

Foods that are cut up into small portions freeze faster and will be harder. One-inch cubes are the preferable size for steak and boneless chicken breasts. If you are freezing meat, cut it into small portions. Next, you’ll need to shake the water off the food item and pat it dry with a paper towel. Step #1: Prepare Foods for Freezingįlash freezing lets you get fresh foods from the supermarket to your freezer as fast as possible to avoid any spoilage from air exposure.įirst, you’ll want to prepare fresh fruits and vegetables for freezing by cleaning them thoroughly to remove any dirt, pests, or bacteria.

Here is the technique for flash-freezing food at home. Berries are a good example as each individual berry will freeze within a short period of time, while freezing something like a whole turkey would take much longer to freeze solid all the way through. Think of home flash freezing as quick freezing of small, individual items. Foods that clump together are things like hamburger patties, shrimp, sausages, chicken wings, berries, corn, peas, and many other types of vegetables. One of the purposes of flash freezing is to get the produce or meat cold enough to prevent the growth of microbes.įlash freezing food prevents ice crystals and clumping. First, you freeze food items unwrapped on a tray, then once frozen, you wrap them up and place them back in the freezer for long-term storage. Flash Freezing Food At Homeįlash freezing at home really should be called double freezing, as that is what the process entails to freeze food quickly. This gourmet chef’s appliance is meant to freeze foods before you serve them, but you can also use it to prepare foods for the freezer. Sometimes they are called anti-griddles or freezing griddles. Ultra cold surface freezing utilizes a steel griddle to immediately cool foods to -30☏ in seconds. Ultra Cold Surface Freezing (Freezing Griddle) In an hour or two (depending on the item being frozen), the tray is removed from the freezer, and the now frozen food is placed in freezer bags and put back into the freezer for storage. With typical home-grade freezers, small food portions are laid out on a tray covered in parchment paper and placed directly into the freezer. Home freezers don’t have rapid circulating air or blast chillers. Home Flash FreezingĬompared to blast freezers, a conventional freezer is less efficient. In comparison, the typical home freezer only freezes to -18F.

FLASHFROZEN PROFESSIONAL
Blast Freezingīlast freezing is used in professional kitchens to freeze food solid in a short time using a special freezer that rapidly circulates -40F air. There are three different ways to flash freeze foods: blast freezing, home flash freezing, and ultra-cold surface flash freezing. Meats and vegetables were frozen so rock solid that they could last for months in a home freezer, and the low temperature they were frozen at kept foods separate, so nothing was frozen in a clump. The result was the formation of the Birdseye frozen food empire, along with a patented quick freeze process that quickly iced meat and vegetables in mass quantities. He noted how food stored at extremely low temperatures kept its flavor, color, and texture much better than food frozen slowly in a conventional freezer.

He noted how they used sub-zero temperatures and icy winds to instantly freeze fresh fish. His inspiration for flash freezing came from observing the native Inuit people in the Artic in the 1900s. Can You Freeze Bagels? (How to Freeze, Thaw & Reheat) The Industrial Origins Of Flash Freezing Foodįlash freezing finds its roots in the early days of the frozen food industry when Clarence Birdseye sought a way to freeze fresh vegetables so they would last through the winter.
