Aging early season game

[idcuda]

Has anyone tried converting an upright freezer into a refrigerator to be used for hanging quarters?  I've seen controllers that will help maintain the converted freezers at about 35 degrees.  A lot of home brewers use them, as well as folks converting the upright freezers for kegs.

I need a way to properly age my deer/elk.  Any other good early-season methods for when hanging in the garage won't work?

 

[uphill]

I killed one in early September and stopped by Old Man River's butcher shop.  I was going to pay a freezer fee to age it.  After talking to this old guy I think he was like 85 he said you don't need to age it.  His response and I quote "they never did back in the good ole days"  .  I usually hang it one day in a cooled down garage and cut it up the next day. 

 

[bowhunter]

I have never aged my animals after I kill them.  I just hang one day and get it to the butcher or start cutting.

 

[idcuda]

I get that, but it's not an opinion - aging meat works.  It's science  ;D

 

[NJDiverDan]

I built my own walk in cooler last year.  I use a cool-bot controller and a 12k btu ac unit.  My cooler is 6w x 8l x 10h.  Just a well insulated box.  It will maintain 37 F. easily with the AC only running 5-10 minutes per hour. 

Having the walk in is for just as much convenience for me as it is to age meat.  This way I do not have to hurry to get something butchered, I can do a little bit each night after work.

Last year was the first season in use and here is what was hung (not all my kills)

2 bull elk
2 cow elk
2 antelope
1 moose
1 mulie

Nice thing when buddies hang there animals or if I help them butcher is that they normally give me some meat in exchange... works out well for me.

 

[MT_mulies]

I've never aged anything. I always try to just cut it up so I don't have to worry about it for days. But I am planning to build a little shed or something and put an AC unit in it like NJDiverDan said. I already have a shed I will just need to put some insulation in there and make a contraption to hand the critter with.

 

[ribo451]

My Dad and I just built a walk in cooler as well with the cool bot. We haven't hung anything in it yet but we turned it on and it got down to as low as 32 degrees. Usually stays around 34-35 as long as you keep the door closed. It tells you how cold it is but we put a fridge thermometer in it as well as a remote weather station that you can monitor from in the house just to check the accuracy of the thermometer and they all read the same so I am pretty confident in the coolbots temperature readings. I will post another thread about our build of it for anyone else who may be interested to look at.