Thawing a RD cryovac of spares...advice needed plz

fill the kitchen sink with cold water and toss them in there (in the cyro)

will thaw in no time (ribs)

you can do the same with the butts but it will just take longer, I switch out the water a few times for those

ButtBurner said:

fill the kitchen sink with cold water and toss them in there (in the cyro)

will thaw in no time (ribs)

you can do the same with the butts but it will just take longer, I switch out the water a few times for those

Click to expand...

EXACTLY how I do it. :thumb:

For the ribs... if you need to cook them today, cold running water is good. If you have an extra day, just put them in the fridge.
For the butts... I always separate and wrap those individually. I used to not do it and it was a pain. Finally came up with a method that worked... I run them under cold water until I can remove the Cryo, then run cold water along the joint between the two until I can get a plain kitchen knife in there to work my way around and separate the two. Usually only thaws the outer quarter inch or so. But still not as good as separating them before I freeze...
Once separated they can go into a ziplock each in two water baths to thaw more quickly.
Some folks swear by a partial thaw in the microwave to get the center temp up a bit but I never liked what it did to the meat texture...

Rules of thumb here.

Air is a terrible method of heat transfer, so just putting them in the fridge or counter, thaws them slowly.

Water is a pretty good source of heat transfer, so putting them in water is a great idea. Moving water further increases the heat transfer and will thaw them even faster.

as said above put them in the sink in a shallow pan and use very slow running cold water and the ribs will defrost very quickly in 3 or 3 hours.