Expert: Keith Patton - 10/16/2009

Question
a friend raises free range chickens , she would like to hang them, should she ? should she butcher them first or hang them just killed and including viscera, or should she age them in the fridge covered in a damp cloth? same questions re viscera ??

Answer

Traditionally fowl were hung with feathers and vicera intact.  This let the enzymes work on tenderizing the otherwise dry tough meat of game birds.  This was most common in N. Europe where the temps were cooler.  I would not hang a bird for any length of time in sultry climates.

Aging in the refrigerator after processing does not do a whole lot for poultry.  The meat goes through rigor and loosens up with time, but I don not think the finer flesh of domesticated fowl gets any better from aging.

If she feels that her free ranging chicken would benefit from hanging, then I wouldsimply wring their necks and hang them. for a day or two in a cool location where flys and other insects cannot get to them.  Evicerating the fowl only gives flys and other insects a place to enter and do nasty things to the meat.

Leave them intact.