Freezing butcher meat

[waitingformagic]

I just moved home and although I am now super close to the local market where I adore getting fresh meat, I can only do it once a week because of work!

I am now considering bulk buying once a week and freezing until I need it. I hate freezing meat so this is a big deal for me

Am I going to massively lose the quality of butcher meat by freezing it, or is it still going to be better than buying pricier/lesser quality fresh supermarket stuff every few days? What are the best and worst meats for freezing? Any other tips?

WFM x

 

[pepperhead212]

What kinds of meats do you normally buy? And how do you cook them? I would suggest experimenting, and freeze various things, and compare them next to each other.

 

[caseydog]

I just moved home and although I am now super close to the local market where I adore getting fresh meat, I can only do it once a week because of work!

I am now considering bulk buying once a week and freezing until I need it. I hate freezing meat so this is a big deal for me

Am I going to massively lose the quality of butcher meat by freezing it, or is it still going to be better than buying pricier/lesser quality fresh supermarket stuff every few days? What are the best and worst meats for freezing? Any other tips?

WFM x

When freezing meat, air is your enemy. Get a vacuum sealer. Remove all the air. Then you can freeze meats for months with no loss of quality.

I live alone. I buy meats in bulk, and use a Foodsaver vacuum sealer to remove all the air from my meat storage bags, and freeze them. Many members here at DC do the same thing.

As for cuts, it doesn't matter. Beef, pork, chicken. If you vacuum seal, they keep perfectly. No air, no problems.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sUem2LwiMnI&t=11s

CD

 

[Stock Pot]

freezing

I believe any freezing of meat will detract. Something to do with the molecular structure changing a little bit. That said, a vacuum seal is the best, as others have said here.

 

[skilletlicker]

Don't disagree with anything said before. But if you are poor or cheap or both, like me, you could try what I do. First, divvy it up into the size that you'll cook at one time. Then double wrap it in regular plastic wrap, getting all the air out, and try not to let too much time go by without using it up. I keep a roll of masking tape and a magic marker in the food prep vicinity to record the date.
Before everybody here starts hollerin' at me, I'm not saying this is better or even as good as a vacuum sealer contraption. But it's good enough for me.

Edited to add: And I forgot to say, If you're shopping once a week, most stuff won't need to be frozen. Plan to use the most perishable stuff first and pay attention to the "sell by" date on the meat packages in the store and the stuff will be good for a few days anyway.

 

[Kayelle]

Don't disagree with anything said before. But if you are poor or cheap or both, like me, you could try what I do. First, divvy it up into the size that you'll cook at one time. Then double wrap it in regular plastic wrap, getting all the air out, and try not to let too much time go by without using it up. I keep a roll of masking tape and a magic marker in the food prep vicinity to record the date.
Before everybody here starts hollerin' at me, I'm not saying this is better or even as good as a vacuum sealer contraption. But it's good enough for me.

Edited to add: And I forgot to say, If you're shopping once a week, most stuff won't need to be frozen. Plan to use the most perishable stuff first and pay attention to the "sell by" date on the meat packages in the store and the stuff will be good for a few days anyway.

I'm not going to be hollerin' at you SL. I do much the same as you when freezing meat only I use a floppy plastic bag for the first wrapping of the meat, squeezing all the air out, and then freezing the bag of meat in a heavy duty freezer Ziplock bag removing all air possible. I never have freezer burn. I don't have, or want a vacuum sealer.
If you buy ground meat for the week, use it first as most other meats will keep for a week. Use any fish the day you buy it.

 

[pepperhead212]

Even though I use a Foodsaver (vacuum sealer) for freezing all of my meats, if I were only going to freeze them for a week (which it sounds like waitingformagic is doing), I would use another, cheaper method. Freezer burn won't happen that fast, but if something else happens when it freezes, that he doesn't like, side-by-side comparison would be the way to go. Most things that I do with meat don't matter, as they are in soups, stews, or things like pulled pork. But eaten as a steak or chop, you may be able to tell the difference. Question is, would it be enough to make a difference?

