Looking for a consensus on the pros and cons of freezing pork ribs after grilling/smoking.
Generally, ribs at Costco come in 3 racks to a pack. Of course, 3 racks is about 2 too many. So I am thinking since I am firing up the Traeger Timberline 850 anyway, why not cook all 3 racks.
I freeze them all the time. I cook up the three racks, wife and I eat one. I cut the remaining two into half racks and vac seal. Then into the freezer. To reheat, I usually sous vide right from the freezer at 150 degrees for about and hour and a half. They come out perfect every time.
Exactly what I do except I often finish under the broiler with a fresh coating of bbq sauce/hot sauce/rub combo to get a little crust back on the ribs.
Interested in this. Just bought a 3 pack, cooked one, vac packed half of the cooked one for a trip next week. Individually vac packed and froze the other two uncooked. If the cooked frozen half pack is good, may just do all three next time. I’ll report back next week.
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I freeze them routinely. Usually I strip all the meat off the rib bones and just freeze that ... but sometimes, like Jfrosty27 , I'll leave the meat on the bones and freeze them in half-racks (I do worry about puncturing the vac seal bags, though). For thawing, I generally use sous vide at pretty much any temp between 160 and 190F. In your case, I'd just keep the pot of water at a very low simmer (below 190) by monitoring it with a thermometer ... a sort of simplified, less-precise version of sous vide. Remember that you have to cook pork ribs to a minimum internal temp of 190F anyway in order for the collagen and fat to render ... so thawing it anywhere below that won't result in over cooking. Also, FWIW: In order to avoid weird texture changes, don't keep it in hot water for more than an hour or so. Just keep it above 140F and out of the danger zone and you'll be fine.
Last edited by MBMorgan; October 6, 2021, 10:15 AM.
STEbbq - Sure am getting ribs (just not with the bones). That said, 99.9% of the time, we don't use leftover ribs as "ribs", per se ... just use the meat in other things like stir-fry. Added benefit: no rib bones, less space taken in the freezer for something we can't eat anyway.
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I’ve frozen them after cooking. But I prefer cooking what I need and then freezing the uncooked racks. Either way, though, I think you’re perfectly fine.
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