If you are stranded in the wilderness and are fortunate enough to make a large kill, your choices are limited. Any meat or fish will spoil quickly without proper preservation. However, with limited resources preservation is difficult.
I have seen so many survival experts waste meat because they did not preserve their meat properly. With the right action, meat could last for weeks or even months. In this article we will cover how to preserve your kill to keep you alive long term.
Preparation
Smoking and drying is the only good method by which to preserve meat in the wild. This requires immediate preparation once you make your kill. I suggest that you gut your kill and immediately start a fire. The fire will need to burn down to coals before you can use it for food preservation. You can then go back to collect your kill and bring it to your camp. Quarter the animal and hang the pieces to dry until you are ready for it.
Next, construct a tripod above the coals so you can suspend the meat above the heat. You can either build racks within the tripod or you can string the meat up on cordage from the frame. For the slicing of the meat, you want it against the grain and as thin as possible. I suggest every cut to be less than ¼ inch thick. Cut all of the meat you want to preserve into these pieces before even going to the fire. You need this step to be perfect.
Seasoning
If you have the option of bringing salt or spices with you into the wild, it is always smart. Both will draw moisture out of meat so that it dries faster. You want to rub down both sides of every piece of meat to draw out the moisture. I suggest letting it sit for a bit before smoking to get out the moisture in advance.
Smoking
Your goal here is not to cook the meat, but to dry it. You need the temperature on the meat to be less than 250F. To test this in the wild, hold the palm of your hand at meat height. You should be able to hold it there at least six seconds before pulling it away for 250F. Set your racks or your strings at the right height for drying. The heat will dry out the meat, but the smoke is important.
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If you have any materials to wrap around the tripod, it can be used to hold in the smoke. It makes the smoking process that much more effective. Be aware that wrapping the tripod will increase the internal temperature, so you may need to raise the height of the meat.
Is it done?
It is difficult to tell if meat is preserved properly in the wild, but you can look for a few things. You want the meat to show no moisture at all. You should be able to bend and crack the meat, but it should not separate. There should be very little squeeze to your meat. The goal is to get as much moisture out of the meat as possible. The drier it is, the longer it will last.
Preservation
Once you have dried your meat, you are not done. It is important to make sure that there is no possibility of bacteria getting back into the meat. This means keeping the meat dry and in a cool setting. Warm climates can promote bacteria growth. If you have done this correctly, and you keep the meat in a cool, dry area, you should be able to keep it for weeks before it goes bad.
In Conclusion
If you have the right mindset, you can make meat last for quite a long time. If you do not know what you are doing, the majority of a major kill can be wasted to bacteria and parasites. This is one of the most difficult and important aspects of survival. I suggest you try this process with meat from your grocery store well before you ever need to survive upon it. This will ensure you know what you are doing when the time comes to get it done. Also consider reading up on other sources of survival food you can find in the wild.
Written by Ryan Dotson / Image by Irita
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