Preserving meat without freezing

[Sitting Coyote]

I'm a hunter.  The nice part about being a hunter is I get a lot of low-cost, very high quality meat in the fall, assuming I'm on my game.  As I learn more about (through reading and experience) the benefits of eating my meat and fat raw, I'm drawn to finding ways to preserve it that maintain as much nutritional content as possible--or ideally enhance nutritional content.  Hunters typically preserve their meat by freezing, and I did this last fall.  I've read, though, that freezing reduces the nutritional value of meat by degrading enzymes and vitamins. I've also read (in AV's We Want To Live that drying also reduces nutritional content.  So I wonder, what other options are there for preserving large quantities of meat that don't involve drying or freezing?

Recipes would be great!

[Hans89]

One way that could be preferable over simple drying could be making sausage. Just grind / chop the meat and fill it into the bowels. A lot of work but it might reduce oxidation / nutrient loss somewhat. I've made sausages that way, and they are quite good. You'd want to get a meat grinder for that that has a funnel for making sausage if you want to make any quantities. Grind the meat first, then put it through the grinder again, this time using the sausage funnel on which you've wrapped a piece of bowel, tied at the end. You can see how it's done here (of course I didn't use all those other ingredients, just plain meat):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKSSQc_c74I&playnext_from=TL&videos=uoOx2HtMXxo

[Sitting Coyote]

How does making sausage preserve the meat?

[Hans89]

To preserve the sausages, you have to hang them up and dry them, of course. So it's drying (again) but maybe the fact that the meat is inside the bowels may make a difference... I don't know about this, but it's the only somewhat different way of preservation I could think of. I could imagine that it was popular way back, as it keeps the flies away from your meat and therefore makes drying a lot easier.

[michaelwh]

Another method is to submerge the raw meat into raw milk, or raw whey. But this isn't paleo. I tried this once, and didn't really like the taste.

[PaleoPhil]

Traditional sausage is meat fermented/air dried within intestines, it was usually smoked and salted, though salting was a later addition.

The Chukchi ferment their kopal'gyn (walrus or seal meat/fat) within walrus or seal skins without adding salt. They likely ferment whale meat/fat too, like the Inuit/Eskimos.

[Sitting Coyote]

How do they ferment it?  Just wrap it in the skin and let it sit there?

[PaleoPhil]

In the documentary I saw, I believe it said that the Chukchi buried the walrus meat/fat that had been sealed in walrus skin in a hole and covered it with rocks.

I've seen photos of stomachs filled with fermenting cod livers hanging from tree branches at the WAPF site. I've seen a documentary of Inuit hunters of today burying part of a caribou carcass in a hole under rocks.

Note: much of Chukchi and Inuit land is cold year-round, with permafrost.

The rocks seem to be mainly so other animals won't take the fermenting meats.