Grass Fed Beef Questions

[RealLifeMama]

We are looking into buying some grass fed beef from a local farm. It comes already frozen.
How long will it stay good in the freezer?
We have an upright.
Charts I have seen say 4 to 12 months. Um, that is quite a range!
Those of you that have gotten your meat from a farm, is it still tasty after a few months?

[me]

:popcorn
I never keep meat frozen longer than a month. Not for any particular reason. That encludes grass fed beef from local farms as well as grass fed from the grocery store. I dont know if the taste changes. :shrug Oh, I have kept deer meat that dh hunted for 4 months and the taste didnt change at all.
Curious to see what others say, we will be buying buffalo in bulk at some point before the farmers market closes for the winter till it reopens next spring.

[Iansmama]

We have had grass fed/finished buffalo in the freezer for 6 months now and I have not noticed a change in the taste.

[Johns_Gal]

When I first was with my DH, I made him dinner out of the contents of his freezer one night. Broke college kids, so neither of us were picky... he had a package of deer steaks I defrosted and cooked, and they were delicious. Making conversation, I asked him when he'd last gone hunting. Oh no, he said, he hadn't gone in years, but a friend had given him those. THREE YEARS AGO!
No ill effects and yummy meat, but good gosh. :doh I imagine it would keep at least twelve-eghteen months, just thinking about people I know who raise their own steer and are just finishing their freezer beef by the time the next goes to slaughter.

You can dry some of it for jerky, or can it as well.

[Mert]

We bought a quarter of a cow and were still eating the ground beef almost a year later. It was fine to us. We've really enjoyed getting meat from the farm!!

[Lady TS]

As long as is sealed well and kept frozen, it should be fine for a LONG time. I would keep it in the bottom half of your freezer since it stays colder in that part.
(This coming from a girl raised on elk/deer, some of it--gasp--years old! :jawdrop ;)

I wouldn't blink at meat being up to a year old. Meat older than that *may* be a bit dry and you can cook it in the pressure cooker/crockpot if you so desire.

We got a lot of ours ground since we eat a lot of ground meat(it stretches further than, say, steak) and we went through it a lot faster.

[me]

How do you guys wrap and seal your meat when it is to be frozen for that long?

Hope yo dont mind me asking Amy :)

[Lady TS]

We used freezer paper and wrapped it good and tight. We also used a chest freezer and I'm sure that helped too.

Take a piece of freezer paper. Place meat in center. Bring opposite ends of paper together and fold down repeatedly until there is a seam about in the center of the meat and tight. Then roll up each of the sides, again very tightly. Secure with freezer tape.

Those seal-a-meal things are supposed to be good, but we've never had one.

[Mert]

Ours comes already seriously frozen and sealed in plastic wrap. Plastic anything is not my choice, but it's already done for me so I live with it.

[Marielle]

yeah it should keep - we seal all our meat in foodsaver bags (which even when thinking of the plastic issue I remember reading it was #5 plastic) but before getting the foodsaver I did freezer paper.

BTW, if you don't mind, let me know how the transaction goes. We're considering doing something similar for next year. I've been tempted to go drive up to the cattle farm I see on my highway since I've seen they pasture their cows but I'm sure I'd come off as a weirdo.

[RiverRock]

The first year be bought from a local farmer it was a quarter, and it lasted us about 18 mo. All the cuts were fine right to the end. That was with freezer paper. The next time we bought a side of beef and it was plastic wrapped. Everything was fine after 2 years. We did this again last year, and bought a side of beef, intending it to last 2 years. We use an older chest freezer that is prone to frost and ice build up in a couple of areas. I just try not to pack the meat by the frost, and to keep it packed nice and tight overall. I'm not sure about an upright freezer, though. I know the freezer in my side-by-side fridge isn't as good as the chest, neither is the freezer on the top of our garage fridge.