How long can you freeze your butt?

[calis]

Local store has whole Boston Butt for $.99/pound. Not exactly ready to smoke another one, I still have a little left from last week's smoke :) How long do they freeze? I never seem to have very good luck freezing pork of any type for more than a few weeks. It always seems to get a funny taste after that....anyone else have this issue, or know a fix? Also, let's say I just buy 6 of them and smoke them all for pulled pork, how well does the finished product freeze? Colder weather is upon us here and I'm thinking about storing up the acorns to make it through the long cold winter.

 

[richoso1]

What technique are you using to freeze them with? vacuum or ortherwise? Hard to give an answer without knowing a little more detail. Good luck my friend.

 

[porklvr]

I can't really comment on freezing the whole uncooked butt yet. However I do have one in the freezer that's been there about 3 weeks, so i'll be able to offer more info on that in a week or so when I finally pull it out and smoke it. Now, I can comment on freezing pulled pork. On my last smoke I smoked an extra 8lb butt to put in the freezer. I don't have an expensive vacuum sealer or anything either. I used ziploc vacuum seal bags with little ziploc hand pump thingy. I always freeze my meat this way and it holds up very well. I pulled a bag of my frozen pulled pork the other day and dropped the whole bag in boiling water for about 10-15 minutes. It was perfect, not dried out like it might be from any other way of warming. It might have even been better than the day it was cooked. Good Luck.

 

[got14u]

well here in Wyoming we freeze our butts for about 6-7 months out of the year.

 

[beer-b-q]

This might be of some help...



Yep, I been there in the summer when you couldn't get in the pool till afternoon in June...

 

[coffee_junkie]

Same here!
If they are the cryo-packed butts I would say a year and you would be fine. If you vacuum pack them same thing. If you use butcher paper be sure to wrap in suran wrap first and you should be good for at least 6 months.

 

[calis]

Beer-B-Q, thanks for that chart. Everyone else, thanks for the advise also. I have always just put stuff into ziplocks and then freezer papered it. I do have a vacuum sealer and I could use it. I think I may be leaning towards just smoking about 6 of them and sealing up portions and freezing them. Then I'll have all winter long to play around with finishing sauce ideas...

 

[herkysprings]

I found the flavour of chicken and pork after 5-6 months starts to fade. This is using a vaccum sealer. Hopefully by then its warm enough to start up smoking again!

 

[hog warden]

Quality of frozen pork may also depend on how and where you freeze it. Best in a chest type deep freeze. The freezer section of a regular "no frost" refrigerator cycles, warming up now and then to melt off the ice. Food up there goes bad faster than in a regular freezer. Ever see ice cream go "grainy". That's why.

And the faster you can freeze the better. Flash freezing is the best, but hard to do at home. Next best is to spread stuff out as much as you can to freeze as quickly as you can.

I'd smoke, pull bag and freeze. BTW, no rush on the butts, even at that price. One store here has them for 89 cents a pound today. They do that about once a month.

 

[mballi3011]

I always vaccum seal mine stuff and up to a year I would say but the chart looks alittle short but they have to cover their as.

 

[calis]

Around here, that's a pretty good price on the butts. I think the last butts I bought were $1.39/pound.

 

[hog warden]

Our local Sam's has been having them for $1.15 all summer long. Some days, it's 99 cents. BuTT that varies by store location.

By all means, if that's a good price in your neck of the woods, stock up. Even more so if you have the time to smoke em now.