Does it matter how they die.

moellermd

moellermd

Super Moderator
I have noticed sometimes pheasant meat will be really tender and sometimes tough using the same cooking technique. Is this a product of how quickly they died or how they bled out.
 
There's a pretty good difference in young and old birds just as in deer. You might try writing long spur of yearling on your packages and see if the trend fits. If it does, you may choose to use one cooking method with the young birds and one with the old.
 
Prairie Drifter said:
There's a pretty good difference in young and old birds just as in deer. You might try writing long spur of yearling on your packages and see if the trend fits. If it does, you may choose to use one cooking method with the young birds and one with the old.
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+1 PD has hit on the very thing I've been wondering about for a long time. I know with sage grouse you always shoot the small/young birds if you want to eat them. I don't see any reason to think Pheasants are any different.:thumbsup:
 
Maybe some are being cooked while still in some stage of rigamortis? If so they will be tougher and I also agree with the age thing as well.

Never cook a bird the day hevwas shot.
 
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I believe rigor mortis is the culprit. Either clean them immediately after shooting them or wait a day until rigor mortis is over.
 
From University of Georgia

http://athenaeum.libs.uga.edu/bitst...B1157.htm?sequence=1#II. Texture (Tenderness)

It would appear that both method of death and some aging helps.


After consumers buy a poultry product, they relate the quality of that product to its texture and flavor when they are eating it. Whether or not poultry meat is tender depends upon the rate and extent of the chemical and physical changes occurring in the muscle as it becomes meat. When an animal dies, blood stops circulating, and there is no new supply of oxygen or nutrients to the muscles. Without oxygen and nutrients, muscles run out of energy, and they contract and become stiff. This stiffening is called rigor mortis. Eventually, muscles become soft again, which means that they are tender when cooked.

Anything that interferes with the formation of rigor mortis, or the softening process that follows it, will affect meat tenderness. For example, birds that struggle before or during slaughter cause their muscles to run out of energy quicker, and rigor mortis forms much faster than normal. The texture of these muscles tends to be tough because energy was reduced in the live bird. A similar pattern occurs when birds are exposed to environmental stress (hot or cold temperatures) before slaughter. High pre-slaughter stunning, high scalding temperatures, longer scalding times and machine picking can also cause poultry meat to be tough.

Tenderness of portioned or boneless cuts of poultry is influenced by the time post-mortem of the deboning. Muscles that are deboned during early postmortem still have energy available for contraction. When these muscles are removed from the carcass, they contract and become tough. To avoid this toughening, meat is usually "aged" for 6 to 24 hours before deboning; however, this is costly for the processor. When poultry is deboned early (0 to 2 hours post-mortem), 50 to 80 percent of the meat will be tough (Figure 2). On the other hand, if the processor waits 6 hours before deboning, 70 to 80 percent of the poultry meat will be tender (Figure 2). The poultry industry has recently started using post-slaughter electrical stimulation immediately after death to hasten rigor development of carcasses and reduce "aging" time before deboning. This is different from energy depletion in the live bird which causes meat to be tough.
 
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This is the first year I've aged my birds. They go whole into the beer refrigerator in the garage for 2 - 4 days before I clean them. I've noticed a very positive difference in tenderness and what I consider true pheasant flavor. Haven't had any yet that were nasty or even questionable. I guess I look at the whole aging thing like this: a chicken sent through a Tyson plant probably doesn't get taken care of real well to begin with, then it gets cut up and packaged and shipped half way across the country to a grocery store where it's tossed into the counter until its purchased. For me to put a rooster in the refrigerator for a few daw after I harvest it before I clean it isn't a concern t me at all.

Took over some fresh breasts from birds I got on thanksgiving morning over to the neighbors house for a little Monday night cookout last night. Put them in Italian dressing for 1/2 hour before grilling then on a bun with lettuce, mayo, and tomato. They were fantastic!
 
i like to age the birds a few days also... i field dress the birds ASAP & put them in a cool dark area aka a cooler 1-3 days make sure they are dressed & washed good is major in my book...

