frozen pork shoulders

[Tom Raveret]

On Saturday night I took out two pork shoulders from the freezer and placed them in the fridge with the plan to cook them (tonight) Tuesday night/Wednesday. One was 7 lbs the other 4 lbs. this morning when I went to season them i see they are still partially frozen. I think part of the problem is I was thawing them in the top of the fridge and the temp was registering 38F I checked the temprature in the lower part of fridge and it is 45 f and moved them down. Are there any tricks to speeding up the defrost? I really need to cook these tonight and don't want to wait until tommorow. Any sugggestions? Thanks for the input!!

 

[Guest]

You can fill your sink with cold water and place the shoulders in the cold water until they thaw. This is how some folks thaw turkeys. You will need to refresh the water every half hour, though.

If the meat is not in a sealed cryovac bag, I also like to clean the sink really well before putting the meat in the sink, just be sure to rinse it out well before filling it up. I will usually rinse in between fills to try and run out some of the bacteria.