I’ve been saving all the trimmings from brisket, pork butt, chuck etc in the freezer. I just pulled everything out and have LOTS. Planning to make a bunch this week. My concern is freezing the links, since all this meat is already frozen. Am thinking I’ll need to smoke them first, before freezing the links. Is that necessary, always heard refreezing raw meat isn’t good, or is this not a concern with all the salt and perhaps adding instacure?
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Food safety will be fine assuming you don't let the links sit around for days. The safety issue, as I understand it, is that you don't want to unfreeze food, let it get above 40F for 2 or more hours, then refreeze it. The refreezing will do nothing to sterilze the meat again and it's easy to lose track of whether something was re-frozen.
In terms of quality, the concern is that ice crystals form, pierce cells and let moisture out. The texture can suffer from that but it's mostly a concern with steaks and others whole meats.
That said...I'd probably smoke before freezing anyway, just so that you have a reheat and it's ready sausage. -
As long as you're vacuum sealing the links and the trim you have isn't freezer burned, you'll be fine.The thing with freezings meat isn't so much the freezing part, but freezing it slowly, so you want to freeze the lies in a single layer if you can. If you have a deep freezer rather than the freezer in your fridge us that since they're much colder.Comment
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Yes, all the meat is vacuum bagged. I figure most do the same, saving trimmings until sausage day.Comment
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