Chilling of carcass

[VanMarco]

Hello,
I have a regular deep freezer (upright) that i put on a china electronic thermostat, so in case i want to, i can select this to be "fridge" mode (aka +0 +6C). I do know that it would not be ideal to let it in this condition for long, as the compressor is designed to run at sub-freezing temperatures, and it would run hotter.
Now, in the fall, i will have a hog carcass to chill down. I have seen on youtube that some people cut it up into the major pieces (6 in total) and just shove the thing into a deep freezer to CHILL. not to freeze.
The issue is, assuming 180lb of hog meat put inside a freezer at an average temp of at least 30C/85F is quite a big amount to even, CHILL. Chill is defined to have a deep temperature of around 5-6C. that is a huge drop of temp for a small 190W compressor. The freezer is rated at about 20kg/44lb of ice in 24hrs. I am not entirely sure if they mean "ice at 0F, or just water frozen at 30F.
My question is, if i were to put said pieces of meat in said fridge-set freezer, would i burn the compressor?
Thank you very much.

[monkey spanners]

Hi,

Best thing would be to get the hog killed at a local abattoir and have them chill it for you in their blast chiller.

If you are determined to do it yourself with your freezer I would fill a load of plastic containers with water and freeze them, put a few in each day, you'd want at least the same weight as the meat, get them as cold as possible. When you put the hog in there the cold ice will help cool the meat quickly and not let the temperature get too hot in the freezer. No guarantees of success!

[knighty]

does the condenser (hot bit) have a fan?

if not a fan blowing over it will help a lot, doesn't need to be a big fan, a desk fan on low setting will do just fine


monkey spanners idea of big ice cubes/tubs is the best idea... I'd run it as a freezer to freeze them, then once you put the hog in and turn it down to fridge settings I'd take the ice out of the tubs and let it sit in the fridge
(assuming it'll melt and run out a drain in the bottom ok that is)

[Rob White]

.

The problem is not really cooling the meat, that bit is easy what you have to
be carful of is drying the meat out. The side effect of cooling something is it
also dehumidifies it.

If the temp difference is too high you dehumidify the product. That is why chilling meat
is a very specific task and you need a very low temperature difference over the evaporator.

I know this reply is a few weeks after your initial question so it might be too late,
you might already have tried to do what you want.

Trying to cool fresh warm meat in a freezer might damage the meat if you do it too quick.

I would be tempted to individually wrap the meat in plastic so it is sealed and the moisture
won't evaporate too much.

As for the size of the freezer it will do the work over 24 hours easily.

Without wanting to bore you with the science, there is a huge amount of heat in a kilogram
of water. Cooling it down to freezing is the easy bit turning it from water to ice at 0degC (32degF)
is where all the work is done.

Set your freezer to its warmest temp and pull the meat down slowly over 2 or 3 days.

Rob

.

[VanMarco]

Hi,

Best thing would be to get the hog killed at a local abattoir and have them chill it for you in their blast chiller.

If you are determined to do it yourself with your freezer I would fill a load of plastic containers with water and freeze them, put a few in each day, you'd want at least the same weight as the meat, get them as cold as possible. When you put the hog in there the cold ice will help cool the meat quickly and not let the temperature get too hot in the freezer. No guarantees of success!

this is what i thought also. we do this with chickens, at without knowing i figured it out it is about the weight of the animal in ice to bring soon-killed temperature to fridge temperature. I will just make ice with the freezer, slowly over a few days, and chill the carcass with ice and water. when it has cool down, then it can be put it in "fridge mode" until all is cut up.

Thank you for your replies