Steve Bobitsky knows all about green meat.
As owner of Rocky Mountain Meats and a processor for nearly three decades, he has seen enough spoiled game to quite literally make him – not to mention the hunters who planned to eat it – sick.
Now, toward the end of bow season and with antelope, deer and elk yet to come in potentially warm weather, the Denver resident is speaking his piece.
“There are so many things a hunter can do in the field to make their meat better when they bring it to us,” Bobitsky said. “People expect miracles for something that just wasn’t taken care of.”
The larger problem lies in a failure to cool meat properly in the field and keep it that way in transit. Secondary woes come from exposure to dirt, pine needles, hair and stuff the veteran processor doesn’t want to mention.
“You never know until you open it up and look,” he said. “Sometimes one-fourth of an animal will be spoiled.”
Lewis Cullar, Bobitsky’s nephew and business partner and an avid elk hunter, offered his own checklist for making certain steaks reach the table at the peak of flavor. It all starts, he said, when you pull the trigger.
“The important thing is to immediately open the animal up. Take out all the internal organs and get the hide off as soon as possible,” Cullar said. “Split the pelvis, because that’s the thickest part of the animal. Clean out that area completely and don’t forget to remove the esophagus.”
When practical, Cullar likes to separate all four quarters from the carcass to assist in the cooling process. That often sets the stage for a second great failing, which Cullar blames on a lack of preparation.
“Plastic sheeting to keep the meat out of the dirt costs 99 cents,” he said. “It’s about the same for rope to lift it off the ground. It’s vital to get the meat off the ground.”
Cullar cautioned this same material can be the greatest enemy to the cooling process.
“Never wrap your meat in plastic,” he said. “That just traps the heat in and causes spoilage.”
Bobitsky offered advice on what may be the most critical part of the process: transporting the meat from field to home or a processing plant.
“People wrap their meat in plastic, lay it in the bed of a truck, pile all their gear and clothes on top and then wonder why it spoiled on the way home,” he said.
“Even worse, they store it in one of those little pull-along trailers. The meat collects road heat and exhaust fumes and smells like it just came off an Indy track.”
Bobitsky suggested keeping the meat on ice in an oversized cooler, taking care to drain off the water. “Stop for ice at the first store on the way back,” he said.
Allowing any game meat, including birds, to soak in water takes out most of the flavor, Bobitsky said. But that doesn’t mean water can’t be used to wipe away foreign particles, as long as the meat is then ventilated to dry.
The veteran meat handlers also weighed in on the age-old debate about hanging meat for the purpose of aging. In a nutshell, it works great for beef, which has a marbling of fat that breaks down into an acid that aids in tenderizing and flavor.
“Game animals don’t have that fat running through the meat,” Bobitsky said. “Some hunters tell me they’ve aged their meat 10 days and how tender it is. But the meat has turned black and the texture has changed. It’s not something I’d want to eat.”
Despite what you may have read about the old European practice of hanging pheasants or geese by the neck until the bird drops, you might want to give that a miss.
“Certainly it will be more tender, but that’s a matter of personal taste. Basically, it’s a rotting process,” Cullar said while making a face to dramatize his opinion.
The duo also addressed the touchy matter of the final weight yield from various animals, often a disappointment when a customer collects his meat.
“People think they have a thousand-
pound elk, but the biggest bulls usually weigh no more than 500 gutted out with the hide on,” Bobitsky said. “Cows average 250 to 300. The biggest cow we ever processed was 389 pounds.”
As a basic formula, a 100-pound animal weighs 78 pounds after field dressing, just 58 pounds hanging weight. A carcass that arrives covered with dirt and hair loses even more from trim.
The firm charges 80 cents per pound to deliver a vacuum-packed finished product, with an average cost per elk of about $200.
“People ask how they can get it done cheaper. I tell them to bring in only the quarters,” Bobitsky said. “We charge by the weight of what they bring in.”
Along with Steve’s Meat Market of Arvada, Rocky Mountain Meats participates in the Farmers and Hunters Feeding the Hungry program that provides game meat to local homeless as well as victims of Hurricane Katrina. Meat donations are processed with funds collected by FHFH.
Arrangements can be made at the plant, 1961 W. 64th Ave., phone 303-650-8250.
Listen to Charlie Meyers at 9 a.m. each Saturday on “The Fan Outdoors,” KKFN 950 AM. He can be reached at 303-820-1609 or cmeyers@denverpost.com.
