doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com How long can you freeze a spruce grouse?

Mildly OT here but...today is preparatory for a "Grind Party" this coming weekend with some fellow elk hunters. My freezer(s) are overflowing with delayed projects (delayed by broken ankles and an ongoing bad attitude). The ankle is healed now and my attitude has improved significantly in the past year (it had to as we have no freezer space left anywhere).

I dragged the monster Husqvarna snowblower out of the garage (just rebuilt the carb and starter on this thing, hope to get to use it someday this winter?) and lined up two 60 quart maritime freezers to receive the disgorged contents of the primary upright. Upon first entry into the "bird" section I'm discovering several species I had completely forgotten about, primarily being several several spruce grouse (newer and older) but also quail, pheasants, ducks, & some very old Canada geese breasts. There were even some shrink-wrapped salmon filets that my brother-in-law had laid-upon us over a decade ago now. Lordy! (and I'm not even including the walleye & sauger filets, thankfully most of those are current). Yet another example of a 1st world problem, right?

The primary mission here is the elk and deer grind that has gone unprocessed for 2-3 years now. Ninety percent of it is in freezer zip locks with no air exposure so... the venison should be just fine, what has me questioning the use of it are these older gamebirds and then the salmon...just what is the point of no return?

Historically, my bride and I make a Kentucky Burgoo (from Hank Shaw's Buck, Buck, Moose) in a big gumbo pot that is remarkably forgiving (& darn tasty!) but...I'll be giving everything the "sniff test" first (even the quail).

I can't say about Spruce Grouse, never seen one. But, I CAN say that it is my opinion that how gamebirds are frozen has more to do with how long they last, than anything else I know of. If you vacuum pack them, or freeze them submerged in water, as I do, I've eaten birds three years old and they were great.

Kroger tells you 2 years. I had a Kroger butcher friend tell me that the steaks that are packaged on the shelf are packaged to be frozen for as long as two years in those packages. I have had them frozen that long without any problems many times over the years. I have always learned that poultry lasts longer if it isn't cut in smaller pieces and kept whole. After two years meat tends to lose it's flavor from fresh meat. Even if you don't notice it. I keep frozen fish, beef and poultry for two years all the time. After that- I get it cooked. But I normally cook it before it gets that old. Usually in a few months.

Lloyd,
As brother Stan has pointed out, the ziplock full of water with a bird in the middle will be good to eat for a long time. The deep freeze is your friend, the frost free freezer, not so much.

Best,
Ted

The majority of my birds are encased in ice and Stan is so-right, even after many years in the deep freeze most are just fine.. Some of these birds were gifted however so...only shrink wrapped

Jimmy, Kroger would say that.

This is getting harder for me to do. Not so much the hunting or the prep, it's the IT portion. I finally had to go with a new phone and between it, my old laptop and and Imager...this is quite the exercise now.

Waiting on the rest of the picture to transfer from my phone. There also seems to be something going on between my two email providers (Gmail and Yahoo).

10 years? Good God, you have me temped to go digging in a glacier for a Mastadon ribeye!

Finally...it was the long way around the barn but I got it to work. Jeesh!

Winter has finally arrived here so a day prepping meat and then grinding is a good way to spend it. My helpers this year at work (I was mostly the trim and wrapping guy). We made venison (elk & deer) burger, italian sausage and summer sausage. Our freezer is now much more orderly.

Marks21: Many year ago I read about a big dinner at a very fancy restaurant in New York City where the member of "The Explorers Club" dined on mastodon and other exotics that they had secured from a glacier somewhere. Don't know the particulars now about all of that but the story had been reported in some credible source at that time (back when credibility in the media mattered, 1970s maybe?).

Edit to add: For dinner that night we dined on American Wagyu ribeyes (Costco has some leftover from the holidays). A bit pricy still but the absolutely cheapest way to do it. They were still pretty good (I'd been sampling burger patties made from our grind all day and wasn't very hungry, but both my wife and the other helper said they were absolutely great).

The biggest enemy of frozen meet is freezer burn (especially if your freezer is "frost free" which most women insist on), fortunately it is easy to identify and trim off. Trimming freezer burned ground meat might not be so easy, I just toss it, especially sausage. Vacuum packing is a real blessing, both for ease of prep and length of storage. Pressure canning saves freezer space and avoids the greatest cause of freezer burn; the "I didn't have time to thaw it" problem.
Mike