I love having an abundance of meat in our freezer. The food is prepped, ready to be thawed, and used. I don’t need to take a trip to the store or local butcher shop to buy the meat for the week. The day before, I brainstorm what I would like to make and eat, and grab a packet of that meat to start thawing. I bought my latest meat shopping haul from Palumbo’s in Downtown DuBois. The hamburger comes in large 20 lb. bags, which is way too large of an amount to freeze all together. But, it is cheaper to purchase in larger quantities. In order to have the best hamburger in the coming months, I vacuum seal the hamburger into 2 lb. packages to freeze for a later use.
Where to Buy Local Hamburger?
Local butcher shops and local farms sell beef from local farms. In the DuBois area, I shop at two local butcher shops, Palumbo’s in Downtown DuBois and Biggie’s Quality Meats in near Big Run, PA. I like shopping at both- both giving the experience of small town shops with quality products. When you are at either, try their meat sticks with such a selection to choose from each.
In the Johnstown Area, Dickert Farms sells freezer beef, as well as other meats. Other farms do the same thing, but may not be as advertised. Usually when buying directly from a farm, the customer is buying whole sections of the animal, not individual cuts of meat.
Fat Percentages of Hamburger
Beef comes in different percentages. When the meat is ground, different percentages of beef fat is added during the process. The highest fat content is 70-30, which is 70 percent meat and 30 percent fat. I rarely buy this type. It has too much fat for even hamburgers for me. So, the only time I buy it has been on accident a few times. Oops!
The next type is my go-to at 80-20. This hamburger has 80 percent meat and 20 percent fat. Hamburgers need fat in order to have some great flavorings. When grilling, the fat drips off. If cooking indoors, that fat keeps the hamburger from sticking to the pan.
The last type is a very lean ground beef, 93-7. The meat is 93 percent of the ground beef while the fat is 7 percent. I would recommend this beef for recipes such as tacos, sloppy-joes, pasta, and lasagna. Essentially recipes that take browning the ground beef where you don’t want excess fat. Or use a venison hamburger, which is also a lean ground meat.
Create Vacuum Seal Bags
A vacuum sealer is needed. Ours is a Food Saver, which is available at Walmart. Vacuum Seal Bags can be purchased and ready to go. For us, we buy rolls and then seal them off into bags.
To start, pull out the roll until the desired size. If it the bag is larger than needed, that’s okay. More air will be sucked out of it for a nice seal. If the bag is smaller than needed, it may not want to seal.
Cut the bag using the cutting tool inside the Food Saver. Line the bag up, leave it on the dry setting, and press “Seal”. This seals the one of the bag. Leave the other end opened to add the hamburger in the next steps.
Weighing the Hamburger
Recipes call for an exact amount of hamburger. Most of the recipes I use utilize 2 lbs. worth of meat. That’s what I want to vacuum seal my smaller packages of hamburger be.
To find this exact amount, I use my digital kitchen scale. Lay the bag on the scale, fill up with hamburger from the 20 lb. bag until the scale says it is 2.00, or about that. For most bags, I try to make them no more than 2 lb. and 1 oz. With the last bag that needs filled, I’ll over fill it by a few ounces, such as filling it to 2 lb. and 1.3 oz.
Vacuum Sealing Hamburger
Instead of leaving the hamburger centered to the middle of the package, I try to move it around to the bottom corners as well.
Now, it is time to vacuum seal the hamburger into the bags. With the open ends of the bag facing into the drip tray, shut the Food Saver lid, switch to operate, and press “Wet” and then “Vac/Seal”. If it doesn’t seem like it is vacuum sealing in a timely manner, then try repositioning the bag. Sometimes the bag may be too small for what it is trying to seal.
The Food Saver is finally sealing when the red light comes on as “Seal” and it has a change in sound.
A quality bag should have a clear vacuum seal across the bottom and the top to keep the hamburger nice and fresh while frozen. If there is even a quarter of inch not seal, it will not keep the hamburger safe and fresh.
Label the Package
There are a few key details to include on the package. First, label it as “Hamburger” or “Ground Beef”. This way you know what is in the package when finding some for a meal or recipe. Next, add the month and the year. This will tell if the package is fresh, needs used soon, or is older to where the quality of meat as declined. Then, add the quantity. For hamburger, I include how many pounds is in the package. For the most part, I keep mine to 2 pounds of hamburger.
That’s all that’s necessary, but I do add one more thing to my packages. I add the total cost. It’s just interesting to see prices change of products. I also include the price so that I remain humble when I use the meat later on, as well as knowing I’m blessed to have purchased it.
Storing in Freezer
Keep the vacuum sealed bags of hamburger in a freezer. With an upright freezer, which is what we have, double check that the door shuts the whole way, seals, and stays shut. Adding a few bags of meat to the freezer doesn’t really cause this, but I would still check. It has happened before with large quantities of meat, such as buying a half of cow.
Cooked Internal Temperatures
When cooking with ground beef, make sure to cook thoroughly. Temperatures should reach 160 degrees Fahrenheit. Yes, steaks and roasts only need to be cooked to 145 degrees Fahrenheit, but they are cut off the pieces of cow and not processed any further.
Hamburger, on the other hand, is ground. It gets pushed down into a grinder, passing through an auger that takes the pieces of meat and grinds them, and then finally being pushed out an attachment that shapes the meat into ground beef.
With all that processing, the pieces of meat become smaller and have had more surface area to touch other pieces of meat, which have bacteria that need killed during cooking. This is why it is imperative to always cook any ground beef to 160 degrees Fahrenheit.
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