You'll get the hang of it

Hanging a carcass adds flavour to the meat, but how long you leave it for will depend on a number of factors, says Graham Downing

- Graham Downing

Pretty much all of us who stalk deer will, at some time, want to enjoy the venison we have harvested from the hill, the fields or the woods. Even those who manage large estates, who shoot prodigious numbers of deer and take most of their venison to the gamedealer will from time to time want to process a carcass for their own use. But there’s a great deal to be considered between the time that your freshly shot carcass is extracted from the wood and the time that those juicy, succulent steaks, fillets or haunches are delivered to the kitchen, let alone plated and brought to the table.

Much of the success in producing tasty venison depends on how long and how well the carcass is matured, and that in turn depends on a host of other factors including the age and species of the animal along with the ambient temperature and the facilities that the stalker has at his disposal for hanging and preparing the carcass.

Wild venison is very different to beef or lamb, for only when it arrives in the larder can its age and condition can be properly assessed. When a livestock farmer selects beasts for slaughter, he knows exactly how old they are — often down to the day — along with their precise liveweight. He knows how they have been fed, along with their condition score. Males will usually have been castrated shortly after birth so there will be no strong taint to the meat, as can be the case with a buck or stag during the rut. Sheep or beef carcasses hanging in a wholesale butcher’s cold store are completely uniform.

Range of ages