I had the idea to make a flash freezer for meat and produce but was wondering about the best way to get this done. I’ve got a walk in freezer compressor that gets to -40. Do you think that if I made a blast freezer with it that it would be able to freeze meat quickly enough for it to retain its texture when defrosted?
I’d like to be able freeze the meat before I vacuum seal it up and thats not feasible with my home freezer.
I’ve got a lab freezer that reaches -30, if I left a 2" thick block of aluminum in there would that be sufficient to freeze the meat by placing cuts on butcher paper and setting them on the slab?
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Making something like this with the compressor would be nice.
Typically done with tunnel.freezers and LN2 I believe. There are also more space-efficient ones than a long tunnel, but those seem to be be most common.
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I need something smaller, something that can process a deer or a cow in a day.
Is the cryogenic temperstures normally reached in those systems needed?
Temperature is probably dependent on the length of contact with LN2. Smaller is generally tough for tunnel freezers but you might be able to.diy it.
Necessary? I don’t know but I assumed larger scale maybe.
Fish are frozen this way, and I’m pretty damn sure you don’t want cryofin
I’m suggesting using -40 and a lot of airflow blowing directly onto the meat. Do u think it would be cold enough to have the desired effect?
Would it just be a better idea to buy ln2 and just dunk the meat in that?
Ln2 is definitely the quickest way, im just wondering if it’s necessary to reach those temperatures for adequately flash freezing meat.
@Future would u know about this
Yes it could but I don’t know what your effective (or necessary) energy transfer is to the meat. Give us your requirements and what compressor you have
Watch videos of tunnel.freezers. they don’t “dunk” them in LN2.
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I’ll have to read up on time/temp relationship of ice crystal formation in meat before I can know that I guess.
Oh lol. So then what do you think about me filling a copper heat exchanger with LN2, then circulating air over that to get the cold temps I’d need?
Should work. Which heat exchanger?
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Idk I’ll probably buy a finned copper heat exchanger like what’s on an ac unit except with like 1/2" pipe. Put a prv on it and a big ass muffler.
I don’t think a plate chiller would work very well, I cant really think of any other kind of heat exchanger lol. But im very open to suggestions here.
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Okay looks like the Freddy blast chiller uses propane as the refrigerant with a 1/2 hp compressor, so my compressor should work fine.
1.5 hp compressor that uses r-502. Should be good to go with this.
This is the same one I’ve got it’s just currently buried so I pulled a picture off google.
What’s wrong with a regular freezer?
Seems overkill
Flash freezing keeps texture and juices inside the meat a lot better. Steaks will defrost a lot quicker too when they’ve been flash frozen.
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