I seem to recall reading on this website that meat wrapped in cling film and then wrapped in butcher paper last longer in the freezer than vacuum sealed packages?

Any truth to that? With late season elk success I'll be freezing a good bit of meat.

I doubt that true as vacuum packed removes all the air. I have eaten moose meat vacuum packed 4 years earlier and it was just as good as the first year .

I think it was more because being plastic, the vacuum wrap gets holes poked in it from being moved around in the freezer and then you get freezer burn. If no holes,I would assume it is true. A frost free freezer will do more damage than one that isn't.I wrap all mine in freezer paper. Plastic coated on one side. I have meat that is 5-6 years old and there is no problem with it. I do a store it in the freezer in big zip lock bags, about 8 pieces to a bag, but that is more for convenience in moving it around.

Vacuum pack is what I use. I try to have the freezer cleaned out before hunting season. Never had a problem.

Mine comes packaged the same way from the processor. I have some stuff in there that's 3-4 years old that's eaten just fine. I use old cardboard boxes to segregate stuff inside my chest freezer.

We use a vacuum sealer only for irregular shaped stuff like birds and fish. Like saddlesore, we use freezer paper on big game (which we butcher ourselves, rotating it between two 15-cubic-foot, non-frostfree chest freezers, one upstairs next to the kitchen filled with the oldest meat for everyday use, and one in the basement we top off every year as a "savings account."

We're generally eating game from 3-4 years ago, and none is freezer-burned. Once even found a package of elk steak that had somehow made it through our annual freeer-shuffle and inventory for 9 years. It had a slight amount of freezer burn on one end, but was perfectly edible.

Thank you for your replies.

I use a lot of the one gallon twist tie bags for putting my meat in whether vacuum packing or just packing it in plastic freezer bags.I have had meat stored this way three years without freezer burn stored in the twist tie bags inside the plastic freezer bags.I really works great when grinding the meat for packing.I just put the bag over the head of my grinder and let the ground meat go right into the bag.When used when vacuum packing,it helps to keep the blood or liquid from getting sucked into your machine.Sure is an easy,less mess way to do it and extends the life in the freezer too.

when I process meat, I use those same twist tie bags and then wrap in freezer paper. Does a great job. I have had meat up to 4 years frozen with no freezer burn.

Steve Rinella from Meateater does the cling and paper for his game. Processor I use does it as well. Stuff i do i vacuum pack.

Been using plastic wrap and good quality freezer paper for years. Works great. My wife wraps it though as she just has a way for getting it so it stacks in the freezer just perfectly.

TexasPhotog, My wife has used the plastic wrap, over-wrapped with freezer paper for many years. We’ve used meat that was in the chest freezer for 3 years.....couldn’t tell that it wasn’t fresh! memtb

We don't keep meat around more tha a couple of years. The plastic film and butcher paper works fine for that, and our freezer is a frost free.

Can’t tell the difference. Wrap it TIGHT. I get a big box of plastic wrap from Sam’s and secure it to the counter. Pull, press, wrap several times over. Then butcher paper.

I've had best results with cling wrap and butcher paper. The local processors use cling wrap and a vacumn sealer (as have I) but I've had too many bags break their seal in the freezer (from processors and doing it myself).

Foodsaver



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I've had excellent results with Press'n Seal. Sticks better to itself so you can easily conform it to the shape of the meat and get all the air out. Then overwrap with freezer paper. Now that they have a freezer version of Press'n Seal maybe you could do without the freezer paper. But my freezer is an upright and I can do with the extra friction of paper to keep stuff from sliding out.

I do the same. I’ve got roasts get lost in the shuffle for 5 years and be just fine.

I tried the vacuum packing thing. Majority seemed to get pin holes from handling.

Huge differences in bags in toughness, but mostly thickness. Not banging the stuff around and using the good, heavy bags makes the vacuum packer the fastest and easiest and I think the stuff keeps better.

Cookie and I are older than dirt and have gone both ways. All total about 50 cubic feet of freezer space in the house and we use it. Idealy, one would like to live on an annual schedule, but we'll at times maybe score something like 3 elk and 3 deer in a single fall. That lead to some aging.

Vacuum vs Saran Wrap? For meats, the best performer for us is a tight Saran followed with a tight drugstore wrap of butcher paper. We just did a long overdue defrost and I pulled out several of our larger cuts and burger packs going back 10+ years with zero freezer burn. Also seems one has more control over shaping packages going the manual Saran wrap/paper route, and with its pliable clingy nature, there's virtually no air beneath the wrap. Working through the burger now and doing some jerky with the larger roast cuts. Vacuum is fine, but we will get sealing failures with some that over time allow burning. Also the excesses of material around the edges and ends of the vacuum bags makes for inefficient use of space in ones freezers. That's especially a problem in uprights where stacked packages tend to slide off shelves. Less of an issue in chest units, but still a lot of wasted space.

Another couple things with our meats is that everything is boned. No sharp points to pierce wrappings. Two, we wrap and freeze larger chunks and do not slice steaks until we're in the thawing process. Must less exposed surface area with that method.

I think some of our vacuum failures are due to fluids being sucked out and hindering the heat sealing to some degree.

We still go the vacuum route mostly with fruits (peaches/cherries/berries/some fish/etc) as they are products that we don't want to crush when attempting to get the air out with Saran Wrap. When vacuuming those we use something like a chubby soup can with both ends cut out to tube feed the goods into the bags. That helps one keep the upper interior surfaces dry to facilitate sealing. For things like whole birds etc, it's wash, as there will be voids regardless of method. Hence avoid extended storage.

Finally, one can pick up an industrial sized roll of Saran wrap at Costco that will be 18 inches wide and thousands of feet long dirt cheap. It will do most households for decades. Same for the paper and it would be handy to also maybe get a rack for at least the paper and tape allowing one to rapidly rip off desired size pieces. The vacuum folks have one by the short hairs and at about 3 times the cost for the tubes. As to process speed, I think it's a wash. Regardless of method, two workers, with one handling product and the other doing the wrapping, makes for speedy work. A pain in the butt though if one is working by himself.

Have a good one and best of luck,

Eat it all in a year and replace, works best for us.

I cut all my game boneless, every cut. Chops, stew, roasts etc all go into tie wrap bags, twisted to force the meat into a ball into the corner of the bag and twist tied shut. It's very effective but one needs to know how to fillet the entire game animal end to end.

I bought a chamber vaccum sealer a few years ago and it works great. It will even seal water. Expensive but works great. By the responses though it seems every method works so whichever is easiest for you.

If you are using a large grinder to make ground meat, the easiest packaging method is one of these stuffing tubes and the 1 or 2 pound tube bags.

Stuffing Tube

With this setup and a tape machine, you never have to touch the ground meat. Goes in quick and clean with very little air and keeps great in the freezer.


Jerry

I have had vacuum bags loose their seal after a couple of months. This may be poor bags or poor technique on my part, but I don't trust the vacuum bags alone on wet meat, the seal is too easily compromised. The cling wrap/butcher paper works well for a year or more. If I think something might be stored longer then cling wrap/vacuum seal/freezer paper. This is over kill but good if the meat is going to be banging around in an ice chest later or stored for over six months.

The vacuum sealer works great for vegetables but even there I have had several develop air leaks.

I normally wrap my meat whenever I indulge in some strange trim...