Fastest way to thaw ground beef?

[DrVos]

I've got a pound of ground beef that I need to have thawed in 2 hours. Its been sitting there for the past hour with no apparent change.

Any ideas on how I can get bad boy thawed in time for dinner?

 

[jarfykk]

Microwave. If yours doesn't have an auto-defrost, just do it for like 30-45seconds on medium. Let is sit for a bit. Do it again. Shouldnt take more than a few minutes.

 

[N8Magic]

Place lump of ground beef in Ziploc bag, then immerse it in water in the kitchen sink.

It will be thawed by dinner.

 

[ragazzo]

stick meat in plastic bag and use warm water bath. not hot. nuke it in the microwave if you can't wait. there's a thaw feature there. i think it's 50% power for a minute or two

 

[Eli]

Microwave works good. Just do it slowly,

If you don't have a microwave, do the water trick. Make sure the bag has no holes in it.

 

[jinduy]

if you want to thaw it naturally asap, you can get your largest piece of steel cookware, like a giant steel pot, and place the beef on top of it...i think it speeds up the thawing process, albeit it will still take a while

 

[Mallow]

If you have a thaw button on your microwave about 2-3mins for 1lb and then turn the meat over and then another 2mins. Check and you can take off the defrosted outside while putting back in the solid core.

The defrost is about 30% power... you want to thaw it relatively slowly so you don't actually start to cook the meat in the microwave. If the meat starts turning brown your cooking the meat and that shouldn't happen.

 

[DrVos]

Alright guys, the microwave has wonky controls for thawing, and I don't feel brave enough to attempt it 2 hours before dinner. I'm gonna go with the bag-in-the-water trick.

Thanks!

 

[rgwalt]

Do you have a "double" sink? That is, a sink with two compartments separated by a low wall, where both compartments have drains? If so, the fastest and safest way to thaw meat is to fill one side with cold water, and then set the faucet to a trickle. The extra water spills over into the other side of the sink. Water is better at transferring heat than air, and the trickling water provides turbulence, ensuring there are no cold spots or cold layers around your ground beef. Weight the beef down if necessary. Also, this method will keep your meat cold enough to avoid the growth of nasty bacteria.

Microwaving is an option, but will heat different parts of the hunk of meat at different rates, meaning that the areas around the edge can get quite warm while the center is still frozen. If you aren't careful to thoroughly mix your meat together after defrosting in the microwave, those hotspots are breeding grounds for nasty bacteria. This is especially dangerous in ground beef, because if you are making hamburgers, you probably won't cook them completely. So, if the sink method isn't an option, I would thaw in the microwave just before getting ready to cook the meat. You could combine the two... use the sink to get a head start, and then finish the thawing process as necessary in the microwave.

Ryan

 

[Eli]

Originally posted by: rgwalt
Do you have a "double" sink? That is, a sink with two compartments separated by a low wall, where both compartments have drains? If so, the fastest and safest way to thaw meat is to fill one side with cold water, and then set the faucet to a trickle. The extra water spills over into the other side of the sink. Water is better at transferring heat than air, and the trickling water provides turbulence, ensuring there are no cold spots or cold layers around your ground beef. Weight the beef down if necessary. Also, this method will keep your meat cold enough to avoid the growth of nasty bacteria.

Microwaving is an option, but will heat different parts of the hunk of meat at different rates, meaning that the areas around the edge can get quite warm while the center is still frozen. If you aren't careful to thoroughly mix your meat together after defrosting in the microwave, those hotspots are breeding grounds for nasty bacteria. This is especially dangerous in ground beef, because if you are making hamburgers, you probably won't cook them completely. So, if the sink method isn't an option, I would thaw in the microwave just before getting ready to cook the meat. You could combine the two... use the sink to get a head start, and then finish the thawing process as necessary in the microwave.

Ryan

lol, he doesen't have to worry about bacterial growth in a 2 hour period

 

[brtspears2]

Whatever happend to leaving it on the counter? People that scared of baterial growth?

 

[PCMarine]

Originally posted by: rgwalt
Do you have a "double" sink? That is, a sink with two compartments separated by a low wall, where both compartments have drains? If so, the fastest and safest way to thaw meat is to fill one side with cold water, and then set the faucet to a trickle. The extra water spills over into the other side of the sink. Water is better at transferring heat than air, and the trickling water provides turbulence, ensuring there are no cold spots or cold layers around your ground beef. Weight the beef down if necessary. Also, this method will keep your meat cold enough to avoid the growth of nasty bacteria.

Microwaving is an option, but will heat different parts of the hunk of meat at different rates, meaning that the areas around the edge can get quite warm while the center is still frozen. If you aren't careful to thoroughly mix your meat together after defrosting in the microwave, those hotspots are breeding grounds for nasty bacteria. This is especially dangerous in ground beef, because if you are making hamburgers, you probably won't cook them completely. So, if the sink method isn't an option, I would thaw in the microwave just before getting ready to cook the meat. You could combine the two... use the sink to get a head start, and then finish the thawing process as necessary in the microwave.

