I won’t go into details, but my wife and I have had to take in our other grandchildren for a bit.. 5 grandchildren is a minature army,, lol. Anyway,
Luckily I save up all the meat from beaver that aren’t questionable.
I don’t think I’d be exaggerating if I said I had over 200 pounds of it.
Some ground into burger, some left chunked.
Anyway,,, there was a beaver recipe that was in the august issue of the trapper magazine and I decided to give it a try..
Mississippi beaver or something like that,,,
Those kids totally demolished it..
Probably gonna have beaver burger spaghetti Tommorow night.

Was it Mississipi pot roast? That's a great dish I bet it would be phenomenal with beaver. Beaver is the closest thing to beef I've eaten that isn't beef, when handled properly.

what do you mean when handled properly?

Lots of ways to mess up when butchering something, get castor or other contamination on it is just one there are many others

If it was Mississippi pot roast, that is a favorite in this house. Any red meat is super good in that.

I still have an aversion to eating beaver meat. One time with it being bad was enough. Wife has the same deal with bear meat, even though I love that stuff.

That’s how I always describe it when someone asked me what beaver taste like, like roast beef but better.

Lean tender veal with three times the omega 3's of beef. That's beaver (if properly handled).

Yup, that was the name of it,,, Mississippi pot roast

If someone gets the oil sacs and castor all over it,,, it’s pretty nasty.

In fact,, I completely cut the castor/oil sac membrane off in one single piece,,, and remove it later.. I don’t want to run the risk of getting any castor or oil on any meat.
Meat is pretty valuable,,, castor is secondary

When you catch 100+ beaver it's the other way around. LOL But you're right-on about being careful with the castors not contaminating the meat. I change gloves, change knives, etc, etc, to make sure there is no chance of cross-contamination.

What's the best way to process it and how do you know if it's questionable? Also how long is to long, when taken in drowner set or body grip, that you won't consume it?

When its in cold water its like being in a refrigerator. We have 24 hr checks in IN ans I dont trap tell after deer season and never have a problem with 2 long.

So having the guts in an animal in the fridge doesn't matter?

I'm right there with beaverpeeler, same way I do mine, only I catch around 50 each year, and get a few from people I trust

For 24 hours or less its never been an issue. Probably not for longer just never tried it since we have 24hr checks

Two to three days in cold water is no problem. Beaver are not quick to spoil.

I give my trappers away to some kids at church, can someone post the recipe?

Beaver are the last critter to go bad/spoil, on my trap line anyway. I know Canadian trappers who eat the meat after beaver spent several days in under ice sets. The belly goes first. If the meat doesn’t smell “off” it’s good to go imo. “Off” includes castor smell, I can’t get around even the smallest amount of castor smell in the meat.

We ate many meals of beaver when I was in high school and loved it! I was not careful at some point and contaminated my beaver meat with castor (unknowingly). I ate some and knew it had castor on it but it wasn’t
Bad and I pushed through. By the time I was done eating it was overwhelming and I ended up with castor smelling burps that evening. I couldn’t stomach the thought of eating even good beaver for a looooong time after that. Happy trapping! ScottW

Scott, same thing happened to me. I couldn't spit enough for the next two to three days. Took me about 15 years before I could convince myself to even try again. And of course these days I'm completely anal about butchering hygiene when it comes to beavers.