Are old frozen ribs safe?


 

Howard Warren

TVWBB Fan
While cleaning out my freezer I found a (maybe good?) surprise: a frozen rack of babyback ribs from last spring. The question is whether they are safe...
  • I froze them in May, the sell by date was mid June 2019.
  • The vacupack is still very tight.
  • They are not discolored.
I'm thinking about smoking them Sunday as a surprise for The Girlfriend (the one who volunteered me to smoke 8 shoulders for her company's charity thing.) But I don't want to poison her (or me for that matter) and another rack of ribs is just $10 at Kroger. (Toilet paper costs more!)

Thoughts?
 
No problem
Cook it...then decide if want to eat it.

Ive had one item go bad in freezer, in my life. Besides freezer burn.
A frozen ham had fat turn rancid.
It had been saved for making red beans, but when thawed out it was disgusting smelling.
 
Just did a rack of BBs that were over a year old, packed in food saver bag. came out great. They should be fine.
 
It's not at all uncommon for me to pull 2-year-old Cryovac and my own vac sealed meat from the freezer and enjoy a nice meal. Some folks are likely to say they only use fresh meat and can distinguish between fresh and frozen; I'm not among that camp. A screenshot from one of my Foodsaver vac sealer manuals:

Annotation 2020-03-13 221053.png
 
May be okay. Course most freezers are self-defrosting so the temperature is not constant. Ten bucks is not a lot to stay safe. Unless you want the cook to go bad to get out of the event.... Course our bbq pride won't let us do that.
 

 

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