Telemark]

Good info. So how is humidity controlled?

A few of them simply use a dehumidifier that runs constantly with a hose out the bottom of the collection bin.

The ones who take it all a bit more seriously have an Inkbird that controls humidity and temperature through sensors hung in the middle of the room. These people also do charcuterie in the same room and generally produce amazing results with everything they do. It's something I intend to get more deeply involved in soon. I've seen people turn a mediocre cut of meat into a masterpiece just by curing and aging it.

 

[Catscratch]

A few of them simply use a dehumidifier that runs constantly with a hose out the bottom of the collection bin.

The ones who take it all a bit more seriously have an Inkbird that controls humidity and temperature through sensors hung in the middle of the room. These people also do charcuterie in the same room and generally produce amazing results with everything they do. It's something I intend to get more deeply involved in soon. I've seen people turn a mediocre cut of meat into a masterpiece just by curing and aging it.

I had to look up "charcuterie" to know what you were talking about. Great info on this thread, makes me want to build one of these things.