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Skinning deer

Hang for 30 days in very warm temps. Just joking when I do one I like to skin and quarter up immediately and put in a cooler full of ice. Then drain water from whatever melted and add ice. Do it for 3 days then get to business on dicing up meat cuts and packaging and straight to the freezer. I really like the outcome of quality of the meat doing it this way.
 
I have only ever hung one deer with the skin on and waited till the next day to skin it. It was WAYYYyy more difficult than pulling off warm skin, so now, no matter how late it is, I make sure to skin them that night. And 95% of the time I go ahead and quarter them and put quarters in my "meat" fridge for aging. Seems like its almost always too warm here to let em hang overnight.
 
BSK said:
Why is that Winchester? We've always let ours hang in the walk-in cooler skin on. But if off is better....
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We put ours in our cooler as well for 2 weeks skin on. I would think skin off would considerably dry and harden an inch or two of meat, but I'll be interested in what Winchester suggests.

The sooner you skin, the easier it is to come off. Don't take a buck to a processor and ask if they'll cape him out for a mount after he's been hanging in a cooler for 2 weeks. You'll get some mean looks from the skinner. Don't ask me how I know.

I'll tell you what, these coolers will be invaluable once CWD gets here and we are waiting on the deer's test results.
 
JCDEERMAN said:
I'll tell you what, these coolers will be invaluable once CWD gets here and we are waiting on the deer's test results.
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This is a great point.

We do a lot of auctioning as a way of getting cheaper building materials, etc. Every now and then I see a restaurant go under and they auction off their walk in coolers. They always go for so cheap cuz no one wants to move them.
 
philsanchez76 said:
This is a great point.

We do a lot of auctioning as a way of getting cheaper building materials, etc. Every now and then I see a restaurant go under and they auction off their walk in coolers. They always go for so cheap cuz no one wants to move them.
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What amazed me, when I was looking for a walk-in cooler, was how expensive some were. Kolpac, which manufactured coolers just down the road from me, wanted over $6,000 at the time. I found a company out of Miami, FL that built one to me specifications, and shipped it to my door for about $2,500. And that was with an extra-powerful compressor (1 HP instead of the standard 1/2 HP). The cooler had to be assembled, but it went together with ease.
 
BSK said:
What amazed me, when I was looking for a walk-in cooler, was how expensive some were. Kolpac, which manufactured coolers just down the road from me, wanted over $6,000 at the time. I found a company out of Miami, FL that built one to me specifications, and shipped it to my door for about $2,500. And that was with an extra-powerful compressor (1 HP instead of the standard 1/2 HP). The cooler had to be assembled, but it went together with ease.
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$2500 is not bad! you assemble it yourself?
 
We built one ourselves inside of a 14'x40' barn where we also have all of our processing set up as well. The kitchen side is still a work in progress but the cooler has been operational for 2 seasons. Best investment we could have made. We found insulated panels for $600 and bought the Cool Bot unit and a window a/c unit and we are rock and rolling. For scale, the cooler is 10x14 and has plenty of room for whatever we want to hang in there.

FYI, I have since had 2 buddies tell me they were able to get a walk in cooler for free due to so many restaurants closing shop bc of Covid.
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