Howboutthemdawgs
5 year old buck +
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.
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 myselfYep 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.
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.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.
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
The ones I have seen are a room built inside a building,wouldn't you have to quarter everything to get in basement
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.
Good info. So how is humidity controlled?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?
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.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.