Ice machine or walk-in cooler?

[Abcdj]

We added a donated walk in cooler 3 years ago. Very convenient when you do shoot a deer and its warm to hot outside. Your all excited about the kill, you turn it on, hang it up, have a shot of fireball and forget about it till you are ready to leave. It's a 55 mile round trip to the processing place we use. So for us its been very nice.

We have a small freezer we fill with ice bags in the trailer house. That ice maker in the classifieds right now sure looks nice thou.

[Native Texan]

Walk in cooler for sure. Dry aged meat is so much more flavorful than aged on ice.

[Abcdj]

We did find out from our GW. If you plan on leaving it hanging to age in your cooler for more than a certain amount of time. Its considered storage and you have to have a log book or something like that.
Maybe someone knows more? I can't remember exactly what the deal was.

[DRT]

We have a walk in at the lease. When it works it's great.
Still gotta have ice to get home.

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[Shurshot]

We have a walk in cooler. Right next to it we have a stand up freezer that we make block ice from.


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[Artos]

The walk in cooler is without a doubt one of the most valued assets we have on the place...it is SO nice not having to worry about it being too hot when taking does. Gut, throw it in, & process 2-3 weeks later. I usually do mine under the lights after an evening hunt. The meat is insanely better.

If you haul multiple coolers in the truck, place the largest one inside & you simply don't need all the extra ice.

[Huntsman27]

Walk in coolers are great when they work. Most people I know that have one tend to have a lot of issues keeping them running. I don’t have one nor am I a refrigeration guy but I think when they are designed to be ran and long periods of down time seems to cause problems.

[Artos]

Walk in coolers are great when they work. Most people I know that have one tend to have a lot of issues keeping them running. I don’t have one nor am I a refrigeration guy but I think when they are designed to be ran and long periods of down time seems to cause problems.

Ors is 12 years old & we just had a PM done on it...it's been pretty much trouble free in all this time, but will likely go ahead and put a whole new unit on her just to be safe. You certainly don't see very many threads here on tbh about coolers or ice machines crapping out.

[W-L-F]

we have both and would not have it any other way

[goldtip5575]

Walk in cooler. I prefer to keep water or moisture off my meat. Only as a last resort will I put ice on my meat and when I do I will put the meat in an open trash bag in my cooler and pack the ice around the outside. IMO, those that soak the meat and draw the blood out, are taking all the flavor out of it. We have a walk in cooler on the ranch I hunt, and I quarter my animals, hang the meat on hooks, and the meat gets cold enough within 3 hours that I can put it in my cooler with no ice, and drive the 5 hours home, and the meat is still plenty cold.

[AntlerCollector]

We did find out from our GW. If you plan on leaving it hanging to age in your cooler for more than a certain amount of time. Its considered storage and you have to have a log book or something like that.
Maybe someone knows more? I can't remember exactly what the deal was.

All that is explained in the Outdoor Annual every year. If you have a walk in cooler, you need to know the laws. Mine is a private family owned cooler and does not require a log book. Most of y'all will most likely fall into this category

[AntlerCollector]

we have both and would not have it any other way

The question was if you could only have one

[Artos]

You will need a cold storage log if you plan on processing beyond the normal quartering...I prefer to debone my deer at the ranch

[critter69]

It would be an easy decision for me. Ice machine, seems like I always need ice, food, drinks, coolers, fish. When I kill something it gets broken down right away in the field and either processed right then or frozen till later. Never put meat on ice = tofoo, nasty, slimy ruiened meat. We used to hang, and age our game animals and did an experiment a couple times. Aged some for up to ten days, some a week, some a few days, and some straight to cut warped and frozen. We cooked meat from each group of animals as we processed them and let people decide which tasted better. The outcome was always the same, they nor we could tell a differance. Much more of the taste was influenced by how fast the animals passed after being shot. So now we eliminated the walk in cooler, and use a chest freezer. Much more useful ,convenient , less expensive, and takes up less room, and far easier to keep clean. And you could have both an ice maker and a big freezer and have every thing I would need, prefer.

[dbaio1]

Ice machine. Would get so much more use out of it.