Freezing vacum packed steaks.

54and56

Hi all,

I absolutely LOVE my BBQ'd steaks.

I go to France on holiday with the family each year.

I can NEVER find decent steak in France, have tried everything from Supermarkets to independent butchers to markets etc.

I'm thinking of buying and bringing a dozen Aldi 30 day dry aged Rib Eye steaks to France with me this year. They generally have a shelf life after purchase of up to 10 days so I can buy them the day before we go, put them in a cooler box with ice and they'll be grand for the 24 hurs of the ferry and drive when we get there.

Once there I'm planning to freeze some of them so I can defrost and have them towards the end of the holiday.

Does anyone have any experience doing something like this? Good/bad idea?

Will the steaks be much different after being defrosted to what they normally are fresh?

stimpson

I did this exact thing a few years back going to France. I was advised by a friend that the beef wasn't great out there so I froze a load of steaks here and brought them in a cool box.

If I did one thing differently it would be to use my cheapo cool box and not my plugin one, as I think they would have kept frozen better (the plugin cooler temp may have actually been warmer than the frozen steaks.

My advice would be to ensure they are well frozen before you leave i.e. For a week or so. And to fill the cooler with other freezer stuff the night before (bags of frozen chips or whatever) to bring the temp down. And fill up any unused space with freezer blocks (or even news paper). Tape down the lid and don't open until you get there. The idea is to keep as much cold inside the box as possible. Frozen steaks will be grand defrosted - I buy whole Striploins in Branagans in Ballycoolin and cut my own steaks and freeze them. They are always fine.

54and56

stimpson wrote: »

I froze a load of steaks here and brought them in a cool box.

I'm thinking of bringing fresh but vacuum packed Aldi steaks and then freezing them when we get there. Can I ask why you froze them before you transported them?

stimpson

Je_suis_Jean wrote: »

I'm thinking of bringing fresh but vacuum packed Aldi steaks and then freezing them when we get there. Can I ask why you froze them before you transported them?

The colder they are the longer they will stay cold. Its all just thermodynamics. If they are 3-4 deg when you leave they might be 6-7 deg when you arrive. If they are -7 deg when you leave they will probably still be -3 when you arrive. If you are going to freeze them anyway then why not do it at home?

54and56

stimpson wrote: »

The colder they are the longer they will stay cold. Its all just thermodynamics. If they are 3-4 deg when you leave they might be 6-7 deg when you arrive. If they are -7 deg when you leave they will probably still be -3 when you arrive. If you are going to freeze them anyway then why not do it at home?

I guess my concern ref freezing them before we go is that I want to freeze them when I get there so I don't want to risk them thawing out during the journey and then not being able to re-freeze them when we get there.

I'm also thinking that transporting them fresh in a cool box requires less accurate temperature control and will facilitate a longer journey time should we be delayed for any reason.

Am I missing something?

stimpson

Je_suis_Jean wrote: »

I guess my concern ref freezing them before we go is that I want to freeze them when I get there so I don't want to risk them thawing out during the journey and then not being able to re-freeze them when we get there.

I'm also thinking that transporting them fresh in a cool box requires less accurate temperature control and will facilitate a longer journey time should we be delayed for any reason.

Am I missing something?

If you have a large thermal mass it's not going to thaw out in 24 hours - especially if it's fully frozen (ie. down to -7 throughout all of the meat), which is why I suggest freezing them a week before you leave - to get as much cold as possible into the meat.

If you're going to freeze it anyway then you may as well do it before you leave for France. Worst case is that a couple of the outside steaks thaw a little, so you eat these first and put the rest into the freezer. My concern with chilled steaks would be that they warm up to a point where bacteria can multiply.

the beer revolu

I'd also freeze before going.

The idea of not refreezing stuff is a myth and they will stay frozen anyway.

Think about it. Which is going to be safer : putting a steak at 1degC (pretty much defrosted) into the freezer or putting a steak at 9deg C (risen from fridge temp) into the freezer?

Steaks freeze really well as long as they are well wrapped - vac packed is perfect.

54and56

Thanks for all the replies and for convincing me that freezing the steaks I want to bring a week or so before we go so they are well and truly frozen by the time we leave and then transport them in cool box with other frozen items and some of those blue bottle freezer packs is the way to go.

That will remove the last minute shopping and careful handling required if I was to transport them fresh but chilled.

Well chuffed now.

Not having decent BBQ'd steaks once or twice a week whilst in France has always been a bit of a bug bear for me. No more

stimpson

Je_suis_Jean wrote: »

Not having decent BBQ'd steaks once or twice a week whilst in France has always been a bit of a bug bear for me. No more

I don't think we used the cooker once when we were there. BBQ was used for everything. If you are sailing to Roscoff stop off at the Big Red Bus on the way out, pick up some sample wines and email them an order before you return and they'll have it ready to go.

54and56

stimpson wrote: »

If you are sailing to Roscoff stop off at the Big Red Bus on the way out, pick up some sample wines and email them an order before you return and they'll have it ready to go.