Ryan

Wow, you make it seem like thawing ground beef is a science!

 

[ElFenix]

my parents have one of those neat ceramic defroster boards. you just put a piece of meat on it and it basically sucks all the cold out really fast. its amazing.

 

[BigSmooth]

Originally posted by: rgwalt
This is especially dangerous in ground beef, because if you are making hamburgers, you probably won't cook them completely.

I used to eat "medium" hamburgers... then my gf had to get a food handling permit, and learned about how bacteria can permeate ground beef. :disgust:

Now I cook my burgers all the way through, and I order them well-done in restaurants.

 

[DrVos]

Progress on the thawing process is going good. The hamburger thawed significantly more in a 30 mins than it did on the counter over the course of an hour.

rgwalt, wow, thanks for the mini dissertation on thawing! I decided to go with the trickling water thing you suggested.

 

[MichaelD]

Just thought I'd say I am defrosting six pork chops with the water method. Microwaving, even with that BS "defrost" setting actually starts cooking the meat around the edges after about a minute.

You can take a one-pound BRICK of ground beef and run warm water over it for 30 minutes and it'll be thawed enough to break up with your hands to enable browning.

FWIW.

 

[Schadenfroh]

slay another cow and stick it inside of it and use the cows body heat to thaw it out.

 

[MichaelD]

Originally posted by: Schadenfroh
slay another cow and stick it inside of it and use the cows body heat to thaw it out.

So, you're not only afraid of a woman's body, but you are one of those Vegan freaks too? Just slit your wrist now....

 

[rgwalt]

Originally posted by: DrVos
Progress on the thawing process is going good. The hamburger thawed significantly more in a 30 mins than it did on the counter over the course of an hour.

rgwalt, wow, thanks for the mini dissertation on thawing! I decided to go with the trickling water thing you suggested.

Excellent!

About the gory detail of my post... I'm a chemical engineer, so I view thawing as a heat transfer problem. Also, even though you are only going to be thawing the meat for two hours, you can never be too careful. I've seen pictures of what E Coli can do to people. A girl in one of the labs works with strains of E Coli, and contracted a mild case that put her out of commission for several days. It can get much, much worse. I do all my defrosting in the fridge, or in cold, running water.

Ryan

 

[mastertech01]

Go drive your car for 30 minutes, shut off engine. Place package of beef under hood for 30 minutes... presto..

 

[MichaelD]

Originally posted by: mastertech01
Go drive your car for 30 minutes, shut off engine. Place package of beef under hood for 30 minutes... presto..

Manifold tacos!!!!!

 

[mastertech01]

Originally posted by: MichaelD

Originally posted by: mastertech01
Go drive your car for 30 minutes, shut off engine. Place package of beef under hood for 30 minutes... presto..

Manifold tacos!!!!!

hehehe,

Well when I was in the Army we would heat our MRE by sticking the package into the exhaust tube of a 10 ton truck for about 10 minutes at Idle, then just throttle it up to pop out the hot package... LOL

That was before the days of MRE heaters..

 

[toant103]

Originally posted by: DrVos
I've got a pound of ground beef that I need to have thawed in 2 hours. Its been sitting there for the past hour with no apparent change.

Any ideas on how I can get bad boy thawed in time for dinner?

hot water. but put the beef in a bag

 

[yobarman]

i usually end up making a lot of burgers at a time, so i have like 5 pound chunks of beef. putting it in the microwave on normal or even the defrost setting for more than 2 minutes will cook it... this is an incredible pain in the ass when you're trying to make burgers with half of the meat cooked and the other half still frozen.

the best method i've found is to put it in the microwave for about 25 minutes on the lowest setting "1"... every 4-5 minutes check up on it, scraping off all the thawed meat with a wooden spoon and putting it on a plate. each time you do it you get a smaller and smaller chunk of beef, eventually you will have gone through it all and it's better than waiting all day for it to thaw naturally.

of course the smart thing to do is to put it into 1-2 lb chunks when it's fresh from the supermarket... but hey, i get lazy.

 

[Howard]

Originally posted by: mastertech01

Originally posted by: MichaelD

Originally posted by: mastertech01
Go drive your car for 30 minutes, shut off engine. Place package of beef under hood for 30 minutes... presto..

Manifold tacos!!!!!

hehehe,

Well when I was in the Army we would heat our MRE by sticking the package into the exhaust tube of a 10 ton truck for about 10 minutes at Idle, then just throttle it up to pop out the hot package... LOL

That was before the days of MRE heaters..

I've heard of that.