6 months for the commercial freezers, up to about three years for the domestic one. Not meat, but when they were clearing out Grandma's old freezer they found some frozen fruit from the mid-eighties (20+ years), it tasted fine, apparently.
6 months make sense so as there is plenty of "shelflife"left for the customer
i have eaten stuff up to 3 yrs or so ,the last bits of beltie must be about that by now
i suspect vac packed in thick poly helps ,stuff ive home wrapped in clingfilm ,snap lock or twist bags always seems to frost up and get freezer burn if left too long.
i was puzzled by how good the old stuff seems.
Pilsbury
Joined: 13 Dec 2004 Posts: 5645 Location: East london/Essex
Posted: Wed Apr 09, 14 10:56 am Post subject:
Apparetly mammoth meat was ok to eat once they had dug it up....
Nick
Joined: 02 Nov 2004 Posts: 34535 Location: Hereford
Posted: Wed Apr 09, 14 12:53 pm Post subject:
The problem will be lack of texture, and it drying out, mostly. If it's genuinely been below about minus 15, it should be safe pretty much for ever. Vac packed and sealed will help.
Do you remember, roughly a million years ago, when I bought some (mutton?) off you, you 'kindly' threw in six jars of mint sauce, as they were just on their sell by date?
I found, and am using, one of those currently.
I have children older than that. Would this also form part of your Heritage Range?
I think I have a piece of your Beltie beef still in the (domestic) freezer. Should really drop it in some time. That's only been in there two years and seven months, though, so hardly a record breaker.
I seem to recall that the freezer times for meat are based on the usual fat content of the particular type of meat.
As in, pork won't keep as long because it typically has fat on it, beef is typically lower fat content. I think this is also the fat in the meat, as opposed to around the meat, if that makes sense.
It's the fat component that goes rancid over time. All that said, i've never yet had rancid meat out of the freezer, no matter how old.
Colin & Jan
Joined: 03 Mar 2006 Posts: 203 Location: Dover, Kent
Posted: Sat Apr 12, 14 9:23 pm Post subject:
I've just 'rustled' in the bottom of the freezer and found a piece of pork that says June 2011. I'll let you know later tomorrow (provided it doesn't finish me off) if it was OK.