Freezing Competition Meats in advance

I get the SRF ships frozen. That is not my question. I am talking about running to my local meat packer that sells brisket that has not been frozen (that I am aware of), taking it home, and throwing into the freezer.

Has anyone had any issues with Briskets that have been fresh, then frozen, then thawed before comps.
 
RumRunner_1492 said:
I found that freezing briskets in a standard home freezer was not good. I lost a lot of moisture out of the meat. I will never do it again.
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Huh? How does freezing take moisture out of the meat?

Qbert60 said:
Has anyone had any issues with Briskets that have been fresh, then frozen, then thawed before comps.
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Every brisket i sold you was wet aged then frozen then thawed. :thumb:
 
I purchase them by the case, that way I get the kill date. They immediately go back into the deep freeze. 4 weeks out from the comp they begin the wet aging process. After that cook as usual.
 
Bbq Bubba said:
Huh? How does freezing take moisture out of the meat?



Every brisket i sold you was wet aged then frozen then thawed. :thumb:
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I trimmed 2 briskets for a competition and then froze them. Upon thawing them there was at least 1-1.5 cups of liquid in the bag. The only place that liquid could've came from was from the brisket. I can tell you the final result was a dryer brisket than usual as well.
 
If memory serves, this was discussed in another thread (here perhaps?) and it was ...

FAST freeze, slow thaw = good.
SLOW freeze, slow thaw = not so good.

My takeaway was that your standard home freezer isn't the best environment to freeze them. Have them done somewhere that has a blast freezer which can do it quickly.
 
From many sources I have read and heard (including "Trust Your Butcher" :wink:), flash freezing does help preserve the meat better than doing a slow freeze in your home fridge. Slow freezing allows ice crystals to form and grow slowly, which harm the cells of the meat (at a microscopic level). Flash freezing eliminates the slow formation of ice crystals, protecting the cells better.
 
I have cooked 35 contests this year and have never had "fresh" meat for any. All of my comp meats have arrived frozen and my routine is to start thawing brisket and butts on Saturday evening, and trim on Tuesday. I move my ribs from the freezer on Thursday.
We get our chicken frozen so it has to thaw before trimming. We trim and vacuum seal and re-freeze. My wife trims chicken and she usually orders/thaws/trims/re-freezes 4-5 comps worth of chicken at a time.

For the poster who said he buys his fresh briskets at a local market, I would bet that they would put them in their commercial freezer to quickly freeze and then you could transfer to your residential freezer.
 
djqualls said:
I have cooked 35 contests this year and have never had "fresh" meat for any. All of my comp meats have arrived frozen and my routine is to start thawing brisket and butts on Saturday evening, and trim on Tuesday. I move my ribs from the freezer on Thursday.
We get our chicken frozen so it has to thaw before trimming. We trim and vacuum seal and re-freeze. My wife trims chicken and she usually orders/thaws/trims/re-freezes 4-5 comps worth of chicken at a time.

For the poster who said he buys his fresh briskets at a local market, I would bet that they would put them in their commercial freezer to quickly freeze and then you could transfer to your residential freezer.
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How did you get your wife to trim chicken?.... :twitch:
 
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I buy my SRF briskets through Sysco, so they are not frozen when they are delivered to my office. I take them home and put them in my standard sears bought deep freeze. No commercial flash freeze unit for me. I'll pull a brisket out of the freezer on the Sunday before a comp and put it fat cap up in my bbq fridge to let it slowly thaw. I've done this routine for a while now and have had great success. Why do I do it this way? I don't know, cause I've always done it that way I guess, and I'm a bbq guy and hate to change anything that has worked......

I think that sometimes we as perfectionists tend to over think these things. Its all about cooking the meat until its done, and having a great flavor profile. Earlier this year I was traveling for business and just never got around to pulling a brisket out of the freezer. I pulled it out on a Thursday, left it out on my counter overnight to thaw, trimmed it Friday, and got a perfect 180 in brisket that weekend. As with anything that you are "in to", people have a tendency to spend a lot of time thinking about things that in the end may not matter. It's fun to talk about though...
 
