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Well should I just toss it or does anybody think it might still be good? I unwrap the white freezer paper and it was wrapped in plastic. It looks like the face of the ham might have a little freezer burn on it.
I would assume I just need to toss it.
How long does everybody freeze their hams? It was from one of his brothers hogs they have processed a while ago.
Cut off the freezer burn ... cook and eat itQuote:
Originally Posted by Tripplebeards
I have eaten older
I found some Moose burger ... lost in the big freezer 5-6 lb
cut off the freezer burn when still frozen
thawed added some hamburger mixed, stuffed into casings and smoked.
Every one got eaten ....(some by people who had never had wild game)
That's what I'd do.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ford SD
I'm with Ford SD on this one.
I am used to having people give me their "old" venison. I have had venison as old as 6 yrs. Some of it was like cardboard much was freezer burned (hamburger) Cut off the dry stuff and eat the rest. Might not taste as good but hey? I would make sloppy joes or chili from it. As long as it was frozen well and stayed frozen the whole time I wouldn't see a problem.
That being said, I use my nose to tell me when food is bad. I have seen plenty in the stores that I wouldn't eat. (not frozen)
Trim off the burn and cook it!
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Frozen = ignore sell by date. It is frozen, it is not degrading in any way.
I wouldn't trust it!
I doubt it will kill you, but the taste will be less than stunning.
762
I'm with you. Generally from what I have been told you can freeze meat up to a year. Having had food poisoning before I'm kind of leery.Quote:
Originally Posted by smithnframe
Trim, cook and try it. If it tastes bad you can always toss it but I doubt it will hurt you.
Pork starts losing flavor after about six months. You can eat it safely but don't expect much flavor.
If this is not from a store, you don't know how many times it may have been thawed and re-frozen. I'd not chance it myself.
Trim off the freezer burn and cook it! Neighbor just brought over some deer meat from 2015. Tastes fine.
Every meat has a different useful time in the freezer. Ham of the common meats has the shortest. This is to preserve flavor. If you want to know more get a copy of Putting Food By.
My comment was specifically directed towards meat you don't know the history of. I've got stuff in my freezer that I dug out that is from 2016 and 2017. Not the best but certainly edible. Just be careful if you don't know where it came from
Cut off freezer burn, cook it, grind it and make ham salad...
A little freezer burn? No problem. Trim the dried parts off and cook it. I've been going through the freezer of late and found some venison chops and burger that dates back to 2016. The chops brazed up fine. Some had surprisingly little freezer burn due to good packaging, but some of the burger was grey/dry on the outside. I took all that off as it thawed and made venison/pork meatloaf. Delicious. Hey, if arctic researchers can thaw, cook and safely eat mastodon meat frozen in arctic ice for thousands of years, what's the problem? It probably wouldn't pass as prime rib, but no one got sick.
It's true that ham seems to lose flavor over time. I had one frozen and the plastic wrapping was torn open somehow, lots of freezer burn. I cut that off, thawed and was cooking it, but it tasted like . . . . . nothing in particular. That went out to the back fence to be enjoyed by the local wildlife. It didn't last long.
True. But, if it IS from a store, you still don't know. Don't get caught up in the "dictatorship of food dates." There's no standardization of them in the food industry and only some are regulated. Some are optional, many are arbitrary and mean little to the customer, but are the excuse for great amounts of wasted food. All one really knows when something is cooked is does it smell good or bad? If it smells and tastes good, they eat it without question. If it smells or tastes bad, they pitch it and start over. Your senses are your primary indicator of food quality, as it has been since there were people.Quote:
If this is not from a store, you don't know how many times it may have been thawed and re-frozen.
Use it. You could do it in a manner where if the taste isn't as good as fresh at least what you cook it in can give it some flavor. Crockpot can do wonders with items such as yours.
I might consider cooking in crock pot over night low and slow. break some up and make bean soup use the rest for ham salad. Especially if it is bone in. Put the beans on to soak when you put the ham on in the morning break up the ham for soup and add the beans and ham to the broth. A little onion and carrot.
Meat cured with salt shouldn't be kept in the freezer for a long period of time.
The National Center for Home Food Preservation states, "Cured meats such as ham and bacon can only be frozen for a short period of time (1 to 3 months) because the salt in them hastens rancidity."
I've never frozen a Ham, But I have noticed that if I freeze bacon and it stays in freezer too long, the flavor changes, it's tastes like it has more chemicals in it.
If its a deep freeze it will last forever. Deep freeze temperatures will kill most bacteria in few days, cooking kills the rest. Flavors may change if its not sealed well and gets freezer burn (de-hydration). Russians have eaten Mammoths frozen in the permafrost for thousands of years. Newer refrigerator freezers don't store as long because they are not as cold and will run a de-frost cycle every few days which blows warm air through the freezer compartment.
According to stilltasty, a decent online shelflife guide, "The freezer time shown is for best quality only - ham that has been kept constantly frozen at 0°F will keep safe indefinitely." The tells me if it's been frozen, it's safe.
