Freezing meat before or after cooking?

You can do either. Having said that, if you freeze it raw, you have to cook twice.

For you, I would cook both, pull and then freeze family size portions and individual size portions in vac sealed bags and freeze....make sure you label date cooked and date frozen and date use by.

Are you going to smoke from raw? If so, I would suggest freezing after. If you are going to braise or cook with wet heat before smoking, either.

gr8dlr wrote: ↑ You can do either. Having said that, if you freeze it raw, you have to cook twice.

For you, I would cook both, pull and then freeze family size portions and individual size portions in vac sealed bags and freeze....make sure you label date cooked and date frozen and date use by.

Thanks! This is what I was thinking as well. The RFD'er in me wasn't liking the idea of using all those wood pellets for 2 separate cooking sessions. Good points on adding the labels too.

Frank311 wrote: ↑ Thanks! This is what I was thinking as well. The RFD'er in me wasn't liking the idea of using all those wood pellets for 2 separate cooking sessions. Good points on adding the labels too.

Forgot to add...consider picking some random dates on the calendar as to when you're going to pull out and eat that pulled pork. Can't tell you how many times, I find stuff in there two years later!

Cook fresh and then freeze. Easier that way since you wont have to wait for the meat to thaw out again.

I'd smoke the lot at at once. If you freeze it in sauce it is more protected from freezerburn than if you freeze shreds without sauce. Less surface area. Also I'd do all individual serving size because it's faster to thaw 4 single serves than one big frozen chunk of 4 servings.

I've given up on labels that fall off in the freezer and marking dates on containers that I end up reusing. It's better to have a recipe diary (or spreadsheet/calendar) to mark down when you've made a batch of something.

Definitely smoke and pull before and freeze after. It's a pain in the neck when you have an itch for pulled pork and then have to wait for the shoulder to defrost, then applying the dry rub and waiting more, then smoking. Pulled pork freezes and thaws very well with no ill effects as far as I can tell.

gr8dlr wrote: ↑ Forgot to add...consider picking some random dates on the calendar as to when you're going to pull out and eat that pulled pork. Can't tell you how many times, I find stuff in there two years later!

perfectly edible so long as it stayed frozen.

Its always best right off the smoker... I freeze mine raw.