and do you still plan to use it?
As Spring starts I do a Freezer clean out, figuring that with the cold weather the stuff shouldn’t get too stinky while outside waiting for the garbage man and attract too many critters.
I have a Cryopak Pork loin that apparently got lost in the shuffle from Feb 2013. So a bit over 4 years for me. And no, I have no plans to use it, even though it is most likely safe, I doubt it would be very good anymore, out in the garbage it goes.
I’m not sure about meat, but I recently did a freezer clean out and found some chili labeled 2013.
And some lasagne a very dear friend made. She passed away in 2012.
When I put new stuff into the freezer, I usually rotate the older stuff to a special section to be used up first. So I usually don’t have anything older than maybe six months in the first place. I also have to de-frost the damn thing once or twice a year, so that’s another time for checking and using things up. But then I’m probably extra fussy about food freshness.
Patty.
You have someone named Patty in your freezer?
Any meat that I have in the freezer that is freezer burned goes into a pot of chili. I’ve put in meat that was at least ten years old. Always tastes just fine. I definitely would have used your pork loin.
A month or two. I use oldest meat first.
Probably a beef shoulder roast. There was a buy one, get one free sale that I jumped on. It’s probably a year old. I think there is a smoked ham hock about that same age in there. I may have to toss them out, even though I vacuum pack everything.
I just cooked up some chicken from Costco with an expiration date of December 2015; I’m having it on salads and for snacks. I’ve got a couple more packs I’m going to cook up next week because once it’s cooked, I couldn’t eat that much before it went bad.
Uncooked maybe a year at or so; smoked/cooked possibly a little longer. Like most here if something does get freezer burnt it still becomes chili stock. I did have a couple pieces go like 2+ years by accident but 6 hours in the smoker made them basically good eats.
The oldest meat in the freezer is a package of linguiça I bought two weeks ago. Yes I plan to use it.
(Is it cheating that we just moved and have a brand-new freezer?) (Don’t ask about the old one!)
We’ve got some gawdawful chuck or flank as part of a quarter side from the local college ag dept. That whole lot was miserably tough and stringy, no cooking method could have saved it.
I bought the wife a kitten for Xmas, maybe we could thaw the last few packages of mystery meat, grind it, and use it for cat food.
oh, yeah, it’s 18 months old.
2 words
Pressure Cooker
We’ve been more careful lately about rotating freezer contents. The last old meat I found was a poorly wrapped leg of lamb. My gf was going to toss it; instead I roasted, carved, and served it to our dogs. I’ll admit to taking a serving for myself, it was great.
2 years, give or take- and yes, since it’s fish bait.
I’m about to move, so my freezer is currently empty.
I think the oldest item in my mother’s freezer is 3 months tops, as I cleaned it out over Christmas. There was a tupperware with puréed veggies which according to its label was one year old; by the look of it, the label was correct.
I have a piece of lamb rib in there that has been there at least four or five years. Never know, I might have a hankering for lamb some day. Otherwise, probably nothing over 6 months or so, but I buy big bags of chicken leg quarters, and it can take a while to get through all those.
When my wife and I cleaned our freezer about a month ago, we found a standing rib roast dated 2014. My wife used it to make a large quantity of borscht some of which we ate and some we froze. It was delicious and, in fact, we finished the frozen portions Saturday and yesterday.
During the ice storm in 1998, our freezer came up to just about freezing in a week. The house temperature at the end of the week was just 34. We took all the meat and made an enormous pot of chili. That was also delicious. The point is to cook for hours destroying any bacteria and any botulin toxin there might conceivably have been. Of course, we threw a lot out, especially baked goods.
I think I saw a hunk of London broil from Feb 2016. There are several other things labeled July 2016. I try not to let anything get too old, and since it’s a small freezer compartment, I don’t accumulate a whole lot anyway.
I think I’ll haul out the London broil and marinate it - I’m thinking Wednesday’s supper…
We have some Ballpark Franks in the upstairs freezer from July '16. I have a bunch of calamari in the basement freezer from last summer, too (August, '16). Some broken down into rings, some cleaned and skinned but not cut into rings, and some whole uncleaned squid. We caught a ton of squid last summer, ate as much as we could stomach and gave a bunch away - I set some aside for bait and some started to turn before I could eat it or give it away, so I froze that for bait, too. I’m planning on using it to fish for Striped Bass this summer.