If it was me, I'd trim, thaw, and fry up a small slice. If the flavor is less than optimal I'd go one of two ways with it. Run it through the smoker to use in killer dishes like scalloped potatoes or pea soup. Or I'd de-bone, grind it up, add some additional fat, and make sausage out of it. I wouldn't toss it unless it was trying to crawl out of the pan.
I’m with trying a small piece to see how it tastes and if you want to put the time in to prepare it. As long as it was kept frozen, I’d give eating it a try. If you don’t eat it, you could put it to good use ballistic testing your loads.
I would be concerned more about changed flavor than food safety. I've eaten turkey, elk and moose that was in the freezer for 3-4 years without concern
it finally thawed out and I just unwrapped the plastic. There were spots of the meat that were dry and gray colored from freezer burn which I would have cut off but the whole ham smelled like a cross between spearmint and Windex and the hip bone fell out when I unwrapped it and it was slimy underneath and did not have a good smell. At first it had no smell at all and within seconds of unwrapping it the smell creeped out of it. I tossed in the trash. It smelled like something like I could’ve brushed my teeth with and then cleaned my windows with it when I was done.lol. It definitely did not make it through two years of freezer time. I think I would’ve had a trip to the morgue if I eat it or at least felt like I should’ve went there. I’ve eaten tons of deer meat that I’ve been 3 to 4 years old in my freezer if not longer that smelled fresh when thawed. I Even pickeled some four-year-old northern pike I had frozen in a block of ice last year that was yellow and fried some up and it still tasted good... Put this pork was down for the count. I’ve had food poisoning many times from food that smelled and looked fresh so I made sure to pass on this. The ham was originally wrapped in some white packing paper and then only had one or two layers of plastic shrink wrap over it. If it were to get wrapped away I do deer meat I’m sure it would still be good. I normally use industrial pallet wrap and wrap it a good 20/30 times if not more. Basically to the point where it almost looks cloudy white. I’ve eaten venison in my freezer over four years old doing it this way.
:dung_hits_fan:
Dang. Never heard of that regarding cured meats in the freezer.
It was Marked 2017 and I don’t know what month it was so it could’ve been close to three years old.
If it was slimy around the bone it wasn't properly cured to begin with and even 1 month in would have smelled bad!
That's sorta what I was saying. You don't know what that ham did before you got it. If it was all yours then no problems but when people give me meat that's frozen I generally thank them and throw it out.Quote:
Originally Posted by Tripplebeards
That makes sense because my buddy said his wife ate one when they first had the pig processed did not like it.
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Nothing like vacuum seal to store things for a long time in the freezer.
Me neither and sounds kinda odd. That's what the internet is for, I'm going to look that up.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lance Boyle
I've never had smoked and cured meat go bad in the freezer , or taste bad . But after 7-8 months I can tell a differance in taste .
And the more sugar in the cure worse it gets . Generally though the smoked meat doesn't last near long enough to go bad , it's just to tasty :)
My theory on why is that it never freezer as solid as fresh meat because of the salt , then any sugar In the cure starts going rancid .
I did a small batch of salt pork one year and forgot I had froze some of it , three years later it still tasted perfectly fine
I’m sure this ham was never cured properly to begin with as his wife never liked the taste and that’s why they didn’t ever eat them and gave several of these away. I was just one of the people who received one. I made sure to tell him as he gave his mother some and one of my other buddies a few so he would make sure they didn’t eat them. Or at least make them on guard when they thawed them out for inspection. Sounds like the rest were bad to. I’m sure if it was a vacuum sealed ham from the grocery frozen at zero degrees for that long would still be edible. He does this quite regularly. My buddy and his wife goes through their freezer and everything that he thinks is too old and feels guilty about throwing out he gives away. I basically just throw everything away he gives me but this time I figured hey let’s try a ham until I thawed it out and inspected it. I should’ve known better. My buddy is pretty cheap. He doesn’t give any anything away for free... Unless it’s spoiled food.lol I don’t know why he just doesn’t throw it all in the garbage every time he goes through his freezer. He brought me a pecan pie that his mother-in-law made last summer and said that his wife didn’t like the taste... And there were two pieces missing out of it. I politely thanked him and inspected it later in the day. The whole bottom was completely burnt black! I think he just gives me this stuff to mess with me.lol
When I can find bulk bacon cheap I buy 20+ pounds. Repackage it into 1 pound packages and vacuum pack it and freeze. I have had it a year later after finding a pack that got buried and it was fine. Key is getting as much oxygen away from it as possible.
Since it ended up in the condition the op stated, could it have thawed while in the freezer at some pint? A power outage for a few days would do it.
Life is too short to eat bad tasting food.
TEOTWAWKI I'd eat it no problem.
762
"A friend of mine brought over some frozen Bronto Burgers, he said he found in a specialty meat shop near Siberia . . . The store said they had the World's Record Cold Cut Collection!"
Salted pork fat, bacon, 3 months, maybe a bit more.
Bacon, the thick sliced jalapeņo store brand I prefer, was on sale for $3.99. The go-to butcher I use to, said don't buy anymore than you will be using in 3-4 months. it'll break down.
Shiloh