Deer meat in freezer

[Ata83]

how long can you keep deer meat in the freezer for ?

After processing my deer, I vacuum sealed it and froze all the pieces.

now recently, some of the pieces are starting to get some sort of gamy taste to it !

been only 5 months since nov. so not sure if those pieces had something [hair, bone fragment, silver skin ... ] on it that caused the gamey taste or if it might be going bad ?

so far, noone could even tell its deer meat. no gamey taste whatsoever till now.

[finsfurfeathers]

Going bad and tasting good can be two different things. Unfortunately freezing doesn't preserve the eating quality indefinitely. Particularly found this true for woodcock. Tried every freezing method to extend the availability of the birds(yes I do enjoy eating them) but found after a few months(esp late season birds) always had a very strong woodcock flavour.
Now I enjoy them through the season with none lasting more tha a few weeks in the freezer.

[Marker]

I have had some 2 years old, it was fine to eat but not sure of any taste difference as I had meat left from a few different deer.

[FishHog]

I have had some 2 years old, it was fine to eat but not sure of any taste difference as I had meat left from a few different deer.

I can’t see 5 months if it stayed frozen affecting the flavour. I’ve had 2 year old stuff that as long as it didn’t get freezer burnt tasted as good as fresh.
Any chance you had a long power outage or are you eating a completely different cut of meat that maybe wasn’t as cleanly handled as it should have been?

[johnjyb]

As well, is it all from 1 deer you butchered or was it cut up by others and maybe someone elses deer got mixed in? I too have had 24 month old venison and the flavor never changed, just maybe the texture a bit.
John

[Sam Menard]

Did you trim the meat, or did you leave fat on?

[Badenoch]

How long it lasts depends on how it was handled and processed. I've had professionally processed and packed deer meat in the freezer for over 2 years without an issue.

[OLD TIMER]

If handled properly when you got it there should not be any problems. Just ate some deer from November 2020 ( 1 1/2 year ago ) and it was absolutely delicious.

[rf2]

I agree with the others - I recently ate some of my deer from Dec 2019 and it was great. What cut of meat did you have?

[dean.f]

Did you cook it differently? I know I've had game meat taste strong by over cooking it.