Thawing

[Marcha]

So tell me how you all thaw your meat if it's frozen. It takes us perhaps 30 hrs to thaw from freezer to fridge. Thawing in a bag in a tub of water goes faster but requires that each meal is put into a plastic bag so that it's not directly in the water, and I don't like the amount of waste associated with that.

Pup also gets some frozen bits, but then likes to leave it until it's thawed. Frozen bones, frozen necks... doesn't matter but she wants it thawed.

We have chunks of meat, chunks of bone, and pre-made ground meat with bones/offal ground in from the raw-food pet store.

Suggestions? Tips? Do's and Don'ts?

[growler~GateKeeper]

I would avoid hot water thawing for bone-in as it can dry it out the bone making it more brittle.

I have my raw portioned in daily containers & pop the container in the fridge the afternoon/evening before & it's thawed for the next morning.

For dinner if someone is home during the day you can thaw on the counter top / in the sink / somewhere the dog can't get it, a couple hours ahead of time. ie dinner is at 6pm thaw on the counter at 2ish should be enough time, I wouldn't do that if there was no one home during the day though or for more than a couple of hours.

[Marcha]

So that's basically what we're already doing No hot water for thawing here - it's just bad practice full stop - whether for pets or for humans.
I've been thinking about containers to separate the meals in the fridge. Pup is still on 3 meals per day, and then perhaps a chunk of bone to chomp on... so that's a lot of thawing. Our local supermarket doesn't often have cheap meats, and we don't have the transpo to go to the slightly more distant but cheaper supermarket on a daily basis for non-frozen meats. So where possible we do feed her fresh (non-frozen), separated into meals for several days.

Do you use containers in the freezer too? That might work for us (good idea). I am noticing that pup likes fresh meats better than the raw pre-ground 1lb slices, so if I find a good deal, I'd be happy to chop and mix and put into 1 meal containers. Do I need to watch for certain containers to do that? Do you have preferences for containers?

[growler~GateKeeper]

I've got a cat so my meals are smaller as are my containers, but what I use from freezer to fridge are Ziploc Single Serve Containers, they do come in various larger sizes, found in most grocery stores too.

[growler~GateKeeper]

Plastic zip bags also work, make sure they are actually meant for the freezer ie thick enough so as not to promote freezer burn

[LittleMonster]

i have a small dog so the meals are pretty small. i also make the packages as thin as possible, no more than 1cm thick - this makes a big difference in thaw times, they thaw on the counter top in 30mins-1hr. If im in a hurry i put the meal in some cool/slightly warm water and that thaws in about 5-10mins.

[Melei'sMom]

I keep Melei's meal in the fridge and when I take it out to give to her each day, I take tomorrows meal out and pop that in the fridge. She is small and so are her meals so they are defrosted by mealtime the next day that way.

[Marcha]

Thanks Melei's Mom That's kind of what we're doing now.

Bodhi is getting just below 1.5lbs per meal, so her meals are taking longer to thaw. What we have resorted to doing is dedicating a veggie drawer for her meals, allowing 2-3 days for a meal to thaw. When we get deals on meat, we put away 2-3 days worth of that in the drawer too. So basically we have 2-3 days worth of meat out for her, in a first-in-first-out kind of system (frozen meats get put in back, thawed meats come out the front). For every meal we take out, we put one back in. This seems to work best for us.