Thawing options

[AlabamaGrillBillies]

Hey fellas I need some advice here. Me and my partner Jeff are going to be cooking a case of boston butts this weekend.


ok


I just had pause writting that, Man I'm so pumped about finally have a cooker large enough to cook that amount of meat at once and still have room left over.


Anyhow back on subject we will be buying a case of butts frozen. We need to thaw them (should be about 8-10 butts) to cook on saturday. We will be purchasing either thursday or friday.

How would you recomend going about thawing? We have at our disposal:
Each of us has fridge with enough free space to hold three or four butts and can probably stash the remaing butts at a friend/parents house to thaw, BUT if purchased on thursday or friday will that be enough time to thaw in a fridge planning on cooking saturday morning.

We also have a big 5 day cooler and some other good coolers, could we thaw in these over two days?

Input and suggestions highly needed.






What we really need is a dedicated BBQ fridge so this won't be a problem down the road.

 

[ewile]

this I know: the fastest way to thaw is in cool, runnng water. It's been proven that this is fastest I believe. So perhaps butts in the cooler with a hose running into the cooler letting the water overflow out of it? I'd also completely dump the water every so often and start over.

Large sink with cold running water would work too.

 

[Bill-Chicago]

First off, its Input. :wink:

Secondly, you mention a Friday morning cook. Do you mean Saturday morning?

If Friday, no way in hell your buying Friday frozen an cooking.

Are you cooking these for someone (catering)? If so, you might need to follow guidelines in the food safety forum.

If it was me, cooking for family, I would buy Thurs a.m. at the latest, and leave on the counter for about 3 hours, in the fridge for 4 hours, back on the counter for 3 hours, rub down and in the fridge overnight (for a Friday morning cook)

For Sat morn, I would not take out on the counter the second time, but leave in the fridge all of Friday, rubbing down (and wrapping each in Clingwrap) Friday evening.

Good luck!

 

[Divemaster]

I think I would agree with ‘ewile’ on this one…

I would bag each one (if they are not already in a cryovac package) so they don't end up sucking up more liquid, and then put them in a cooler with water slowly running over them. Once thawed, I would rub, wrap and put in the refrigerator until I was ready to cook…. Just my $.02…

 

[Roo-B-Q'N]

Here is a great thread on the proper way to thaw your meat http://www.bbq-brethren.com/forum/showthread.php?t=17852

 

[AlabamaGrillBillies]

First off, its Input. :wink:

Secondly, you mention a Friday morning cook. Do you mean Saturday morning?

If Friday, no way in hell your buying Friday frozen an cooking.

Are you cooking these for someone (catering)? If so, you might need to follow guidelines in the food safety forum.

If it was me, cooking for family, I would buy Thurs a.m. at the latest, and leave on the counter for about 3 hours, in the fridge for 4 hours, back on the counter for 3 hours, rub down and in the fridge overnight (for a Friday morning cook)

For Sat morn, I would not take out on the counter the second time, but leave in the fridge all of Friday, rubbing down (and wrapping each in Clingwrap) Friday evening.

Good luck!

Um Ya, early in the morning mod I guess. INput not IMput and sorry for the confussion but we will be cooking saturday morning. We are selling a few to some friends/co-workers under our new catering company and keeping whatever we don't sell for ourselfs. The main purpose of this cook is better learn our new smoker. If we sell 4 or 5 butts we pay for the whole case, the rest is profit or food in our freezers.

 

[AlabamaGrillBillies]

Here is a great thread on the proper way to thaw your meat http://www.bbq-brethren.com/forum/showthread.php?t=17852

Thanks I read over that thread, good information. I've never tried to thaw this large of a quanity of meat before. I'm thinking cooler with cold/cool running water might be the trick. Any guestimate on how long that would take vs a complete fridge thaw?

 

[Bill-Chicago]

Um Ya, early in the morning mod I guess. INput not IMput and sorry for the confussion

I was kidding (but its confusion)

Follow Roo's link, it looks like a keeper

Good luck with your new venture!

 

[AlabamaGrillBillies]

Found a good link that answered one of my questions:
http://www.acrestationmeatfarm.com/pork_cuts.htm

What is the best way to thaw frozen pork?
The best way to defrost pork is in the refrigerator in its original wrapping.
Follow these guidelines for defrosting pork in the refrigerator:

• Small roast will take 3-5 hours per pound
• Large roast will take 4-7 hours per pound
• Chop, 1" inch thick will take 12-14 hours
• Ground pork needs to be estimated by package thickness

Specifically a boston butt ( I guess this would be a large roast ) should take 4-7hours per pound. Figure an 8 lb butt will take 32-56 hours in the refrigerator. Ouch thats a long time.

 

[Roo-B-Q'N]

Thanks I read over that thread, good information. I've never tried to thaw this large of a quanity of meat before. I'm thinking cooler with cold/cool running water might be the trick. Any guestimate on how long that would take vs a complete fridge thaw?

Our meat sponsor didn't get his shipment of pork butts for one of our comps. We decided we had to use the ones we had in our freezer and through a comedy of errors, we did not pull them out until the morning of the comp.
Once at the comp site wew filled one of our gray tubs with cool water and began the thawing process by filling and dumping with cold water. It didn't take as long as I thought it would. We took 7th palce that day.
I would assume that running cold water would work a bit faster and also be the safest considering the time you have.

 

[Puppyboy]

You still have a few days so the fridge option would be best at this point.