Freezing Meat (Specifically Game Meat)

jason.r.whitworth

If you were going freeze a large amount of game meat for the year what would be the best technique ? Liquid nitrogen? Dry ice? Blast freezer?

It seems like Vacuum Sealing it and then using liquid nitrogen to freeze it as quickly as possible to prevent large ice crystal growth would be best?

Would it be better to vacuum seal and then freeze or to freeze then vacuum seal?

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Chris_Young_80640

DO NOT put a large hunk of meat straight into liquid nitrogen! You will do grave damage to the meat. The outside will freeze instantly and become very brittle. When the inside starts to freeze it will expand and cause the surface to splinter and crack to allow for the expansion (recall that water expands when it freezes as ice, this is why glass bottles filled with liquid will blow up when frozen).

If you want to preserve frozen meat at the highest quality you want to freeze it relatively quickly; but surprisingly your home freezer is fast enough. This will freeze it to about -4 °F / -20 °C and it will seem totally solid. But there is still small amounts of liquid water unfrozen inside the cells and this will let ice crystals move around and grow over time and do damage to the quality of the meat.

Surprisingly, most of the damage of freezing does not occur when you actually freeze the food, but over the days, weeks, and months of frozen storage. To stop this damage you need to lower the temperature far enough to turn every last bit of water into either ice crystals or vitrified water. This is how high quality tuna is stored for years on end without doing significant damage to its quality.

For meats and seafood, the magic temperature is below - 40 °F / - 40 °C or so. Unfortunately, this generally requires more expensive laboratory grade freezers. We buy ours at used industrial and university auctions (our last one cost us $300 at an auction for a freezer that retails for $15,000).

Hope this helps.

Chris

jason.r.whitworth

Great answer, thanks so much!

I guess a follow up question, what about the defrosting process? (for something like the high quality tuna)

I currently place the frozen meat in a cold water bath with a small amount of cold water running from the faucet (i think i saw this on good eats...)

Brendan_Lee_56950

Chris,

when you purchase things at the university auctions is a special permit needed or can anyone attend?

Chris_Young_80640

Amida0616:

Here is what I've learned from reviewing the meat science literature about defrosting: If the meat or seafood was frozen and stored deeply frozen then you want to thaw quickly. Indeed, go ahead and cook from frozen in your sous vide bath.

If, on the other hand, the meat has been frozen for a very long time in a typical domestic freezer (experiencing slight freeze-thaw cycles from the deicing features of a modern freezer) then you are better thawing it slowly at refrigerator temperatures to allow some time for moisture outside and inside muscle cells to reach an equilibrium.

Chris

Chris_Young_80640

BeeLee:

Now permits are required for any auction I've attended (they are usually open to the public, although you might need to register with the auctioneer when you arrive). Be sure to find out what the freezer was used for before hand. I would want to make sure that (a) no truly dangerous pathogens or chemicals were stored in the freezer and (b) nothing radioactive—and yes, this is sometimes an issue.

At University auctions, equipment is usually properly decommissioned and its original use declared. Still, we always do a thorough decontamination with high concentration bleach solution several times.

Chris

Brendan_Lee_56950

Good to hear. I'm surrounded by universities being in the DC area so I will have to keep an eye out for upcoming auctions.

mm_moore

Incredibly helpful! Thanks so much!