Vacuum Seal


 
E

E Mann

TVWBB Fan
I'm doing a fairly large cook this weekend and part of that cook will include 3 pork butts. I purchased them at Sam's where they come in packs of 2. So for those of you that are not good with math, I'll have 1 left over.

My wife's company has a vacuum sealer and they offered to let me use it for the last butt. She works about 30-minutes away so my question is, can I go ahead and freeze the butt now by wrapping it in saran, foil & a zip-lock and then on Tuesday (when I'll be by her work) un-wrap it and vacuum seal a pre-frozen butt? Does that take all the benefit out of it? Should I just drive to her work tomorrow and vacuum seal it? The next time I plan on cooking a butt is the first of May. Any help is appreciated.
 
I would think that the vacuuum bag would seal tighter and conform closer to the surface of the meat while the meat was still pliable and not frozen.

I would just zip-lock it and hold in the frig.
 
Make sure the butt - whether whole or already pulled - is cool before wrapping it.

You can certainly freeze it now then vac it later. The vac bag will conform to the meat just fine. If their plan is (or might be) to reheat in the bag I'd skip the foil entirely.
 
Same situation yesterday. Bought a two pack and only used one. I just carefully cut the end and slid one out. Twirled the pack up tight like a loaf of bread and twist tied it, then threw it in the freezer. That should do it.
 
I ended up taking many of your suggestions! Like Bill, I just cut one end and slid one of the butts out. The other one was still pretty tight in the wrapping so I just rolled the other end of the wrapper over. Then I used saran and wrapped it up real tight, then foil, then another layer of saran and to top it all of I placed it in a large zip-lock and got all of the air out of the bag. I think this will prevent the freezer burn!
 
Foodsaver vac sealers work best when the meat is at least slightly frozen so that the juice doesn't affect the seal
 
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by John Ford:
Foodsaver vac sealers work best when the meat is at least slightly frozen so that the juice doesn't affect the seal </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

This is true, fluids can effect the seling of the bag. I never "pre-freeze" though. A simple solution I found when vacu-sealing is to lay a 2-3" long strip of paper towel the full width of the bag to soak up any fluids/oils that may get pulled towards the seal if you think your going to have problems. You can also elevate the machine off the counter, bag is then lower or hangs, to prevent fluids from getting into the "sealing" section of the bag.
 
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