How do you preserve meat?

[Nash]

Im still new to this and was wondering what the best way is to handle your wildlife kills? I usually harvest it all and then put the meat on my porch and only cook the portions i need for my dinner. And then by the time i get to the last bits its all mouldy. I also noticed that meat that is still on the carcass decays way slower than the meat on my porch. How do you pro's deal with your meats? I'd think leaving it on the carcass is most efficient...but does it despawn after a few days like fully harvested carcasses do? Best to chop it all up at once? Are there any benefits to quartering and then maybe only harvesting when you need it, does that help conserving?

I just shot my first moose (im so proud, only 1 broken rib ;)) and want to make the most out of my 33kg! Tips more than welcome :)

Another question: do you eat wolf/bear meat? im only on day 52 now, and so far dont really dare to cuz of parasite risk... What does that affect that risk? I assume the fresher it is, the lower the chance you get those parasites? And the higher your level of cooking, less chance too?

[SBlack]

The condition of raw meat doesn't really matter. It gains condition when you cook it. You can even eat rotten meat that way

[Izzy]

You harvest the meat, then just put it outside somewhere (I live in trapper's homestead so there is no wolves around). This way it will go bad very slow. Also i noticed that cooked meat goes bad even slower.

Wolf/bear meat: If you dont want to get parasites, eat only 1-2 pieces of that meat per 24 hours(so you will only get 4% parasite RISK). Nothing affects this risk, only if you get level 5 cooking skill you will be able to COOK meat and it won't contain any parasites in it. (meat cooked before LVL 5 skill doesnt count as i know)

[tyber_gsk]

raw and coocked allways leave outside..
!00% coocked meat can stay outside for 2 weeks before it will be ruined..

Regards..

[Nash]

Thanks for the info! Hmm...so for longevity its better to cook first and then drop it outside, will do! I live in PV farmstead so use the porch to prevent wolves/bear from eating it, but it still decays quite fast. My venison got bad in ...i think it was 3-4 days. Probably the porch counts like 'inside' as well...noticed it didnt help my cabin fever go down either. Gonna test with cooked meat now. Also going to stay away from wolf/bear meat until level 5 cooking; other food is so easy to come by it just doesnt feel worth it at this point.

@Steve: are you sure it doesnt matter? The very first time i cooked rancid venison i got food poisoning, so i just assumed it was a no go and stayed away from rancid meats since then. Maybe it was just unlucky.

[Izzy]

Originally posted by Nash:

Thanks for the info! Hmm...so for longevity its better to cook first and then drop it outside, will do! I live in PV farmstead so use the porch to prevent wolves/bear from eating it, but it still decays quite fast. My venison got bad in ...i think it was 3-4 days. Probably the porch counts like 'inside' as well...noticed it didnt help my cabin fever go down either. Gonna test with cooked meat now. Also going to stay away from wolf/bear meat until level 5 cooking; other food is so easy to come by it just doesnt feel worth it at this point.

@Steve: are you sure it doesnt matter? The very first time i cooked rancid venison i got food poisoning, so i just assumed it was a no go and stayed away from rancid meats since then. Maybe it was just unlucky.

Why so, just eat predator meat, thats no problem. When new day comes, i get up, go outside and eat one piece of bear meat (1100 calories). That lasts me half a day, which is awesome.

[lonkers]

iirc, if you cook a piece of meat at 51% condition or higher, the cooked meat will always come out to 100%. That means you can conserve raw meat for about a day before cooking it.

Likely wrong on that, just comes from personal experience.

[War Pig]

Hmm, seems like leaving meat laying outside in the open kind of steps on realism a bit. Perhaps the devs can add in a way for us to craft (or maybe just have at certain locations) bear cables to keep it out of reach of animals? Otherwise you run the risk of losing it to predators/scavengers?

[Nil Desperandum]

No, predators don't touch the meat you drop outside a house door, - it keeps better that way - they only take the meat you drop as a decoy. I usually use the boot of a nearby car or any container that opens, but that is only because I'm a fussy beggar - the thought of eating food that has been on the ground makes me gimp - even in a game. It's perfectly safe to store it on the ground outside a dwelling, I've never lost meat that way to a predator.

[War Pig]

A car trunk is a reasonable compromise there, but I’d like to see some penalties for just leaving on the ground.

[joefitts63]

Predators really ought to eat meat left lying around. If they can smell it when you are carrying it, they ought to be attracted to it when it is lying out in the open.

[2cold2play]

The absolute best way in terms of conservation is to store raw meat and cook it in portions for 2-3 days, then cook all of it when it drops to 50 % or so, which is pretty fast. Then just store it outside, on the ground if there are no wolves around, or in a car trunk or a drawer in a fishing cabin if there are. This, however, is match-intensive, so most people who squeeze matches tend to cook in large batches, along with water production, or only cook when lens fire is available.

[socojoe]

If you are not eating the wolf/bear meat, cook it anyways. It will help increase your cooking skill.

[iwasa]

Intestinal parasites (risk) is not a function of the condition of the meat. It is a property of the meat. Barring level 5 cooking skill which provides an immunity to parasites (and incidentally food poisoning), for meat you cooked, any consumption of wolf or bear meat results in a risk of parasites. The risk scales up for the first three pieces at 1% then 4% then 9% with +5% for each additional piece. Note that "piece" means consumption of ANY amount not just 1 kg (2.2 pound) chunks.

The game tests for the affliction daily and if it does not occur the risk disappears until consumption of the next piece.

Applicable to Level 5 cookings kill, once you attain level 5, the protection against parasites and food poisoning applies to ANY food you cooked (and incidentally to any packaged food for that matter) including at any cooked at a previous level. Caveat is that it appies to COOKED meats/fish not RAW.

[Nash]

Thanks again for the tips and info, learned a lot!! i think im generally a bit (too) OVERcautious..the game taught me the hard way that taking risks rarely pays off ..so when it warned me that i could get some sort of afflication i just took the warning and stayed away from it :D I guess can safely go for the occasional bite of carnivore meat then!
I wished we could dry it into jerky....

[lonkers]

Originally posted by Nash:

I wished we could dry it into jerky....

Yes, that'd be great. Drop raw meat by a fire. If it is by a fire, it will not decay. Leave at the fire for 12 hours and it becomes jerky.

But first, make it so predators eat meat left outside, and that meat decays away into nothing if dropped on the floor, like it does when inside a container.