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Did anyone see Alton Browns experiment about how to thaw fastest.

1) in an oven
2) in a fridge
3) in a tub of water
4) under running water.

The answer? (see below)

Safely thaw?

You're not REALLY asking are you Wink just kiddin' there Miker

We're pretty strict around here about reminding everyone of the "danger zone" like DMA says.

A site I refer to often:

What is the Danger Zone

Because many of us cater or serve to our friends, we don't like to add bacteria when we can help it.

Answer: Under running water. Interesting explaination, but the pictures of everything thawing showed he was correct.

Smokin'
This is what I posted this morning on Ray Basso's BBQ Forum. I wanted to thaw out some butts so I thought of doing this. Hope it's of some interest...

Last night at 6pm I put 4 butts, in 2 unbroken cryovaced packages, about 17# per package, into a rectangular rubbermaid container and covered with cold water. I had the container on a dbl layer bath towel and put the plastic cover on the container and covered that with a heavy bath towel big enough to cover top and sides, and put my NU-Temp probe in between the 2 packages to monitor temps thru the night. Started at 37-38 deg at 6 pm. At midnight temp was 38 deg. at 4am 39 deg. at 6am 40 deg and at 9am 41 deg. When I took them out at 9 am if I moved the probe around the probe would vary from 42-39 and the meat was still kind of frozen in the deep center next to the bone and the outside of the meat, while pushing the probe in only 1-2" was still 36 deg. Now these butts came frozen solid from the freezer when I started and were pretty much thawed in 14-15 hrs while virtually staying out of the "danger zone". For those that want their meat thawed quickly and safely overnight this is a fairly safe way to do it according to my results. I'll try this again the nexy time and see if it is reproducable. Thought it might be a fun experiment and may be of some interest to some seeing that this question of "safely" thawing meat has come of several times in the past.
Good Q'n
Jon
Hey' what's shakin'.

Actually the link above in Tom's post is a reference to yours over at Ray's.

Always good to see a little "scientific" research.

As I mentioned above, another way is to have the item in a bath of running water. The osmosis / friction of the moving water thaws things out faster then all other methods....according to Alton Brown.

Smokin'
Guess I should have read all the posts first. How have you been Russ? Things have been getting a little cool up here.
I was trying to save on the running water thingy by doing the butts wrapped up like that, basically insulating them to keep the meat temp even and cold thru-out the thaw, thus out of the danger zone. In the fridge takes 3-4 days and these pretty much thawed in 15 hrs, a lttle icey in the center which was fine. Seemed to work pretty good. I'm sure the same thing coul be achieved in a large cooler plopped next to the sink. I think I'll try that next time. When thawed enough, pop the cooler drain and empty right into the sink
Stay in the smoke
Jon

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