& like stated above if i dont over cook them its they are great all same tenderness... i shot 2-3 young young birds this season & i could see in the overall size of the birds the color & the tenderness of the meat a major difference from the older birds but that is to be expected...

i seen a few times when out hunting at parking areas wear guys clean the birds many times just after they were shot "not legal sometimes like all wings head feet left ETC." any way maybe if people clean & freeze the birds really fast after they were harvested the meat may be tough when un thawed & cooked???
just a guess??? like said above dont want to cook the bird to fast after harvest & or in rigor...
 
I've noticed when marinating pheasants for a couple days, they become very tender regardless of age or means-of-death. I suppose this is a similar method to aging wild game:cheers:


Nick
 
You can take the fattest and tenderest looking fawn, cut off a fresh backstrap, cool it down and fry it up. Tough as jerky. :eek:
The same fawn hanging without freezing or getting above say 50 degrees in the shade for a week ten days will be fork cutting tender.

A old pre rut buck taken care of the same way, will most of the time be as good as the fawn.

I usually clean my pheasants the next day, if it's cool out. I like the frosty nights. Cleaned up good and put in the cooler. If it's warm I add ice. Most of the time I just leave the cooler open outside and the birds will have a frozen crust by morning.
You can get by with eating a young rooster shot the same day and cooled down, fried up. Same with Sharptails and Sage Grouse.
The old birds, aging sure helps. :thumbsup:
 
I have always cleaned and frozen my birds as soon as I get home or to the place I'm staying. Never let them age like some have said. I personally don't see that it makes any difference in the tenderness. Nor does the method in which they died. I believe that the age of the bird has more to do with it than anything else. But that's just my opinion.
 
I never butcher a deer soon after shooting it. If possible, I'll let birds sit overnight, as long as it cool enough out. Aged meat is much better than freshly killed and processed. Hands down. No argument, as far as my personal experience tells me. I believe experience is often the best teacher and I've had it both ways.

The worst venison I've ever eaten was from a deer my brothers butchered while still warm. The following year they did the same thing and I refused any of the meat. Later that winter one of them brought venison steaks up to an ice fishing weekend. Gamiest, smelliest stuff I've ever been around. It stunk while it was cooking. I didn't eat much of that, either. They think I'm crazy, but I know what I know.

We stopped buying chicken at our local grocery store because it's always tough. In the big slaughter houses they gut, pluck the birds, then they're dumped into a vat of cold water. They soak in that blood, etc., filled bath before packaging. You know the pad that's in the grocers package is soaked with that stuff. I go to a local butcher who gets chicken that's aged hanging after gutting and plucking. A huge difference in the quality of the eating!
 
My experience has always been to clean my birds after the hunt but to soak them overnight in salt water before freezing them the next day. I've never noticed old vs. young or tough vs. tender.

It's almost like using a brine for grilling/smoking poultry. And I cook pheasant in a variety of ways from grilling, frying or even baking. I make one recipe which my family demands around Christmas provided I have birds in the freezer, and no one has ever said anything about toughness.
 
It's not possible for me to age the pheasants I shoot for the most part. I've cooked aged and birds that were alive an hour earlier and the ways I cook them the difference isn't enough to matter.
 
With any animal, it is best to clean and cool down as soon as possible. Then you can freeze it and when I pull mine out to cook I will let them sit unfrozen with or without a marinade for a minimum of 3 days before cooking. I do like hanging my 4 legged friends for as much as 10 days in 40 degree temps before cutting up or having processed. Age will have an effect, but letting them sit for a few days in the fridge or marinade helps.
 
When you guys say you age the bird by hanging....do you take the entrails out first, or just leave that stuff in? I have always felt weird about leaving the guts in things I kill for long periods of time, so I usually clean as soon as possible. Always up for new ideas.

Sort of off topic, but not really.....anybody smoke their birds?
 
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