# Bear meat



## agaffer (Jan 23, 2021)

I while back I posted a picture of a bear I harvested. At the time I was still waiting for my new smoker and stated that once it arrived I would post step by step pictures of smoking the different cuts. We smoked racks of ribs using two methods. We made meatloaf with ground back strap mixed with venison breakfast sausage. We did a long slow smoke with one of the hams. We documented all the cooks from making the rubs and injections and marinades, the cooks, the finished products on plates with other foods. 
Let me cut to the chase. Bears are only good for making bear skin rugs. Can you make the meat taste good, sorta. Because of parasites you have to cook to a very high internal temperature which would ruin even the best piece of beef. Basically bear tastes like  bland buffalo. But you have to figure out ways to have decent flavors while at the same time over cooking it. Just not worth the trouble. Because it is not worth duplicating our cooks I will just show a couple of sample images










	

		
			
		

		
	
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## poacherjoe (Jan 23, 2021)

We grind it up and make fresh sausage with it but like you say you get tired of it pretty quick. I want to try summer sausage with it next.


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## agaffer (Jan 23, 2021)

Grinding up meat for use in sausages, or meatballs or, meatloaf, etc. is what you do when the meat really isn't worth tasting. Believe me, our processor gave us a ton of ground bear meat.


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## SmokinEdge (Jan 23, 2021)

I come from a long line of Bear slayers. Never roasted. Only thinly sliced seasoned and fried hot.


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## Teal101 (Jan 23, 2021)

That greasy gunk is good for sausage and thats about it haha!


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## jcam222 (Jan 23, 2021)

The  high rate of trichinella infection in bear has always discouraged me from trying it. Thanks for confirming I’m not missing out haha. Nice smoker , Stumps?


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## olaf (Jan 23, 2021)

Our snack sticks were pretty good other than that just used the burger in chili. Don't get the comparison to buffalo though unless you mean water buffalo.


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## tallbm (Jan 23, 2021)

I've never taken or eaten bear BUT I have done so with plenty of wild hogs in Texas.  The same concerns lead to mostly just grinding it out and doing sausage and other ground options.
The sausage is taken to 165F IT for the same reasons and tastes fine.  I've personally done this.

If I had a bear I would follow the same route and make various sausages and have it ground for meatloaves, loaves of sandwich meat (ground meat pastrami), and other ground meat purposes.

I hope this helps give you some ideas for the next bear :)


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## agaffer (Jan 23, 2021)

Like most wild meat, the flavor of bear is very dependent on diet. We had a wet summer that produced a lot of berries and then I started laying out corn for the deer which the bears have been eating. On top of that the oaks have really been throwing out a lot of acorns. So, the bear I harvested had a very mild beefy flavor which I liken to buffalo because of the leanness of the meat combined with the mild beef flavor. A bear that has been eating fish or dead animals would have a much different flavor.


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## Fueling Around (Jan 23, 2021)

Bear meat has a … funk that is hard to describe. Some like it, not me.
In December, a member of our morning coffee club brought samples of sausage and jerky he made up.
Confirmed my taste buds from years ago, bear is best fed to others.

Internal temp of 165° is the recommended minimum for fresh meat to kill (potential) pathogens.  
That isn't grilled into submission if you don't forget to watch your cook.


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## poacherjoe (Jan 23, 2021)

Good Bear meat depends on the food source and time of year ! Have any of you guy's had Spring bear from Idaho ? I bet not . It has just come out of hibernation and it tastes great ! Here in California the small bears usually taste better than the big 300 plus pound bears and if they are eating berries and acorns they are okay but not as good as prime rib by any means. I would like to try it in Summer sausage.


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## pc farmer (Jan 23, 2021)

agaffer said:


> Like most wild meat, the flavor of bear is very dependent on diet. We had a wet summer that produced a lot of berries and then I started laying out corn for the deer which the bears have been eating. On top of that the oaks have really been throwing out a lot of acorns. So, the bear I harvested had a very mild beefy flavor which I liken to buffalo because of the leanness of the meat combined with the mild beef flavor. A bear that has been eating fish or dead animals would have a much different flavor.




You are 100% correct.  Diet is very important to what bear taste like.  At the Pa gathering 

 HalfSmoked
  brings a bear roast.  Farm fed bear.  It tastes great.  Not a strong taste at all.


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## Brokenhandle (Jan 23, 2021)

Have only had bear once, it was a farm raised bear also. It was about 30 years ago, it was really good... I remember it was made on an open fire in a Dutch oven at our local towns Christmas celebration.  So I could see diet as being a big part of it.

Ryan


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## sawhorseray (Jan 23, 2021)

agaffer said:


> Let me cut to the chase. Bears are only good for making bear skin rugs. Can you make the meat taste good, sorta.



I've whacked about a dozen bucks and over seventy wild hogs in my hunting career, seen a dozen bears at least that I just let go. I've eaten bear meat twice, greasy and pissy. I made some bear sausage for a friend that turned out fair, cut it with 2/3's pork butt. For all it takes after you pull the trigger that ain't worth the time and effort, especially if it's a big one that has to be dragged out of a canyon. They don't bother me, I won't bother them. RAY


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## chef jimmyj (Jan 23, 2021)

That Ground Bear Meat Halfsmoked brought to one of the PA Gatherings made the best Well Done Cheese Burgers, I've ever eaten. Anywhere!!!...JJ


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## pc farmer (Jan 23, 2021)

chef jimmyj said:


> That Ground Bear Meat Halfsmoked brought to one of the PA Gatherings made the best Well Done Cheese Burgers, I've ever eaten. Anywhere!!!...JJ



Man they were good I agree JJ.  We had bear roasts the 2 years before.


