Frozen meat?

I thaw meat in the frig about 5 hours per pound. I don't think you would get even cooking if you cooked frozen or partially frozen meats, espcially larger cuts.

There have been a trained chef,or two, run tests comparing full frozen to full thawed in the archives,if you wish to search.

We also have an experienced cook on the forum that cooks volumes of meat ,up north.
He finds it useful and may jump in here,as well.

Their final analysis was that the times would end about the same on final, total, cooked thru time to be available to serve.

Our forum cook,I feel,would give you better,useful info than the chef-who was more of an "experimenter".

That said,most folks take the approach that cooking thawed worked better for them,when possible.

Hope this helps a little.

Smokin' could probably help find the info,if you really felt it necessary.

I have started thawing in a cooler with ice water. Thaws much faster then in the fridge.
Put it in the cooler in the morning and it's thawed by evening.

Wayne B

Thanks everyone. I don't post much, but I've learned so much from reading this forum. I don't want to cook from frozen, just wondering about thaw times and how you all handle it. Thanks again.
Lisa

Hi Lisa, trained chef and restaurant owner here

I would strongly suggest you fully thaw whatever you intend to smoke. RangerDF's 5 hrs @ lb seems about right. WayneB's ice water theory will also work as long as you keep a sharp eye on the water temp.

Speaking as a chef, who ever suggested it's fine and dandy to cook from a frozen state is a knucklehead. Too many risk factors involved.

While I can't advocate cooking frozen meat commercial environment, I have done it before a couple times at home with successful results and no ill effects.

A number of years ago I was traveling on business when my wife, early in the week, called me and said she had invited some friends for dinner on Saturday, and that everyone wanted pulled pork. I told her to move a couple butts from the freezer to the basement refrigerator to thaw. I got home on Friday afternoon and when I went to check on the butts in the refrigerator they weren't there. I asked my wife where they were and she replied "Oops, I forgot to take them out of the freezer".

I normally do butts(thawed)overnight starting around 11:00 PM with the smoker temp set at 185. I usually move the temp to 225 around 7:00 AM the following morning, and higher, if needed, around 1:00 PM. My target is to hit an internal temp of 195 around 4:00 PM then FTC foe 2+ hours, pull, and eat at 7:00 PM. In this instance, I put the frozen butts in the prior evening at my smoker's max temp of 250. At 7:00 the following morning the IT was 10-15 degrees above where it would be with a normal smoke so I opened the door, dumped some heat, and dialed the smoker back to 215.

In the end, everything came out as it normally would have. I do recall that there was more bark than normal and that it seemed to be extra crispy. Nice bonus.

I repeated the process a couple years later under a similar scenario with the same successful result.

Theoretically, the baddies are on the outside...no? So cooking frozen meat, unless something ground like hamburger, should be OK since the 250* hits the outside immediately. Also, freezing is used to kill baddies in Sushi fish, so wouldn't the meat be fairly safe to start? I wouldn't try it with fowl though.

That said, I always thaw. If I were in dls' situation, who seems to know this cooking craft fairly well, I probably would have left my butts frozen and run to the grocery store for fresh...if not for safety then to not try something new.

Another question I have. Wouldn't the outside pretty much dry out as the inside comes to temp?

quote:

Originally posted by MaxQ:
WayneB's ice water theory will also work as long as you keep a sharp eye on the water temp.

I throw in a whole 15 lb bag, so there is plenty of ice the whole day (Got a deal on a commercial ice machine that can make 250 lbs a day, so I always have lots of ice.) That is a good point though.

So people know, The point of using water is, water transfers heat faster than air so it brings the meat up to the temp of the water faster than air would at the same temp.

Wayne B

quote:

Originally posted by Pags:
Theoretically, the baddies are on the outside...no? So cooking frozen meat, unless something ground like hamburger, should be OK since the 250* hits the outside immediately. Also, freezing is used to kill baddies in Sushi fish, so wouldn't the meat be fairly safe to start? I wouldn't try it with fowl though.

That said, I always thaw. If I were in dls' situation, who seems to know this cooking craft fairly well, I probably would have left my butts frozen and run to the grocery store for fresh...if not for safety then to not try something new.

Another question I have. Wouldn't the outside pretty much dry out as the inside comes to temp?

Pags, thanks for the kind words.

There were a few things I didn't mention in my post. I did briefly think about getting some fresh butts then realized that the neighborhood butcher I always buy them from was closed. And, after having spent week in more than a few planes, I was beat and didn't feel like running around to other stores trying to find a couple butts. Also, around the time that this occurred there was a pretty active forum member with the user name of Prisonchef who had a concession trailer in St. Augustine, FL. He had mentioned that he always started his briskets and butts from frozen, so I figured I'd give it a go.

As a back up I knew I could pick up some rib eyes for the grill the following morning. I did, but we didn't need them.

I don't know about dry, but I recall a little more bark than normal, which wasn't a bad thing.

Bark is good. Thx.

I have smoked some mostly frozen ribs when in a time crunch. Couldn't tell any difference. I would think a thicker piece of meat might make a difference though, such as a brisket or PB.

Sounds like more a restaurant question. Get the meat early and let it thaw safely before you cook. If we need to discuss thawing in detail, let us know.

I just don't think you'll have a consistent/good end product if you're always using frozen.

Especially with rubs. They just won't stick to frozen meat.

quote:

Originally posted by SmokinOkie:
Sounds like more a restaurant question. Get the meat early and let it thaw safely before you cook. If we need to discuss thawing in detail, let us know.

I just don't think you'll have a consistent/good end product if you're always using frozen.

Especially with rubs. They just won't stick to frozen meat.

I certainly wouldn't do it as on purpose as a matter of practice, but it worked for me a couple times when I was in a pinch.

No dry rub sticking guaranteed!!

If you are on a close time line to finish you need to have it completely thawed. We did a fund raiser a few years ago and the vendor delivered 300 butts to us at the cook site. The problem was 100 of the were still frozen. Cookers lined up and lit, ready to go. I unwrapped the fresh ones, rubbed them and placed in cookers. The frozen ones I unwrapped and put straight in the cooker. After about 2 hours we pulled them and rubbed and put back in the cooker. They were still frozen in the middle but the rub stuck good. It took more wood to maintain temps at first but leveled off after about 6 hours. All the meat was done at the same time the next day. The fresh meat was cooked at a lower temp to not over cook it. The frozen did fine but it was a pain in the beginning.