Chilling and Packaging for Freezing
At 15:10 in
How to butcher chicken at home, detailed instruction you'll find nowhere else!
What happens here
After evisceration, the chickens are placed into a three-bay sink containing progressively colder water baths. The first bay is cool water, the second is colder, and the third is the coldest, filled with ice water, bringing the chicken's temperature down to 45-50 degrees Fahrenheit. Once thoroughly chilled, each chicken is placed into a shrink bag. To seal the bag, it's twisted tightly to remove air, then dipped into a separate bucket of hot water (around 210 degrees Fahrenheit). The heat causes the bag to shrink tightly around the bird. The twisted end of the bag is then secured with a hog ring using hog ring pliers, creating a vacuum seal. These sealed chickens are then ready for the freezer, where they can be stored for 1 to 1.5 years. The video notes that these shrink-wrapped birds can be aged in a refrigerator for a couple of days before freezing to tenderize the meat, if desired.
Goal: Prepare and package chickens for long-term freezer storage
Tools and materials
- Bucket — Holding hot water for shrinking bags
- Hog Ring Tool — Crimping hog rings to seal shrink bags
- Rubber Gloves — Protecting hands from hot water
- Shrink Bags — Packaging chickens for vacuum sealing and freezing
- Three-Bay Sink — Progressively chilling chickens to safe temperatures
- Wooden Spoon — Submerging shrink bags into hot water
- Hog Rings — Sealing the shrink bags
- Hot Water Tap water — Shrinking the bags
- Ice — Keeping chill water baths cold