 

[caseydog]

I'm not going to be hollerin' at you SL. I do much the same as you when freezing meat only I use a floppy plastic bag for the first wrapping of the meat, squeezing all the air out, and then freezing the bag of meat in a heavy duty freezer Ziplock bag removing all air possible. I never have freezer burn. I don't have, or want a vacuum sealer.
If you buy ground meat for the week, use it first as most other meats will keep for a week. Use any fish the day you buy it.

Like just about everything, freezing meat is not a black and white thing. You can freeze meat for a couple of weeks in a zip-loc bag. Just try to get all the air our as possible.

If you want to freeze meats for six months, or more, you are going to have to invest in some kind of vacuum sealer. Sorry KL, but you can only do so much with a zip loc bag. You may not want to buy a vacuum sealer, and that's fine, as long as you don't want to freeze meat for more that a week or two, at the most. I think I know (and respect) you well enough to suggest that you may want to open your mind and consider a vacuum sealer. After all, it is just about removing air from the freezing equation -- not a big deal worth arguing about.

 

[Kayelle]

Like just about everything, freezing meat is not a black and white thing. You can freeze meat for a couple of weeks in a zip-loc bag. Just try to get all the air our as possible.

If you want to freeze meats for six months, or more, you are going to have to invest in some kind of vacuum sealer. Sorry KL, but you can only do so much with a zip loc bag. You may not want to buy a vacuum sealer, and that's fine, as long as you don't want to freeze meat for more that a week or two, at the most. I think I know (and respect) you well enough to suggest that you may want to open your mind and consider a vacuum sealer. After all, it is just about removing air from the freezing equation -- not a big deal worth arguing about.

Actually, with the method I detailed Casey, I freeze meats successfully for several months, not weeks. I admit, we are not into keeping meat frozen for more than a year so I have no experience beyond that. BTW, I respect you too but I find no need for another gadget. Different strokes..

 

[taxlady]

"Another gadget", that's the main reason I haven't bought a vacuum sealer.

 

[caseydog]

"Another gadget", that's the main reason I haven't bought a vacuum sealer.

Who needs a car, when you have a horse?

Seriously, it is the same thing. Nobody "needs" a vacuum sealer. There is NO reason that a person "needs" to buy a vacuum sealer. NO reason whatsoever.

So, to you and KL, I will bet you a hundred bucks that I can vacuum seal a steak for six months longer than you can freeze a steak in a zip loc bag with no vacuum sealer. I have no doubt that my steak will turn our better than yours. Seriously, you freeze yours for 30 days your way. I'll freeze mine for six months my way. What the heck, I'll freeze mine for a whole year my way.

CD

 

[taxlady]

Casey, I'm not in any way saying that the vacuum sealer wouldn't work better than a bag. I'm saying, that I don't freeze meat that isn't already vacuum sealed for that long very often.

 

[tenspeed]

I don't have a Food Saver, but I look at the cost of the bags and wonder just how much you can save with them. If you use Food Saver brand bags it looks like it's in the range of $0.30 to $0.50 per bag, but perhaps someone who has one can provide better information.

The rate at which food is frozen has a big impact on quality. A slow freeze allows ice crystals to grow larger, affecting the texture of the food, so you want to freeze food at the fastest rate possible. Clarence Birdseye (of Birdseye frozen food fame) learned this when he was in Labrador, which led to his success in the frozen food business. Mark Kurlansky's "Birdseye" is an interesting story of the development of the frozen food industry, which is something we take for granted today. Home freezers became popular only after the 1940's.

 

[msmofet]

The only meat I don't really like freezing is ground meat. It seems like it gets watery when thawed. That's ok for chili but not for a burger. Even when using thawed ground beef for taco meat it needs to be cooked a bit longer so the liquid can evaporate. Everything else like small chops, small steaks or chicken parts I place in old fashioned sandwich bags with the flap (NOT a zipper) and make sure the plastic is in contact with the meat with as little air as possible (that's more difficult with chicken parts or irregular shapes) around it. Then into a larger freezer zip bag with air removed. This makes it easy to remove one or two steaks, chops etc. at a time to thaw.