Yes to sailing into (and out of) Roscoff but we switched from buying our homeward bound wine from the Big Red Bus to http://www.wine-centre.com/index.php (see also https://www.facebook.com/WINE-Centre-146623759086271/) where the owner Solenne is really excellent to deal with.

Now what we do is try local wines during our stay and buy a few cases of the ones we like most before we start the journey home. Once we get to Roscoff we buy another few cases of wine we know we'll like once summer is gone from Solenne who has always given us very candid advice and that keeps us going through the winter.

stimpson

Je_suis_Jean wrote: »

Yes to sailing into (and out of) Roscoff but we switched from buying our homeward bound wine from the Big Red Bus to http://www.wine-centre.com/index.php (see also https://www.facebook.com/WINE-Centre-146623759086271/) where the owner Solenne is really excellent to deal with.

Now what we do is try local wines during our stay and buy a few cases of the ones we like most before we start the journey home. Once we get to Roscoff we buy another few cases of wine we know we'll like once summer is gone from Solenne who has always given us very candid advice and that keeps us going through the winter.

Fair enough if you know what you're doing. I bargained hard with BRB before and got a decent discount, even though most of what I bought was already on special Enjoy the break!

54and56

stimpson wrote: »

Fair enough if you know what you're doing. I bargained hard with BRB before and got a decent discount, even though most of what I bought was already on special Enjoy the break!

We've certainly drunk enough wine to know what we're doing but the reality is we know what we like, we know what we're prepared to pay for what we want and we tend to focus these days on buying smaller amounts of better quality slightly more expensive wines than we did in the past when we'd focus on price and end up with a load of wine we quickly became sick of drinking!!

Loire

Je_suis_Jean wrote: »

Now what we do is try local wines during our stay and buy a few cases of the ones we like most before we start the journey home.

Makes for a great holiday too...remember last year and it was like "Oh, not sure about that bottle, let's open another one to compare" :pac:

As for the meat in France, never had a problem TBH. In fact the meat in the larger supermarkets in great. Ditto for the fish / shellfish!

stimpson

Loire wrote: »

Makes for a great holiday too...remember last year and it was like "Oh, not sure about that bottle, let's open another one to compare" :pac:

As for the meat in France, never had a problem TBH. In fact the meat in the larger supermarkets in great. Ditto for the fish / shellfish!

I think my favourite meal over there was a kilo of supermarket mussels steamed with lots of garlic and a little white wine eaten straight from the pot with a fresh baguette and a nice bottle.

It's Lake Garda for me this year. 2 wineries within 2 km of the apartment and one of the best in the region is 10 km away. Flying Ryanair so will have limited space for bringing bottles home but plan to sample plenty while I'm there. Can't wait!

54and56

Loire wrote: »

Makes for a great holiday too...remember last year and it was like "Oh, not sure about that bottle, let's open another one to compare" :pac:

We do something similar. Start with one white and one red and when finished they are put onto a high shelf out of the way. As the holiday progresses and we try different wines if we think it's better than the one on the shelf we replace the bottle on the shelf with the current favourite and by the time we are leaving we have a mini version of Darwins theory of natural selection which we then load up on.

Loire

Je_suis_Jean wrote: »

We do something similar. Start with one white and one red and when finished they are put onto a high shelf out of the way. As the holiday progresses and we try different wines if we think it's better than the one on the shelf we replace the bottle on the shelf with the current favourite and by the time we are leaving we have a mini version of Darwins theory of natural selection which we then load up on.

Love it!!

54and56

FYI I packed 24 vacuum packed deeply frozen steaks into a cool box and surrounded them with ice.

35 hours traveling by ferry and car later they were defrosted on arrival. The top two were cool so put into the fridge for use withing 24 hours. The rest were quite cold so put into the freezer for use over the next 2-3 weeks.

I hope they'll be safe to eat having been frozen, defrosted and frozen again!!

the beer revolu

Je_suis_Jean wrote: »

FYI I packed 24 vacuum packed deeply frozen steaks into a cool box and surrounded them with ice.

35 hours traveling by ferry and car later they were defrosted on arrival. The top two were cool so put into the fridge for use withing 24 hours. The rest were quite cold so put into the freezer for use over the next 2-3 weeks.

I hope they'll be safe to eat having been frozen, defrosted and frozen again!!

As long as they were well chilled, they will be fine.

I'm surprised, I though they would still be frozen.

54and56

the beer revolu wrote: »

I'm surprised, I though they would still be frozen.

Me too!! Had loaded up a proper chill box with steaks which had been in a chest style freezer for at least 3 weeks and wedged in plenty of ice (in ice bags) around them to fill any spare space. the cooler is the type where the handle locks it in place and wouldn't sit flush unless the lid was on tight so I don't think it's possible the lid was open or ajar. I placed the cooler box in the boot area and covered it with bags of clothes. Because I've a 4X4 the boot area is "open" i.e. it's just behind the rear seats so with the air con on 17c all the way down through France for 10 hours I don't think it was exposed to some mad high temp which would have warmed up the cool box.

So long as re-freezing the steaks isn't a problem then freezing them before transporting them is probably the way to go as they were still cold when I opened the cooler box. If I'd transported them cold from the fridge they may have been half cooked and useless for freezing when I got here.