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## Millberry (Jan 24, 2021)

chef jimmyj said:


> That Ground Bear Meat Halfsmoked brought to one of the PA Gatherings made the best Well Done Cheese Burgers, I've ever eaten. Anywhere!!!...JJ


DAMN! Is that where they came up with Smokey the bear?   From that pretty red smoker?  Geez.....Learn something every day.


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## GATOR240 (Jan 24, 2021)

pc farmer said:


> You are 100% correct.  Diet is very important to what bear taste like.  At the Pa gathering
> 
> HalfSmoked
> brings a bear roast.  Farm fed bear.  It tastes great.  Not a strong taste at all.


For sure the diet has everything to do with the taste. I had eaten bear 5 or 6 times before the Pa. gathering and a couple of those times the meat was absolutely putrid (guessing they were into eating garbage on a regular basis).  The bear meat at the gathering was by far the best tasting bear meat that I've eaten.  It  also speaks volumes when my wife says she liked it!!


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## agaffer (Jan 24, 2021)

I still have another roast in the freezer. Would be very interested in the recipe used by Halfsmoked.


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## agaffer (Jan 24, 2021)

I am surprised by the posts describing bear as "greasy". All the cuts I got back from the processor are very, very lean. That is why I likened it to buffalo. In fact, more like horse meat it is so lean. And yes, I have eaten horse.


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## Bearcarver (Jan 24, 2021)

*WARNING---"Another Bear Story":*
I've had Bear Meat from 4 different Bears taken in PA:
None were exceptionally big, but here they are:
One was from near Marshalls Creek, PA, and was about 350 lbs. It was a little greasy, but not that bad. It had been eating a lot of corn, because it lived near a State Feed plot. That's where the State pays a farmer to grow corn, and leave it stand to feed the animals. In fact I think it was this bear that scared the Hell out of me when we were Small Game hunting in that area. I was taking a short cut through one of the corn food plots, when I saw a 50 gallon drum up ahead of me. I was wondering what a steel drum was doing in a standing corn field, when the Black Drum got up on all 4 feet. I stopped thinking about drums & made an immediate exit stage left, as fast as I could go, ears of corn bouncing off my chest on the way out. I stayed closer to my brother & my Dad, after that, because they were both carrying Pump 12 gage Shotguns, and I had only brought my Savage 24 DL over & under that day. One 20 gage #6 shot & one 22 cal shot would not have helped me much against that size bear, or any size Black Bear.

Two of the other 3 Bears were about 120 lbs and 180 lbs taken from Elbow Swamp, in Pike County PA. They were a bit more Lean, IMO, But Very Tasty.

And the other one was about 200 lbs taken from near Coudersport, in Potter County, PA.  I only had a couple burgers from this one, and they were awesome, but they had Beef mixed in with it.

I find Bear Meat from PA Black Bears to be 10 times better tasting than PA Whitetail Deer Meat, due in part to the Tallow in the Deer Meat.

Bear


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## agaffer (Jan 24, 2021)

My processor gave me quite a bit of ground meat. I like my hamburgers medium rare and the bear meat has to be well done. Because of this, I have not tasted it. But, I am sure that it is like the ribs and the roast. Tastes fine just not special.


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## Fueling Around (Jan 24, 2021)

I've had some deer that were darn near inedible.  Back to that diet influence, plus the older the deer the less enjoyable the meat versus the trophy you just collected.


sawhorseray said:


> I've whacked about a dozen bucks and over seventy wild hogs in my hunting career, seen a dozen bears at least that I just let go. I've eaten bear meat twice, greasy and pissy. I made some bear sausage for a friend that turned out fair, cut it with 2/3's pork butt. For all it takes after you pull the trigger that ain't worth the time and effort, especially if it's a big one that has to be dragged out of a canyon. They don't bother me, I won't bother them. RAY


A lot of … hunters will collect the hide and leave the carcass for the scavengers.
A fall bear has a lot of (greasy) fat that must be removed and discarded. Many make the mistake thinking it is similar to beef and hog fat that can be added into the grind.  The meat itself is very lean.


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## Fueling Around (Jan 24, 2021)

agaffer said:


> I am surprised by the posts describing bear as "greasy". All the cuts I got back from the processor are very, very lean. That is why I likened it to buffalo. In fact, more like horse meat it is so lean. And yes, I have eaten horse.


See post above.  A fall bear has some of the nastiest fat, that luckily isn't marbling. Same as that nasty tallow one finds on a deer.
Horse is pretty tasty


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## 1MoreFord (Jan 24, 2021)

An old friend of mine always wanted to try some bear and a friend(?) of his gifted him some ground bear.

He brought it to deer camp to share with us and that was the nastiest smelling meat, when cooking, I've had the misfortune to be around.   He didn't even finish cooking it before throwing it away.   After reading info on bears I'm betting the "butcher" who ground this bear used bear fat and it went rancid but that's only a guess.


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## GATOR240 (Jan 25, 2021)

Thanks for the like Warren.


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## mike243 (Jan 25, 2021)

Meat flavor has every thing to do about diet, on any animal imo. corn fed beef tastes a lot better than grass fed to me, farmers like to sell grass fed because its cheaper to bring to market.


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