Pickled pork not freezing?

September 2, 2023 6:58 PM

I made Alton Brown's pickled pork and sealed it in vacuum bags. It is surrounded by hard frozen items in the freezer but it doesn't seem to be freezing and the little bit of liquid in there is still liquid. Could this be due to the salt in the brine and how should I approach its use by shelf life?
posted by Rufous-headed Towhee heehee to Food & Drink (4 answers total)

The recipe says "remove from the brine and freeze" so I think you should try to remove all the brine or use a deep freeze.
posted by fiercekitten at 7:09 PM on September 2, 2023 [2 favorites]

As long as the temperature is correct, I don't think you need to worry about the lack of solid ice/presence of liquid water in a brine, supersaturated sugar solution, etc. It's the temperature that matters when it comes to food safety and shelf life.
posted by pullayup at 8:58 PM on September 2, 2023 [13 favorites]

Best answer: How cold is your freezer?

It's possible to make a salt brine that won't freeze in an ordinary household freezer. See this chart (screenshot) for example. An ordinary household freezer in the US is usually set at 0°F; a salt brine can stay liquid as low as -6°F, depending on salt concentration.

But it takes a lot of salt. A brine of about 20% salt by weight just will freeze at 0°F. Alton's recipe starts with 2 cups of water and 1/4 cup of salt, which is about 15% salt by weight. But then you boil it, and add sugar and wet meat, and I can't guess what your final brine is going to be. But it's in the ballpark of "may not freeze at 0°F".
posted by Nelson at 7:14 AM on September 3, 2023 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: I binned it, I had it in there quite a while and if I had, for instance, refrigerated it at a very cold temperature for as long as it was in the freezer I would not eat it. Thanks for the input all!
posted by Rufous-headed Towhee heehee at 5:33 PM on November 8, 2023