Defrosting Frozen Steaks
How to Defrost Frozen Steaks - Best Online Steaks
Learning to defrost your frozen steak and meat products will help you enjoy a more flavorful steak and get the most value from the steaks you are buying online.
What is Flash Frozen?
You can buy steaks online fresh or frozen. Fresh will generally come with higher, overnight shipping charges. The only reason you would want to buy your steaks fresh is if you are using them right away. Frozen steaks provide you the opportunity to enjoy your purchases at your convenience. A fresh steak will always be better than defrosting the same steak, but our steak defrosting tips will help you get pretty close to a fresh steak experience.
Now, let's understand the process of how your steak gets frozen. Most manufacturers will "flash freeze" their meats, meaning the beef will get to -20 degrees in minutes. The sole benefit of flash freezing is all about the water in the meat. When a steak is flash frozen, the water freezes in circular drops. When you freeze a steak, or when a manufacturer does not use flash freezing technology, the water in the steak freezes into what looks like a snowflake under a microscope.
When you defrost a flash frozen steak, there will be a minimal amount of water in the cryovac packaging. When you defrost a steak that was not flash frozen, the snowflake-shaped water molecules cut and tear the beef as the water expands during freezing. This damage to the beef results in excessive water drained from the steak, and the increased chances of a cooking a steak that will be drier than its flash frozen counterpart.
Defrosting Steaks
Each manufacturer will provide some guidance on how they recommend their frozen beef to be defrosted. Unfortunately, it hardly ever appears on the product packaging, but you can expect one of these guidelines:
- Put your frozen steak in your refrigerator and allow it to slowly defrost for two days.
- Put your steaks in your sink and let it defrost overnight at room temperature.
- Put your steaks in a sink filled with cold water.
We have found any of these methods will work just fine. It is what you do to the steaks after the defrost that matters most. You can expect a lot more water in the cryovac packaging when you defrost in submerged cold water as the water from the sink will penetrate the packaging. It's not really an issue, as you should rinse the steak anyway, and the convenience of a two-hour defrost can't be overlooked.
If you defrost in a refrigerator you must put your steaks in a Tupperware or at least on a plate. Not all manufacturers use the same quality cryovac packaging, and the thin cheaper cryovac is almost certain to crack and leak, leaving a huge and very messy puddle to be cleaned up. Contrary to popular belief, the red liquid you see in the bag is not blood. It is water that has been filtered through your meat which is a red protein.
Here we going to show how we dried out a skirt steak from Pat LaFriedas. The idea is to remove as much surface moisture as possible, then pull the remaining water out from the steak using salt.
1. Rinse off the exterior of your steak or meat product until it is towel dry.
2. Lay down two HandiWipes wide enough to catch any salt that may bounce off the steaks.
3. Heavily salt the meat on all surfaces. Don't be afraid, it is going to seem like a lot of salt, but this is what pulls the moisture out from the steak.
4. Roll up in the HandiWipe.
5. Put the rolled up HandiWipe in a gallon zip lock bag and seal getting as much of the air our as possible.
6. Put in the refrigerator for at least 12 hours, 24 would be best, but the size of your steak is the secret. Obviously, you have to give the salt time to do its magic. We have been successful drying out larger roast for three and four days with this method. You just may have to chnage the HandiWipes daily.
Tips on Freezing Your Own Steaks
Quite often, it can be more economical to buy larger cuts of meat and make your own steaks for later. We prefer to buy whole Filet Mignon Roasts when they go on sale and cut them up into our own desired size steaks. Not only do we say money, but we have the luxury of enjoying Filet Mignons generally not offered for sale online because they are too big.
Once you have portioned your steaks and you have ready to freeze, but them in the coldest part of your refrigerator for a day, and then move them to your freezer. The temperature drop from going to your fridge to the freezer is much less than going from room temperature to freezing, will certainly expose your Filets to crystallized water molecules.
Try it, and let us know if it worked for you!
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