Large Scale Meat Defrosting

[dacolson]

Figured I’d pass along a good tip I read about and put to good use this week. I have been hoarding pork butts and briskets in my freezer for my buddy’s daughter’s grad party I’m cooking for. I have 2 freezers but only 1 fridge and didn’t have the room to defrost 5 briskets, 8 pork butts and 6 turkey breasts so I needed an alternative.

Meat has to stay below 40° before it cooks so after doing some reading I thought putting them in coolers of water would be a great way to defrost as the frozen meat is at 32°or lower and the water will help defrost slowly and stay hopefully under 40°

Not wanting to risk the health of my friends and family, I put my WIFI temp probes (ThermoWorks Signal) in each of the coolers and set temp alarms at 39° so I could add ice to the water if it got close to 40°. After the initial normalization of the temps, my two coolers stayed at 33°. At roughly 24 hours temps began to climb. At that point the meat was thawed. I drained the water and added bags of ice to hold the meat below 40° until it was prep time. I left the temp probes in the coolers to make sure temps stayed low.

Overall, I had the meat in the coolers for 48 hours through the defrosting and prep time before it went on the pit.

[Big T]

Great tip. Good luck on the cook

[dacolson]

Great tip. Good luck on the cook

Thx Big T. So far so good. Got the pit dialed in. Wood splits at the right size. Stack set at the right damper setting. Add wood every 40 mins. Rolling

[towtruck]

Nice...thanks for the tip

[towtruck]

Nice...thanks for the tip

Funny sad story about cooking for a group.....We had our boss retire and there was a big party (100) coming in to eat. The meal was carnitas. Two gals had six crock pots full of meat going and two with beans the night before. They prepped everything the day ahead and when they were all ready to go home they emptied out one fridge and placed all the hot crock pots into the fridge....all of them....then they went home. Four hours later when I was getting ready to eat my dinner at work I opened the fridge to find all of this.....the inside temp in the fridge was over 80*. I made a call to one of the gals and she was drunk and did not understand...the fridge should have cooled them all down she said. So, I called the other gal and she had me take them all out and put them back on warm and she would come in and fix everything. She never showed up so they sat all night bubbling and overflowing onto the counter and floor. I come in to work and get yelled at for leaving them all turned on. At that point I lost it a bit and jumped a few ass's and then told everyone I cared about not to eat the meat and I walked away from the party.

Later I was able to explain to my boss what the girls had done and who was a fault for what. He thanked me for telling him ahead of time not to eat the meat. The food was eaten and there were a few stomach grumbles later from the folks that stayed around. If I would have left those crock pots in the fridge all night they would have settled in around 120-130* and stayed there for 12 hours........that drunk gal never did understand why the fridge did not make them cold. And the other gal did not come it to take care of them because she did not want to be bothered........needless to say I never eat food prepared at work unless I see it being made start to finish.

[dacolson]

No kidding! What a nightmare.

[Frank_Cox]

Figured I’d pass along a good tip I read about and put to good use this week.

Overall, I had the meat in the coolers for 48 hours through the defrosting and prep time before it went on the pit.

Dude! this is a great idea! I've been using water for years but never like this. I will try this out for sure!

Funny sad story about cooking for a group.....

Dang bro! what an ordeal! some people just don't understand lol!
I have seen walk in coolers running 40°F to 45°F for hours and hours in some restaurants and it didn't bother them one bit.
Really got to respect the "No Zone" (aka. 40°F to 140°F for 4 hours or more)

[dacolson]

Thx Frank. 110# of meat defrosted, smoked, served, gone. Worked out.

[tinspark]

great tip/ I am cooking 15 racks of ribs and 10 tri-tips (brisket style) this coming Saturday for my sons high school graduation party. Should all fit in my Gravity Feed Smoker...We got everything on sale around memorial day and froze all of it at the elementary school kitchen freezer where my wife works. We were wondering how to thaw it out safely. I think i will give this a try>> Great post. Sticky note worthy IMO!!
I will start a new thread and post up a few pics of our shin-dig later this next weekend. 175 people invited!, that said, as a backup if everyone shows, I have a buddy that cooks at all of the Raider games and won a tailgate award a few years ago for his chicken. HE is bringin'a bunch of that too! He calls it "Raider chicken"