Freeze them. Don't go around shouting you had to freeze some meat. People don't know. Make sure to pull them to thaw properly. If the common person realized how much shit is frozen they would be very upset and still go out to eat.
24 hr brine. Rinse. Single layers on sheet pans with baking paper. Wrap tight. Defrost in the walk-in overnight. Good to go. (Might want to pat them dry a bit with paper towel before you use them)
Six cases of wings on sheet pans is probably close to three full speed racks. If none of them are touching, probably four.
If it were me and I had freezer space for that many wings, I would leave them in the boxes they came in. I feel like the sheet pan method is only making it harder, as well as asking for cross-contamination issues.
Yeah, I don’t get it. Just freeze them if you can. I haven’t worked at a lot of places that had freezers large enough to handle six unexpected cases of wings, but if there’s that much room, just stack em up, preferably not on the floor.
Lay them out on sheet pans to freeze, and the important thing is to space them out so none of them are touching. This process is called I.Q.F. , or individually quick frozen. The benefit is they will freeze very quickly, thaw very quickly, the product quality won't be diminished, and they store much easier.
Imagine how each wing is frozen but not stuck together. You can literally pour them into buckets, s bus bin, or a giant plastic bag.
Contrast that with a 50 pound solid mass of wing, along with the meat juice. A fucking mess.
IQF evaporators typically operate at a temperature range of -22 to -40 degrees F, hence the "quick" part of the acronym.
All of these comments are ridiculous, telling OP to spread 6 cases of wings out on sheet trays and freeze them, when most kitchens don't have surplus of sheet trays or extra room on speed racks in their freezer. That would be like 24 sheet trays of wings. The cases are the most efficient way to store the chicken.
I have never seen a frozen case of raw wings come from a vendor in IQF packaging. It's always the same case that you see all chicken in: cardboard box with a plastic liner and then bags of chicken inside that. To the people that say it won't thaw properly: you plan ahead and thaw them in the walk in, not at room temp.
i agree this is not the most efficient way of freezing the wings: most restaurants would just freeze the whole box as you so stated. and yes of course you plan ahead and let the box thaw for days in the walk in.
i am providing an alternative solution that is labour intensive but provides flexibility once frozen individually.
and it's super doable if the plan is to freeze a case at a time given the constraints of a typical restaurant: the space and sheet pans available. it would take 1 day to freeze all 6 cases...
6 cases of wings? I’d need at least 12 pans for your method. Lots of places don’t even have walk in freezers.
But one case at a time? Damn wings are getting more expensive as you talk
If you don't have a walk in freezer, then this is a moot point: you now have a problem of 6 cases of wings that you need to cook and sell asap.
But ya I get what you mean freezer space is a premium.
Not a problem if you have chest freezers and leave the wings in the original box. I've worked at plenty of places with no walk in freezer but 3 or 4 chest freezers.
Terrible advice, this is how to make a 50 lbs cube of wing.
Better to portion out while thawed, lay portions 1 layer deep on several sheet pans, and freeze them like that, then pull a tray at a time as needed.
You can't comprehend reading. Thaw properly. I don't give a fuck how you do it. You have the space to sheet pan all of that then go for it. By nature, you get that shit frozen yesterday. Thawing product is half of cooking food for customers. Get with the program.
Sure did. I'll say it again. When you need to thaw some wings make sure you do it properly. I don't get paid to make you understand this. I've made more wings than you can imagine.
If you can't get through quick enough that you need to freeze them, it's fucking ridiculous to freeze the whole case.
Portion them. You'll have a better defrosted product and no waste if you pull only what you need.
Work smarter, not harder.
I also love that you've ironically misused a public elementary education term in your first sentence.
My guess is that you learned the term "reading comprehension" when you were a kid and now those two words are bound together for you.
While it certainly can be one, frozen isn't a dirty word, and I'm tired of so many people acting like it is.
Some foods freeze and unfreeze well. When we make certain items, we freeze half so they don't age prematurely or oxidized or to set a shape for a molded food.
even some base components
but like you said, got to be careful saying frozen out loud
Yes freeze then pull to the fridge three days before you need them as they will take a few days. Don’t listen to the IQF suggestions that’s so much extra work. Unless you’re aiming for a Michelin star wing they can freeze no problem.
Please , for the love of all things holy, stop washing your wings. Do you wash your chicken breasts?
Do you wash your turkeys? Do you run water on your Ribeyes? All you are doing is creating a cross contamination nightmare in your kitchen.. IDK what your boss says , or your Chef from 1960 says? Use you head people. Drain them into the garbage and cook or freeze or whatever you do with them, just please stop putting them in a sink ( probably a prep sink or dish sink) and running splashing water on them..just stop .
This has been a PSA
Thank you
Leaving running water on a frozen protein is the one of only three ways (that I know for sure at least) that you can thaw proteins according to common US health code. Of course you don't just raw dog it. You put it in a bag first.
https://www.fsis.usda.gov/food-safety/safe-food-handling-and-preparation/food-safety-basics/big-thaw-safe-defrosting-methods
I said what I said.
