freeze racks for sausage prior to vac sealing

[Ridley Acres]

After processing the harvest from our hogs this winter, I am looking into ways to stack trays of sausage for par freezing before vac sealing. This past year we made 50lb of brat links, and about that much in patties. But it was a pain trying to stack them in the freezer to firm them before pulling a vacuum on them. I have a bunch of half sheet pans that I can lay them on but I don’t have a walk in that I can just wheel a pan truck in and come back later.

What are other people’s thoughts? Here is what I am thinking:

Pizza box chair

Rebar chair

or perhaps I need to make a DIY rack insert for my freezer that I can use for processing days.

[Tex_77]

Ridley Acres of the two options you listed I’d go with the rebar chair. When I make big batches, which is on the agenda for this weekend, I just bag them up and put them in the freezer for a few hours then come back and vac seal them later.

[processhead]

The problem as I see it is placing pieces on trays so that they don’t make contact and freeze to each other.

I use wax paper or parchment paper on trays or pans and place the meat or sausages in layers separated by paper while freezing.

[Tex_77]

processhead I have gone that route as well!

[Ridley Acres]

Tex_77 That’s what I ended up doing when we got about half thru the links. The problem I have is that I am not usually able to get started on projects like this until after we clean up from dinner. I grid everything one evening, stuffed links the next night, then patties then next. It didn’t seem like they were firm enough by the time we got cleaned up each night, so we held overnight in the freezer and that was first operation the following day once I got home from work.

I was mixing in 10-12lb batches by hand, and that really slowed me down. Next year I’ll have me a meat mixer, and hopefully a space that I can leave everything setup while we are in processing mode.

[calldoctoday]

Tex_77 or plastic painting points (pyramids) to hold the multiple trays in place. They are about 3-4" tall & possibly cheaper & easier than rebar chairs that I have not had to purchase in a long time.

[calldoctoday]

processhead We just oil them up real good & it seems to work real well.

[Grimpuppy]

I used to just cross the pans 90 degrees on top of each other. I found since changing to a chamber vac, I don’t need to par freeze them anymore.

[Ridley Acres]

Grimpuppy said in freeze racks for sausage prior to vac sealing:

I found since changing to a chamber vac, I don’t need to par freeze them anymore

another selling point