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As a hunter, I have a lot of meat going into the freezer all at once, and it's really important to me that it stays fresh for as long as possible and will last all year until the following hunting season. These tips will help you keep your meat as fresh as possible.
Portion Your Meat
The first tip occurs while you're butchering, and that is to portion your meat, divide your cuts into meal sized portions to make it easier to thaw and prepare later. This is really customizable to your particular family and how you like to eat your meat. In my case, it's just my husband and I most of the time, so I like to keep my portion sizes very small. Sometimes I'll even package in single serving sizes because it's always easier for me to grab extra packages out of the freezer than it is to deal with a bunch of thawed meat that I'm not ready to eat.
Seal Your Meat
The second tip takes place while you're packaging your meat. Air is the enemy when it comes to freezer burn, so it is absolutely imperative that you limit the amount of air exposure to your meat while it's in the freezer. Now, there are a few options for sealing your meat:
Option number one is to use plastic wrap and freezer paper. You'll wrap the meat super tight in plastic wrap, and then super tight in the freezer paper with the waxy side towards the meat.
Option number two, and my preferred method is vacuum sealing. There are a few different types of vacuum sealers on the market, including suction vacuum sealers, which pull all of the air out of the bag, and chamber vacuum sealers, which will create a vacuum within a chamber that then forces the air out.
Both types of vacuum sealers will keep your meat fresher for longer because they do the best job of keeping air exposure to a minimum.
Label Your Meat
The third and final tip is to label the packages. It gets really confusing when you have a lot of meat in the freezer from a lot of different hunts, and even if it feels like you'll know what's what while you're packaging, I can promise you there will be a lot of disappointment if you pull a package out thinking it's backstrap when it's really a roast.
--Outdoors Allie