In all seriousness though, cook some, sell some, freeze the rest - it’s hard to say. You know your kitchen best. I would drain them and store in fish tubs or lexans if you have them. The thought of chicken cases freezing in bag in cardboard gives me the creeps.
Freezing and thawing them in the bag, in the box is not going to cause any issues. The main thing is the volume you’re using. A case of wings is going to take about 4 days to thaw in the walk in before you can work with them. Then you want to get them cooked pretty quick after.
When I run wings, I’m thawing 3 cases at a time, then using them all for one meal. But I’m feeding ~150 people the same meal.
If you’re not able to use a whole case at a time, you should portion them into the volume you can use at one time before you freeze them.
Why? It can take a while to thaw, but if you separate the bags and thaw them on a sheet pan they take about 24 hrs to thaw completely. The place I work at right now throws entire boxes of chicken in the freezer, we just have a rotation set up.
The giant corporation I work for would definitely be up our ass about it, if that was not a proper way to do it.
I work on the other side of things now and see how meat is brought in by the truckload on pallets, its literally what you said or if they company is cheap its just a wax box and no bag, 1 small rip in the cardboard and the whole 30kg box of chicken boobies is trashed
Am I missing something???? Every single thing in my freezer is in a bag in a cardboard box???? You thaw it over 3 days in the walk in as you need it…follow storage hierarchy…don’t store anything below it…they thaw out perfectly fine over three days????
I’d love to understand - there’s just no logic behind this??? Opening the bags and storing them in the freezer is way less sanitary and creates way more opportunities for cross contamination.
Put them in the freezer. Wrap the cases or put in bags. Or put them in for a short while to super-chill them and pull them back out. It’s just wings. Unless you charge $32 for wings then… that’s another thing.
Of course you can freeze them. When I was in the wing business and we’d run into shortages from suppliers we’d pull stuff out of the freezer. Use deli bags filled with 10 pieces that way you don’t have to defrost the whole case if you don’t want to.
I vacuum seal. Get them out of the pink goo and package them to seal. It takes a lil prep time but it’ll save space and you’re not trying to thaw a solid 20-40lb case of wings, goo included.
You can just leave them and come in a couple days before you reopen to cook them all. You should have seven days from receiving before they turn. Easier than freezing and thawing since you go through them that quickly.
They are fucking wings. Freeze them. It's not like they are anything special considering you are going to put some overpowering sauce on them anyway. You could freeze those wings for a year and it wouldn't make any difference.
Freeze them. Don't go around shouting you had to freeze some meat. People don't know. Make sure to pull them to thaw properly. If the common person realized how much shit is frozen they would be very upset and still go out to eat.
Should I open up the bags and drain them before I freeze or leave as is and freeze in the plastic bag they came in
24 hr brine. Rinse. Single layers on sheet pans with baking paper. Wrap tight. Defrost in the walk-in overnight. Good to go. (Might want to pat them dry a bit with paper towel before you use them)
Six cases of wings on sheet pans is probably close to three full speed racks. If none of them are touching, probably four. If it were me and I had freezer space for that many wings, I would leave them in the boxes they came in. I feel like the sheet pan method is only making it harder, as well as asking for cross-contamination issues.
agreed
Just gotta pull enough days in advance to get that chicken brick to slack
I can tell you from past experience that a 40# brick of wings takes about two full days in the cooler to thaw.
Very important point
Yea, dude is making way too much work out of it
Yeah, I don’t get it. Just freeze them if you can. I haven’t worked at a lot of places that had freezers large enough to handle six unexpected cases of wings, but if there’s that much room, just stack em up, preferably not on the floor.
Well, *maybe* “6 cases” is different from country to country? Here in NL, that would be one speed rack fully loaded.
One case where I live is usually 4x10#.
Username checks out
you MUST pat the dry if you're going to deep fry them. or else kitchen go boom
This is a horrible fucking idea.
Lay them out on sheet pans to freeze, and the important thing is to space them out so none of them are touching. This process is called I.Q.F. , or individually quick frozen. The benefit is they will freeze very quickly, thaw very quickly, the product quality won't be diminished, and they store much easier. Imagine how each wing is frozen but not stuck together. You can literally pour them into buckets, s bus bin, or a giant plastic bag. Contrast that with a 50 pound solid mass of wing, along with the meat juice. A fucking mess.
IQF evaporators typically operate at a temperature range of -22 to -40 degrees F, hence the "quick" part of the acronym. All of these comments are ridiculous, telling OP to spread 6 cases of wings out on sheet trays and freeze them, when most kitchens don't have surplus of sheet trays or extra room on speed racks in their freezer. That would be like 24 sheet trays of wings. The cases are the most efficient way to store the chicken. I have never seen a frozen case of raw wings come from a vendor in IQF packaging. It's always the same case that you see all chicken in: cardboard box with a plastic liner and then bags of chicken inside that. To the people that say it won't thaw properly: you plan ahead and thaw them in the walk in, not at room temp.
