Tips for freezing raw meat

Get the Reynolds Food Service Wrap 915c, it's 18" wide ans 3000' long and is available at Sam's for about 18 bucks. Triple wrap your meat in this stuff and it's damn near as good as a food sealer. I've had brats froze for over a year with little freezer burn or loss in quality. Just make sure each layer of wrap is nice and tight...works great. Your can buy alot of rolls of this stuff for the price of one of those food sealer thingies
Jon

I've had pretty good luck with carefully cutting one end of the cryovac bags, pulling out what I want, squishing the air out, and tying up the bag with a twister. They're good thick plastic and that way the label is already on the package. If there's a lot of juice, I'll rinse the outside of the bag after tying it.

Good ideas ... thanks!

Just curious: For those with FoodSavers, are you limited to how big of hunk of meat you can seal? Could you seal a whole raw pork butt for freezing with a FoodSaver, or would it be too big?

The biggest bags for my model 370 is 11" wide. They call these gallon bags. I made one big enough last week to hold 5-6 lbs of cooked brisket. So I imagine, it could be done as long as it fit width-wise.

bob

I found a sale on butts last week and bought a few more than what I needed at the time. The butts weighed from 6.5 to 7 pounds each. Bagged 'em up in individual bags made from 11 inch roll goods and sealed 'em using a Vac-350. Worked like a champ. If you cook a lot, the Food Saver really is a good investment.

Studly,

We've done the method with the commercial aluminum wrap and it works well. I've bagged pieces of meat squeezing out the air before sealing. I've never used a food sealer. I've sneaked the food out of the cryovac and sealed with a tie. I try not to let any meat stay in the freezer longer than a few months, like 3-6 months. I go for the shorter time with ribs, because I can really taste freezer taste on them fast, maybe because of the exposed bone. I've had meals at bbq restaurants that really turned me off because of the freezer taste on ribs, so I guess I do tell the difference. But I think it was because they didn't seal up the meat and who knows how old it was? This was in a chain bbq restaurant advertising "all you can eat" ribs, so I couldn't eat much and they were happy to get rid of as many as they could, I guess.

I haven't noticed the taste so much on boneless meats.

Another way is to wrap in plastic, then in the foil. But I still wouldn't keep long in the freezer.

I'm certainly not an expert, but nothing is worse than that nasty taste.

Peggy
2 Greyhounds....SMOKIN!!!!

Thanks Peggy and everyone else for the tips. Yes, I'm trying to avoid buying a Food Saver. We don't freeze that much, and what we do freeze, we try to use it within a couple months anyway. So I'm glad to hear that you don't get any freezer burn if you wrap it right and if you use it within a couple months.

How about freezing in water. I've heard many fishermen till fill a 1/2 gal milk container with planter trout and filling the container with water.. thus sealing out any air.. Anyone tried this?

weewilly
the water method works great for fish especially my weakness of catfish.
it even works with mullet (or catfood as i call it to upset my southern wife peggy)
jack
but i would not use this method for chicken beef or pork as you cant freeze it fast enuff to prevent big old ice crystals

Thanks, PC.. I guess my comment really had to do with freezer burning. Heck, I bought a bunch of turkeys on sale a couple of years ago and put them in the freezer. They were wrapped with that super heavy duty plastic with the wire wrap on the end.. as are most frozen turkeys. Well, to my regret.. about 10 months later.. when I decided to Q a bird ( I know.. I shouldn't have avoided the birds that long) they had a bad flavor due to burn or whatever. To that end, I was wondering if water pack would have helped.. keeping out the air/oxy or whatever.

Bill