How long do you store meat?

[Hannah]

I know that good fresh meat smells good and tasts good (so I hear. I have only eaten raw fish and eggs so far) but our butcher is the next town over so I would have to stock up and either freeze it or let it sit in the fridge. But it scares me to leave meat i'm going to eat raw out for more than a day or two. Would vacuum sealing help?

[TylerDurden]

I used to by some of my meats already fully vacuum-packed and leave them in the fridge. I did not like them to be thus unexposed to the air for too long, so I always made sure to eat those within 10 days max, usually much less.

As a newbie to RVAF diets, I too got at first appalled at the thought of eating raw meats that were more than 2 or 3 days after sale, but one  gets used to leaving them out for longer periods, over time, as one gets forgetful and leaves them in for longer in the fridge without realising etc.

[laterade]

The meat I am eating tonight was bought about a week and a half ago.... nice and slimy.
Fresh is good too   

[sabertooth]

I have been making counter top jerky with my deer meat. Its the winter time and with the fernace going the air is fairly dry, and any meat I leave out on the counter will get dry and crusty, I love the soft chewiness of deer that's been left out for days.

My beef cases would take me a while to go through, so I would leave about 15 pounds in the fridge and freeze the rest. It came in vacuumed packed 25 pound pieces and if I didn't eat it within 10 days or so after opening, it  seemed to get a sourness that isn't to my liking. It was different from a properly aged taste, maybee because I kept in in the plastic bag it came in so it sat in a soggy sack and wasn't aired right.

One day I would like to be able to hang it in a meat locker so it could age things properly.

[miles]

Well I'm keeping my meat in/on open-top metal baking trays/tins in the fridge. I've kept it for weeks and it's been fine, I just turned it over each day so the same bit wasn't faced down. I don't leave it to get old on purpose, and it doesn't go slimy or bad smelling, it just gets a bit darker and drier, and maybe a bit crispy on the edges the longer it's left. I've not eaten any foul smelling or tasting meat. In a good vacuum pack it can keep fresh and bloody for months. If it's a poor vacuum pack however, it'll go off very quickly.

[SteakNchop]

I just keep my meat in the package and eat it within a week. If not, I'll freeze it. A lot of the meat I eat is already dry aged.

[Hannibal]

How long? Usually up to 2 weeks, but sometimes longer.

[Iguana]

I still have some of that meat I received on November 10.
Pictures here
The larger the piece is, the longer you can keep it that way. It dries on the surface, but remains still tender inside. The taste gets stronger with aging. Sometimes, I kept some for more than 2 months in a fridge with a fan. 

Francois

[SteakNchop]

I still have some of that meat I received on November 10.
Pictures here
The larger the piece is, the longer you can keep it that way. It dries on the surface, but remains still tender inside. The taste gets stronger with aging. Sometimes, I kept some for more than 2 months in a fridge with a fan. 

Francois

You can age it even longer than that, BTW. I would like to dry aged my own meat, but limited refridgerator space prevents me from it.

[Iguana]

You can age it even longer than that, BTW.

That's exactly what I wrote: "more than 2 months".
"More than" doesn't set an upper limit! In fact the limit is when it becomes too dry and too hard.

[Hannibal]

IMO there is no limit.
Limits are only in our heads

[bharminder]

Usually if I get seafood I eat it that day or I won't get it. But with beef I like to let it age for a week, and at that point it starts tasting good. In fact, I think it tastes better after sitting in my fridge for a week. I put it next to a bunch of apples and the beef absorbs the flavor of the apples and smells delicious. I let it sit uncovered and flip it over each day like Miles said he does. I don't have meat hooks, which would be better.

I think I will get extra beef this week so it can age longer, and when I get more the following week I will let that age and eat the meat thats been sitting in the fridge for that last week.

[ForTheHunt]

IMO there is no limit.
Limits are only in our heads

Yeah I agree

[Hannah]

wow...I know "aged" beef is better than completely fresh, but have never throught of doing it myself. Usually when I  leave a steak in  the butcher paper it gets yucky smelling. I can't say I will ever eat a slimy steak.  But a nice dry one sounds pretty appealing actually. I eat a ton of Jerky each week.

