More ‘when to freeze’ than ‘whether to freeze’ actually.
So it’s my turn to make Christmas dinner, which in my family is a traditional English roast with Yorkshire puddings. My wife was going to pick up a rib roast from Costco next week closer to the day, but I was at Kroger this morning and they had a half-off sale on rib roasts, and I’m a little leery that if we wait too long we may be SOL, so I picked up two 5 or 6 pounders.
A week seems a couple days too long to keep in the refrigerator. But I want to make sure the roasts are fully thawed for Christmas. I’m thinking maybe just put them in the freezer today, keep them in there for maybe 24 hours, then put back in the fridge tomorrow night so they have the rest of the week to thaw.
That’s beef, right? I would share your concern and am waiting to see someone answer this. I’m posting because a butcher once told me not to worry because they regularly keep cuts of beef refrigerated for weeks at a time. In that case, I was asking about brining without curing salts to make corned beef, which is obviously not the same as just leaving it in the fridge. Still, that butcher has always given me good advice, service and products, and he was referring to just keeping it cold (and dry). Nonetheless, I would still be concerned. As you say, a week seems a couple of days too long. If it’s not going to spoil entirely, you might get away with keeping it very cold and giving it a good wash before cooking. Let’s see what others say.
I can’t imagine that a 6 lb. rib roast would need more than 36-48 hours in the fridge to thaw. If I were overly anxious, I could possibly see starting the thaw three days early, but I’d probably just do two.
Just based on what little I know and some personal experience …
I would not keep raw beef in the fridge for a week – way too long, IMHO. When butchers talk about keeping beef “for weeks”, they’re probably talking about aging large hunks of fresh cow, after which it’s trimmed and cut. The small cut you buy at retail is already aged and has a very limited shelf life. You can look at the expiry date on prepackaged beef roasts to get an idea of the expected shelf life, but I wouldn’t want to keep it more than three days max, and preferably less. I find that beef is one of those items where the best-before date on the package tends to be overly optimistic and I never push it that far. Some things you can push even beyond their best-before dates, but beef isn’t one of them.
As for thaw time, it depends on the fridge, and where in the fridge you place it. I keep my fridge fairly cold, and I’ve had small items – individual steaks or chicken breasts – still mostly frozen two days after taking them out of the freezer. A 5 or 6 pound rib roast would take longer. I’d want to allow at least three days on a lower shelf. YMMV. This is why I rarely freeze roasts.
ETA: I was also contemplating a prime rib roast for Christmas dinner, and have the same issue. My tentative plan was to try my luck later next week at a place that usually has an amply supply of roasts.
As @wolfpup noted, fridges do vary, but in the worst case scenario of it still being frozen on the final day, there is always the cold water method. I only use that if I’m going to cook it immediately after thawing, and replacing the water with fresh cold water every 30 minutes is important, but it does work and is even FDA approved (PDF).
A week won’t kill you, but the FDA says 3 to 5 days for fresh beef, which is longer than I personally like:
To some extent there’s personal taste involved. Beef stored for multiple days may become discoloured and may even start to develop a funky odor on some surfaces. Still perfectly edible, but aesthetically a bit unpleasant.
It depends a lot on the temp of your fridge. Mine is very cold, and a five pound roast takes maybe 3-4 days to defrost. I’ve had a lot of issues with not giving meat enough time to defrost and having out cook badly as a result. (The exterior gets overcooked because it takes so long to cook the interior.) I’d avoid buying an unfrozen roast a week before i wanted to cook it.
Which reminds me, i should put that frozen goose in the fridge. That’s going to take a week to defrost.
Just bought the prime rib roast today, and did the same – popped it in the freezer. The dinner isn’t until the day after Christmas so I should probably take it out tomorrow night to start the long thaw.
I’m surprised no one has mentioned brining. Putting meat in salt water defrosts it in hours rather than days, makes it last longer, and makes it juicier and more flavourful.
If I had freezer space I would bring it out two days before and soak it in brine to defrost it. If I did not have freezer space I would brine it earlier and that would reduce the chance of problems.
I would just say that’s not a traditional English roast, having attempted to buy it in England, and I did manage to convince a butcher to do so for one Christmas (they sold well the first Christmas, less well second, and I got a few ribs cheap after Christmas for freezing).
Traditional English roast is thin sliced Roast sirloin. Rib roast is far too expensive to be that.
I can’t comment on the freezing, mines did well, and kept it for months. Took about 24 hours outside the freezer/fridge to thaw.
The one time i tried brining a bird i ended up with rubbery (not crispy) skin and it tasted kinda salty. And a lot of deli meats taste overly salty to me.
I have to say that I’ve never of that. We all know about salt beef, salt cod, etc as a means of preserving, but I’ve never heard of it as a means of preserving a rib roast. I’d also worry about it being too salty.
It sure is. I was surprised to find that prime rib roast is actually more expensive than strip loin roast. In this store, the stuff cut for you at the butcher counter is a higher grade of prime rib than the pre-packaged stuff, and is usually visibly more marbled. Since I only needed quite a small roast, I opted for the top-grade butcher cut. It’s quite big in cross section but only about six inches thick, so it’s going to be one of those roasts that are stabilized with wooden skewers. The kind of traditional prime rib roast one usually imagines for large gatherings, sprawling out over an immense cutting board with a chef hovering over it with his carving knife, these days would cost as much as a used car!
Eh? I’m English and regularly cook a prime rib roast, sourced from my local (English) butcher. They even offer an ageing service, where you can buy your forerib a couple of months in advance and they store it for you, on display in their glass fridges with your name tag on it. It’s hardly some mysterious cut in England. But it’s expensive, so not every butcher is going to offer it, depending on their local demographic. What’s more, every family has their own idea about what cut of beef they like to roast. There’s not some law about serving sirloin!
I’d lived in England for over 30 years by the time I first ate “prime rib”, and it was in Las Vegas.
I’d never seen it served ANYWHERE in the UK before this. Not offered. Not in the butcher. Hardly “traditional”.
Thin sliced roast beef, ie: roast beef and yorkshire pub, that’s the traditional beef dish you’d see in the UK. All times of the year.
Since then I tried sourcing some in the UK. Only place which would order it, eventually ordered the cheaper cut, because they thought I wouldn’t pay for the real standing rib roast (I can’t remember the difference in the names). More recently I’ve seen rib roast chunks for sales, even some in Morrisons. It’s becoming more prevalent.
But in no way traditional. Not, unless. you’re of perhaps very rich, Nowadays they think Turkey is traditional, but ham and goose is what you’d typically have, Turkey is ,more recent.
Standing rib roast might be what the servants serve you though.
We obviously move in different circles, or live in different places but I’m hardly rich.
As I said, different families have different ideas about what cut of beef they like. My parents always went for topside, which I can’t abide, and I can promise you they’ve been eating ‘english roast dinners’ for longer than you have.
And turkey has been one of the traditional Christmas roasts since the 17th century. Turkey and goose have long jossled for position as the favourite - Dickens talks about turkey in A Christmas Carol.
Oh please. “Eating English roast dinners for longer than you have”? What sort of nonsense is this?
I was questioning the use of Standing Rib Roast, an incredibly expensive cut of beef, as anything traditional in the UK.
It really isn’t in any way, a cut of beef four times the normal price of others. Not offered in restaurants. Not served in anyone I know’s homes. Not. Traditional.
Now it’s a pissing competition as to how fucking English you are? Wind your neck in.
Ah. It’s you. The one with fifteen olde-worlde sweet shoppes and curiosity shops in you tiny village hamlet in rural Narnia.