Free: Contests & Raffles.
Had a conversation with my butcher about this. He said not to use water and if a hair was found on the meat then he picks it off with the knife instead of rinsing it off. He did mention vinegar if you needed to do a rinsing. His theory with rinsing with water is that it pushes the bacteria into the meat. My philosophy is this. Every situation is different. You don't always have a pickup truck right there with a meat locker just down the road to accept it right away. I will take whatever means necessary to keep that meat from spoiling. If I have to throw that meat in the creek to cool it off in September then that's what I'm gonna do.
I almost always skin with the head up, maybe this keeps more hair off the meat? I'm also not sure where all of this "dirt" comes from? I dragged my gutted deer over a half mile this year and had no dirt on or in it, granted, it was not a huge buck, just a nubbin, but still....
Someone on Facebook is saying deer and elk should be rinsed with a hose
I prefer to hang them dry and brush off any hair. Hosing them off is a last resort if things get really messy with a gut shot animal.