Thawing meat QUESTION

Keltin said:
I never deforst hamburger in water as it gets too slimy (oily) to work with unless you're making curmbled beef. Since I only cook for two, and freeze for two, I do most defrost in cold water, and like I said, it's done in 30 minutes or less. I also keep a digital thermometer in the fridge, and look at it daily. It's a constant 37 degrees.
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The reason hamburger (beef) gets oozy is becuase beef fat melts at a very low temperature. Cut some off of a steak and hold it in your hand. Becomes oily very quickly.

I win the internet?! Wow.
 
Try freezing meat at 30f. It will take a very long time. We stuff pepperoni at 24f. It is not solid at that point. Almost, but not quite.

Really, the best for a freezer is below -10f or so, but most home freezers don't go that low. Run it as cold as you can.

We use -45f freezers to store culture pellets. Anything warmer and the culture starts growing.
 
Is taking a long time to freeze a bad thing?
A butcher I used to go to said they try to keep the fresh meats in his store "almost" to the freezing point. These are the meats he brings out everyday for the counter. OK, we're getting away from the purpose of a freezer, but then I don't do anything with cultures either. It just seems like if you could have a compartment that would maintain meats at that almost freezing temp, then you could forgo a lot of this thawing talk. Your meats would be butcher fresh.
So if I buy a loin my buther has cut, wrapped and frozen for me, and I put it in a freezer that is 25F, is that worse than putting it in a freezer that's below 0F? I guess I still don't get the more frozen concept.
 
The colder it is, the faster it freezes. Slow freezing can damage your food at the cellular level.

About freezing.

Does Freezing Destroy Bacteria & Parasites?
Freezing to 0 °F inactivates any microbes -- bacteria, yeasts and molds - - present in food. Once thawed, however, these microbes can again become active, multiplying under the right conditions to levels that can lead to foodborne illness. Since they will then grow at about the same rate as microorganisms on fresh food, you must handle thawed items as you would any perishable food.

Trichina and other parasites can be destroyed by sub-zero freezing temperatures. However, very strict government-supervised conditions must be met. It is not recommended to rely on home freezing to destroy trichina. Thorough cooking will destroy all parasites.

Freeze Rapidly
Freeze food as fast as possible to maintain its quality. Rapid freezing prevents undesirable large ice crystals from forming throughout the product because the molecules don't have time to take their positions in the characteristic six-sided snowflake. Slow freezing creates large, disruptive ice crystals. During thawing, they damage the cells and dissolve emulsions. This causes meat to "drip"--lose juiciness. Emulsions such as mayonnaise or cream will separate and appear curdled.

Ideally, a food 2-inches thick should freeze completely in about 2 hours. If your home freezer has a "quick-freeze" shelf, use it. Never stack packages to be frozen. Instead, spread them out in one layer on various shelves, stacking them only after frozen solid.
 
Gotcha Keltin. It's not a storage issue, but rather an issue of how quickly an item freezes, so putting already frozen food in a 25F freezer shouldn't make a difference and it will stay frozen at that temp. What it may do, is allow some parasites to live, which will be killed off with proper cooking like you mentioned earlier.
And I'm just using that 25F as a reference.
 
I just find it amazing that our food supply was so much safer when I was younger. When the food and drug administration stopped being properly funded and workers were fired, we started having more problems. Further, like any industry those in the industry tend not to police themselves well. One would think this shouldn't be a political issue--that we would all want a safe food supply.
 
Well said Susan!

Hey, this scares me. But... I need to be scared!

I have a friend, great cook, who just cooks things from frozen. Hmmm???
Joe
 
I have tried cooking a frozen chicken cuts when I was in hurry. I just pierced them while boiling. The result- bland taste, the chicken did not absorb the spices...
 
Sass Muffin said:
Why's that Jeff?
Gosh that's the way I did it for years in a pinch (pre-veg days)--never killed us LOL

I used to take a roast or chops out of the freezer and immerse them in a sink of cold water for a few hours.
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I usually do that also, but if it's just one item, such as a single serving size of salmon, a couple pieces of chicken, or something, I just let it sink out in the sink for a while just until it's thawed out and then I cook it. :chef:
 
Yep, that's what I am doing AGAIN-still, now that I am eating more meat these days.
Thaw in the sink, or if I know what I am going to make the day before (say chicken pieces) I'll put them in the fridge on a folded paper towel and allow them to thaw in there over night.
 
I just finished checking my new refrigerator with a new appliance thermometer and the freezer is a holding a steady 0 deg while the refrigerator is 37 degrees after 24 hours of watching it. That is about right for me and I love the big box which I've now named the Monster Box. It is now time to move my food back into it aside from my beer.
 
I really am Sherm and it holds so much more than my old 21 cu. ft model especially the freezer. Early next year I will probably hook up the ice maker when I have the plumber here to change out the sink and move the dishwasher with new cabinets etc.

One other note on this thing, the only real negative I found other than a faulty unit was the noise level of it. Perhaps my hearing is so impaired I don't hear anymore but I sure haven't noticed any sound coming from it that I've noticed at all.
 
PapaJoe8 said:
...I have a friend, great cook, who just cooks things from frozen. Hmmm???
Joe
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When I took my Food Handler's Permit class, they mentioned the three methods for thawing food (in the OP's post), as well as a fourth, immediately cooking the frozen food.

This is only recommended for thin, quickly-cooked foods. Bacon (from a bulk case, not the 12 oz package), burgers, small breaded items dropped in a fryer, etc. Basically, stuff you would find in a fast-food joint.
 
Melinda Lee has a food radio show here in the Los Angeles area on KNX-1070. Her first choice is to defrost in the refrigertor. Then it's either a heavy aluminum plate or plater which acts as a heat sink or the cold water method. She has researched each method very throughly. I've used the cold water method at least once a week for the last several years. Never had a problem.
 
Large items I defrost in the refrigerator. Smaller ones I defrost using the cool water method. I don't use cold water because it takes too long. I've been doing this for years and never had a problem. Miniman is correct in that toxins produced by bacteria are the main problem. The bacteria will be killed by cooking but the toxins are not destroyed by heat.
 
i like to thaw mine by simply leaving the meat in a plate on the counter at let the thawing begin no microwave or refrigeration for me:tiphat:
 
I have a very heavy aluminum cookie sheet that acts like a heat sink when I put frozen things on it. The only problem is that I have to dig it out of the cabinet. Using the water method is much easier.
 
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