I used to use those perfect portion bags but the old fashion flap baggies work just as good (a bit smaller than the portions bags) for less cost.

Larger pieces of meat like London broil, chuck roast, flank steak etc. I will place in a just large enough zip bag (quart or one gallon) so plastic will be in contact with meat, roll it to remove as much air as possible then zip it shut and place a rubber band around so it won't unroll. The key is that the plastic is in contact with the meat which will keep the air off the surface and reduce the chance to create crystals.

 

[skilletlicker]

Haven't been around DC much the last couple years so I've forgotten the particular idiosyncracies of this forum. I participate in other online communities on a range of topics and in all of them, certain subjects provoke argument every time they come up. Maybe the food saver is one of those topics here. Other places its sous vide, Instant Pot, or a particular type of aquarium filter, or worm bin. Sadly, one side or the other sometimes becomes so dominant that the issue in that particular forum becomes like a cultish orthodoxy and any heretical opinion to the contrary is not tolerated. Often you can recognize those problem topics when a newcomer asks a question and the immediate chorus in response is the insistence that some particular device is purchased or method followed.
So, @waitingformagic, don't be discouraged. It's probably just bad luck that you hit on one of those topics in your first post after introducing yourself.

 

[msmofet]

I also have a Food saver but don't use it much unless I get a good deal on something like a whole tenderloin or pork loin and have it cut down. Then I will use Food saver to store for a longer period. Sometimes if I will use something quickly I just freeze it as is from store in their package.

 

[skilletlicker]

Dried Fruit Frozen Storage

Related to freezing but not necessarily meat, I use the system described by others here to store dried fruit. I buy dried blueberries, cherries, and sun-dried tomatoes in four-pound boxes. They might last a year. So I repack four ounces each into inexpensive zip-lock snack bags and store those in a gallon freezer bag.

 

[Chief Longwind Of The North]

A couple of other ways to freeze meat, removing all air:
If freezing fish, put the fish into a water tight container, fill the container with the water, making sure the fish are completely submerged, and freeze. They taste as fresh after 8 months as they did the day they were caught. This also works for poultry. You could freeze you beef, poultry, and por in a brine. The contain er can be a clean waxed cardboard milk/juice carton, a freezer bag, a plastic container with a lid,. or whatever vessel you have available that is water-tight.

This would save you from having to purchase a vacuum sealer.

Seeeeeeya; Chief Longwind of the North

 

[tenspeed]

Haven't been around DC much the last couple years so I've forgotten the particular idiosyncracies of this forum. I participate in other online communities on a range of topics and in all of them, certain subjects provoke argument every time they come up. Maybe the food saver is one of those topics here. Other places its sous vide, Instant Pot, or a particular type of aquarium filter, or worm bin. Sadly, one side or the other sometimes becomes so dominant that the issue in that particular forum becomes like a cultish orthodoxy and any heretical opinion to the contrary is not tolerated. Often you can recognize those problem topics when a newcomer asks a question and the immediate chorus in response is the insistence that some particular device is purchased or method followed.
So, @waitingformagic, don't be discouraged. It's probably just bad luck that you hit on one of those topics in your first post after introducing yourself.

Hmmm, while there are differences of opinion of what works best for them, I don't think anyone is arguing or saying that their way is the only way. Unlike some other topics, like cooking wine, slow cookers, or what to call Taylor pork.

 

[Andy M.]

I sometimes use Foodsaver, especially if I'll be using sous vide with that meat. I also use plastic wrap with freezer bags. The key is to minimize or eliminate air pockets around the meat when you package it. It's the air pockets that allow freezer burn to happen. The Foodsaver makes that easy but you can do a very good job with plastic wrap pulling it tight around the piece of meat. I store multiple plastic wrapped pack of meat in a gallon size Ziplock bag.

Regardless of storage method, any piece of meat will degrade some with freezing and thawing. Think back to the last time you thawed a frozen piece of meat. The thawed meat is in a puddle of meat juices which were forced out of the frozen then thawed meat. Those meat juices are better in the meat when you cook it. So freezing and thawing, all other factors being equal, cannot be as juicy as never frozen meat.