Expert: Keith Patton - 4/2/2008

Question
My husband just shot his first deer in February. The meat came home from the processor and I was dismayed to find that the hamburger meat has an unbelievable odor of raw sewage. The stench could almost knock one down when the package is first opened!! then it smells while cooking. My fridge stinks too!! I have to double Ziploc bag it when i am thawing it....My dad hunted all my life and I don't remember ever having this odor in my home as a child. My mom wonders if the meat is bad or if they gutted it improperly. A friend of his who is an EXPERIENCED and accomplished hunter was the one who gutted it... any thoughts?? thank you

Answer
Paige:

Did you have the processor add beef suet to the meat?  They usually do.  Ask yourself where the suet came from.  I have seen processors save the suet up in boxes on the cooler floor for months prior to deer season.  Fat oxidizes and when bad or old beef fat is added to good venison it turns it to s***t.  I had the same thing happen to the ground venison I shot one year.  I could not stand to cook it it smelled so bad.  I never took another carcass to the processor again, I started doing them my self.

If the phenomena is limited to the ground meat, you have your culprit.
If other cuts exhibit the same smell,the meat probably spoiled while at the processor.

Just because they are in business doesn't mean they do things right.  I cut chicken at a plant in high school, and you don't want to know what goes on in a meat processing plant or what the conditions are.

Keith