Jeremy Moyers said:
I buy my SRF briskets through Sysco, so they are not frozen when they are delivered to my office. I take them home and put them in my standard sears bought deep freeze. No commercial flash freeze unit for me. I'll pull a brisket out of the freezer on the Sunday before a comp and put it fat cap up in my bbq fridge to let it slowly thaw. I've done this routine for a while now and have had great success. Why do I do it this way? I don't know, cause I've always done it that way I guess, and I'm a bbq guy and hate to change anything that has worked......

I think that sometimes we as perfectionists tend to over think these things. Its all about cooking the meat until its done, and having a great flavor profile. Earlier this year I was traveling for business and just never got around to pulling a brisket out of the freezer. I pulled it out on a Thursday, left it out on my counter overnight to thaw, trimmed it Friday, and got a perfect 180 in brisket that weekend. As with anything that you are "in to", people have a tendency to spend a lot of time thinking about things that in the end may not matter. It's fun to talk about though...
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I couldn't agree more.:clap2:
 
I think most briskets I've cooked have been frozen as well. I let them thaw in the fridge for 5 - 7 days.

I've also cooked ribs that have been frozen and didn't really notice much texture difference, but I don't typically do that.
 
Jeremy Moyers said:
I buy my SRF briskets through Sysco, so they are not frozen when they are delivered to my office. I take them home and put them in my standard sears bought deep freeze. No commercial flash freeze unit for me. I'll pull a brisket out of the freezer on the Sunday before a comp and put it fat cap up in my bbq fridge to let it slowly thaw. I've done this routine for a while now and have had great success. Why do I do it this way? I don't know, cause I've always done it that way I guess, and I'm a bbq guy and hate to change anything that has worked......

I think that sometimes we as perfectionists tend to over think these things. Its all about cooking the meat until its done, and having a great flavor profile. Earlier this year I was traveling for business and just never got around to pulling a brisket out of the freezer. I pulled it out on a Thursday, left it out on my counter overnight to thaw, trimmed it Friday, and got a perfect 180 in brisket that weekend. As with anything that you are "in to", people have a tendency to spend a lot of time thinking about things that in the end may not matter. It's fun to talk about though...
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Thawed overnight on the counter.....my food service OCD is kicking in hard. I know people do this at home all the time but it's a big no-no in food handling practices.
 
Jeremy Moyers said:
I buy my SRF briskets through Sysco, so they are not frozen when they are delivered to my office. I take them home and put them in my standard sears bought deep freeze. No commercial flash freeze unit for me. I'll pull a brisket out of the freezer on the Sunday before a comp and put it fat cap up in my bbq fridge to let it slowly thaw. I've done this routine for a while now and have had great success. Why do I do it this way? I don't know, cause I've always done it that way I guess, and I'm a bbq guy and hate to change anything that has worked......

I think that sometimes we as perfectionists tend to over think these things. Its all about cooking the meat until its done, and having a great flavor profile. Earlier this year I was traveling for business and just never got around to pulling a brisket out of the freezer. I pulled it out on a Thursday, left it out on my counter overnight to thaw, trimmed it Friday, and got a perfect 180 in brisket that weekend. As with anything that you are "in to", people have a tendency to spend a lot of time thinking about things that in the end may not matter. It's fun to talk about though...
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Agreed. But seriously Jeremy when was the last time you scored well in brisket........goes and looks at KCBS recent results.........oh......well.......nevermind :icon_blush:
 
I hear you Tom.... I watched it, but I had to have something to cook... Not my normal practice, but at least it was beef! If this made your "food service OCD" kick in, then never ask me about my chicken process!

Hope you're doing well bud. We'll miss you at the Cup this weekend.
 
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