Leftovers - how long

[henri]

Prepared a pork butt and beef spare ribs, via smoking and finishing in oven. Final temperatures were near 200 F in foil, so meat remained very moist....and delicious. Circumstances resulted in over 80% of meat being left over and refrigerated with intent to use almost 2 weeks from initial preparation. Questin 1: Is cooked meat safe if left refrigerated for up to 2 weeks? I normally pitch food after a week in the fridge. It has been refrigerated for one week already and I can either leave as is, pitch, freeze (if this does not excessively degrade quality - I have frozen sauces and soups containing meat and have had excellent results). Question 2: Acceptability of freezing fully cooked meats?

[KYHeirloomer]

I wouldn't hesitate to freeze them for that period.

Quality of frozen foods depends on a number of things, including how they are wrapped (the more excluded air the better) and the kind of freezer you are using.

The faster the food is frozen the better. Reason: Slow freezing produces larger ice crystals, which can puncture the cell walls. Fast freezing makes smaller crystals, with less chance of cellular damage.

I would not, however, store that meat in the fridge for two weeks.

[DC Sunshine]

Ditto what KYH says. Freezing fully cooked meats is fine - I think probs arise if its not fully cooked, especially if it was initially defrosted to cook it.

Try freezing it in small portions, as flat as you can, then it will freeze faster, and spread the packages out inside the freezer while freezing, don't stack on on top of the other. Also helps when defrosting, it'll be quicker. If you have one of those vacuum packing machines they are a good help in extracting the air. Or you can put the meat into freezer bags and dunk into a big bowl of water (don't let any in the open end of the bag!!). This forces the air out of the bag - then seal and freeze.

[henri]

Thanks for comments. Had expected one week was a max; pushed it two more days by having some today. But will discard remaining since that is pushing it and redo with some new racks. Anyway, that gives me the chance to recheck the method and results again...happened that this batch was best BBQ I have ever had, anywhere!

[allie]

I have some friends who cater and cook competition bbq. One of them told me that he puts pulled pork into a foodsaver bag and stores it in the refrigerator up to two weeks. Then he pulls it out and reheats it in boiling water before removing from the bag. I haven't done that but I have put it in the freezer in foodsaver bags and reheated it in boiling water and it turns out just like the day I first made it.

[Papa Perry]

I've done the same as allie's friend with all of my BBQ'd (not grilled) meats