The pictures of your refrigerators are hilarious. If I were a girl on a date and saw that I would think you were an axe murderer.   haha.

I have a good vacuum sealer myself so I can use that.

[Hannibal]

If I were a girl on a date and saw that I would think you were an axe murderer.   haha.

There are some girls on the forum who would love that kind of good-supplied refrigerator in their boyfriend's house

[Viola]

 I've already got a man, who has got  such a good-supplied refrigerator 

[Neone]

If you keep it like Iguana is in his fridge, all hung up it will last a really long time, it also does not get "high" like it does if you're keeping chunks in a jar and airing it out. It just gets aged.  If you keep the air around it, its not going to 'rot' like it does in the jar.
My wife and I have eaten some pretty gross stuff with mold and fuzzies all over it and its pretty    but its not going to kill you. at least, it has never killed us 

Pretty much what you have to do is just get the nerve to eat something gross the first time, and then you lose your fear when you realize nothing is going to happen to you, and then its no big deal.

[Hannibal]

If you keep it like Iguana is in his fridge, all hung up it will last a really long time, it also does not get "high" like it does if you're keeping chunks in a jar and airing it out. It just gets aged.  If you keep the air around it, its not going to 'rot' like it does in the jar.

IMO the best way to age the meat is to place it in some clay container and cover with a plate or skin of the animal so that it will not dry, yet air it regularly outside the fridge, and then after a week or two or even three (depending on the kind of a meat) uncover it completely, hung it Iguana-style, etc. and let it age for months ala hákarl  

[Hannah]

I'm not hating on his fridge. It would just be alarming if you didn't realize the principal behind it.

I got two huge sirloin steaks and cut them into strips. Then divided them into 6 vacuum sealed pouches. Nice and convenient.

[PaleoPhil]

But it scares me to leave meat i'm going to eat raw out for more than a day or two. Would vacuum sealing help?

I just ate a bit of my high meat that is about 16 months old now, with no mold on it.

wow...I know "aged" beef is better than completely fresh, but have never throught of doing it myself. Usually when I  leave a steak in  the butcher paper it gets yucky smelling. I can't say I will ever eat a slimy steak. ....

I wouldn't leave meat in butcher paper overly long and I definitely wouldn't leave it in plastic. After packaged meat is thawed I try to get it out of plastic as quickly as I can and either put it into a glass container or expose it to the open air. Meat stored in glass becomes more liquidy. Meat exposed to air dries out (I usually reserve this for meats that haven't been ground, as there is a small risk of pathogenic bacteria in ground meats due to the possibility of bacteria getting ground into the air-free interior and multiplying, although I have air-dried some ground beef in the past and it only went bad once and I didn't get sick from eating a bite of it, upon which I could clearly taste and see that it had become sticky and bad tasting in the interior--it was a hot summer day).

[Ioanna]

i store meat as long as possible uncovered in the fridge just aging away.  the longer the better it tastes and digests for me, but i've not had anything more than month old so far.

[donrad]

For long storage the larger the cut of meat the better. A big top sirloin roast is wonderful.

As long as the surface dries out good I have not had spoilage problems at any temperature, from room to refrigerater. I always store it on a wire rack so the surface does not get moist. I also like to dry it in front of a fan for the first day. After a day at room temp the enzymes make even the toughest cut tender. The texture gets much better also.

If you have trouble with mold or flies try rubbing the surface with sea salt and ground black pepper.

I purchase ground beef because it is economical and I can add ground heart, herbs and spices. This stores for over a week in the frig in a vacuum CANNISTER. Got my cannisters on Ebay, they are indispensible for slowing oxidation and spoilage. I keep this in frig.

Happy Holidays

[miles]

I had ox kidney in my fridge for about a week and it stayed moist and bloody, didn't dry out and it tasted fine sort of like blue cheese.