Salt before sealing and freezing - yeah or nay

[bmillin]

Don't think I have seen any discussion on this. I just bought 4 New York steaks and one is dry-brining for dinner. The other three will get vac-packed and frozen. ideally I could just take them out of the freezer and sous vide later, but would miss the dry brine time. Is there a down side to salting them before freezing?

[Rocinante]

Whenever I freeze beef cuts and other meats at times too, I always season, wrap and then freeze. The way I look at it is that during the freezing process, some diffusion/seasoning will occur as does when thawing. Plus the added advantage is that when you take the meat out, it's already seasoned. I will also do this with SV packaging too.

[STEbbq]

No downside from my perspective.

[CaptainMike]

I've heard yay and nay, but I've never had a problem myself. That said, I now cut the bags a little longer so I can remove the meat, freshly season/brine, then reseal and SV.

[bmillin]

That's not a bad idea!

[smokenoob]

Doh’ Why didn’t I think of that?

[rickgregory]

Salt, seal, let sit in fridge for a day or so, freeze. Don't freeze right after salting or the salt won't be able to penetrate the meat.

[mnavarre]

This. I do it all the time, in fact every steak in my freezer that didn't come already vac packed is dry brined. That way I can just grab 'n' go, straight from frozen.

[RonB]

I ry to dry brine before seasoning. I also don't mind waiting an hour or two to freeze after dry brining.

[58limited]

I've done this once. I started to dry brine a grass fed top sirloin but after about 28 hours it was evident that the cook wasn't going to take place so I vacuum sealed it and froze it. Cooked it a few weeks later and it was one of the best steaks I've had - grass fed is not known for being tender and this one was.

[JeffJ]

Yay. I do it all of the time.