Why Do We Flash Freeze Five Marys Meats?
At Five Marys, we raise our animals with your family and your dinner table in mind, just as we would for our own family. We take extra steps and go the extra mile to provide the highest level of care and diligence, even after our animals have left our farm. Our beef, pork, and lamb are harvested right on our ranch under USDA inspection in a Temple Grandin designed facility, processed at our own first class USDA process, cut and wrap facility - Five Marys Custom Meat Co., and each cut has complete traceability to our animals. Our beef cuts are all dry-aged and flash frozen for tenderness and flavor that you won’t find many places other than the premier steakhouses.
Pork or lamb can be eaten soon after harvesting, but that is not the case with beef. Beef benefits from aging to promote tenderness and enhance flavor. Shortly after slaughter, most beef in the United States is split into large pieces (or primals), vacuum-sealed, and boxed up for transport, where it wet-ages in the packaging so as not to lose as much volume during transit into grocery stores, meat distributors, and similar vendors. Upon arrival, it is ultimately portioned into steaks, roasts, and other cuts for the consumer. Ground beef and trim is often packaged and shipped without the benefit of any aging at all. It is then frozen at the butcher or in transit to the grocery store, thawed, and sold to you.
In contrast, our Five Marys dry-aged beef involves hanging in a humidity-controlled room at Five Marys Custom Meat Co. with ample air flow at just-above-freezing temperatures for at least 14 days, and sometimes longer. This dry-aging process requires more effort, time, expertise, and expense, but it imparts a unique flavor and delicate consistency to the meat. Only after it has gone through the dry-aging process is it cut by our talented, old-school, craft butchers.
After the cut is perfected, it is packaged, vacuum-sealed, and labeled. We have an awesome member of Team Five Marys whose job it is to package each and every cut. An important part of her job is deciding which sized bag each cut will go in so there isn’t extra packaging waste. She will also add what is called a bone guard to some of the steaks. It kind of looks like an adhesive bandage and we put them on the corners of steaks to soften the edges and prevent pops in the packaging. After packaging, each cut is carefully vacuum-sealed, which removes any air from the packaging, so it can be preserved in the your freezer without chance of freezer-burn. After it is sealed, it moves to our next station where it is weighed and labeled.
At Five Marys Custom Meat Co. we have a blast freezer right next to our inventory freezer. All of our meat is flash frozen at the time of butchery which enhances the quality because you’re not having the protein breakdown like you would with a slow freeze. Some people shy away from frozen meat because they think that it’s lesser quality, but actually a lot of other meat is frozen in transport and then thawed at your butcher. Our meat is all flash frozen ourselves and kept frozen until it gets to you. Then you get to decide when to thaw and and cook it for your family.
The process of flash freezing our meat locks in all of the juices that you don’t want to lose, preserving the nutritional content so you can keep in your freezer until you are ready to eat! Meat that is flash frozen right from your butchery ensures that there is no enzyme breakdown in the process - making for the best quality meat there is.
The ceiling in the freezer has a curved design on the side so there is continuous airflow. Sometimes at butchers the meat will be stored in boxes so not every cut gets frozen. We wanted to prevent that, so here we take the time to flash freeze each and every cut before we box them up and move them to the inventory freezer. It was an expensive addition but we absolutely wanted to ensure quality and presentation for the meat that we work so hard to raise and harvest.
The only time our meat is involved in transit is when it leaves our shop to be shipped overnight to your door. To keep it frozen from our butchery, we pack it in a insulated box with dry-ice pellets. Our insulated liner is considered ‘R-Value’ which means that the insulation is good enough to keep our meat frozen, but we have to add dry-ice. Dry-ice is a solid form of carbon dioxide, which means it doesn’t melt like wet ice. Instead, dry-ice converts into carbon dioxide gas. Dry-ice pellets are so cold that you actually don’t want to put them in your freezer - it lowers the temperature so much that it may break your condenser. Sometimes when you open your box, you will still see some solid dry-ice pellets, but other times, you won’t even know it was there! You’ll just see that your meat is still frozen upon arrive. We tape every end of the box so that there is no air movement and that keeps the dry ice lasting as long as it does.
THAWING & COOKING YOUR MEAT
Once your frozen meat arrives, go ahead and keep it in your freezer until you are ready prepare a great meal! Thawing your meat takes a little thinking ahead. Move your meat to the refrigerator 1-2 days before you’re ready to cook. If you forget to take out your frozen meat ahead of time, place your meat in a sealed ziplock bag to avoid water leakage and place it under cool running water in the sink. You can also refer to the USDA website to read their safety protocol guidelines.
Cooking times and temperatures vary based on the size and shape of your cut and the way in which you prepare it. To make sure your meat is coked to your liking, use a meat thermometer to measure the ‘degree of doneness.’ Insert your thermometer through the side of the cut, and remove the meat from heat when the thermometer reads 5-10 degrees F lower than your desired doneness (the temp will continue to rise as the meat rests).
• RARE: 125-130 degrees F
• MEDIUM RARE: 135-140 degrees F
• MEDIUM: 145-150 degrees F
• MEDIUM WELL: 150-155 degrees F
• WELL DONE: 155-160 degrees F
CLICK HERE to order some Five Marys meats right to your door!
A LOOK BACK ON HOW WE GOT STARTED…
Brian and I talk through behind-the-scenes of our butchery plans as it was being built a couple of years ago. We’ll talk about why we wanted to build Five Marys Custom Meat Co. in the first place, we’ll show you our blueprints, and you’ll see all of the building in action! It’s so cool to look back at this time and to see now how far we’ve come :)