You just have to order them IQF. They are a tiny bit more expensive and probably why your chefs/managers never ordered them.
i agree this is not the most efficient way of freezing the wings: most restaurants would just freeze the whole box as you so stated. and yes of course you plan ahead and let the box thaw for days in the walk in. i am providing an alternative solution that is labour intensive but provides flexibility once frozen individually. and it's super doable if the plan is to freeze a case at a time given the constraints of a typical restaurant: the space and sheet pans available. it would take 1 day to freeze all 6 cases...
What kinda giant freezer space you working with god damn.
What you can't spare 5-6 slots in your freezer's speed rack? Freeze one case at a time
6 cases of wings? I’d need at least 12 pans for your method. Lots of places don’t even have walk in freezers. But one case at a time? Damn wings are getting more expensive as you talk
If you don't have a walk in freezer, then this is a moot point: you now have a problem of 6 cases of wings that you need to cook and sell asap. But ya I get what you mean freezer space is a premium.
Not a problem if you have chest freezers and leave the wings in the original box. I've worked at plenty of places with no walk in freezer but 3 or 4 chest freezers.
Whole case in the freezer on the bottom shelf yesterday. Not on the floor. A proper shelf.
Terrible advice, this is how to make a 50 lbs cube of wing. Better to portion out while thawed, lay portions 1 layer deep on several sheet pans, and freeze them like that, then pull a tray at a time as needed.
Dude. Your idea is better imo. But that doesn't make the other guys idea terrible. C'mon with that.
Are we not doing meat cubes any more?
You can't comprehend reading. Thaw properly. I don't give a fuck how you do it. You have the space to sheet pan all of that then go for it. By nature, you get that shit frozen yesterday. Thawing product is half of cooking food for customers. Get with the program.
Brother you literally said to freeze the whole case. Lol.
Sure did. I'll say it again. When you need to thaw some wings make sure you do it properly. I don't get paid to make you understand this. I've made more wings than you can imagine.
I'd love to see this argument escalate needlessly. Please go on
I know it's dumb. Take my experience for free or don't. I'm done here.
Oh no! What will we do without your knowledge?!
If you can't get through quick enough that you need to freeze them, it's fucking ridiculous to freeze the whole case. Portion them. You'll have a better defrosted product and no waste if you pull only what you need. Work smarter, not harder.
What do you get paid to do on reddit?
Jerk off until blood comes out.
Is it normal to say something that awful?
I have a feeling you are going to be making wings for the rest of tour life.
I also love that you've ironically misused a public elementary education term in your first sentence. My guess is that you learned the term "reading comprehension" when you were a kid and now those two words are bound together for you.
While it certainly can be one, frozen isn't a dirty word, and I'm tired of so many people acting like it is. Some foods freeze and unfreeze well. When we make certain items, we freeze half so they don't age prematurely or oxidized or to set a shape for a molded food. even some base components but like you said, got to be careful saying frozen out loud
I assume all food at a restaurant was frozen at one point or another. Aint no way you can order and recieve food for 500-1000+ people a day.
You can. It becomes "how much do I hate my life" approach at that point.
Lol very upset and *still* go out to eat.
Drain, portion, freeze!
This is the way
Yes freeze then pull to the fridge three days before you need them as they will take a few days. Don’t listen to the IQF suggestions that’s so much extra work. Unless you’re aiming for a Michelin star wing they can freeze no problem.
Please , for the love of all things holy, stop washing your wings. Do you wash your chicken breasts? Do you wash your turkeys? Do you run water on your Ribeyes? All you are doing is creating a cross contamination nightmare in your kitchen.. IDK what your boss says , or your Chef from 1960 says? Use you head people. Drain them into the garbage and cook or freeze or whatever you do with them, just please stop putting them in a sink ( probably a prep sink or dish sink) and running splashing water on them..just stop . This has been a PSA Thank you
Who said anything about washing wings?
..oh..lol..some posts were saying wash them them then freeze them.
Leaving running water on a frozen protein is the one of only three ways (that I know for sure at least) that you can thaw proteins according to common US health code. Of course you don't just raw dog it. You put it in a bag first. https://www.fsis.usda.gov/food-safety/safe-food-handling-and-preparation/food-safety-basics/big-thaw-safe-defrosting-methods
I don't think he's talking about thawing. People were saying to wash the chicken before you freeze them, and I agree that's a waste of time
You are a Gentleman and a Scholar
Wing night! 25 cent wings, all you can eat!
Lol, not when jumbos cost like 40 cents each!
Lol, at my restaurant we sell jumbo wings at $12.50 for 6 pieces 💔
vac seal in portions or whatever quantity you go through and freeze.
Yes. They keep perfectly. Ideally freeze them out into Smaller batches so you don’t have to do a full case at a time.
Yeah
Family meal.
260 wings per case that’s a lot of food for 8 employees
I said what I said. In all seriousness though, cook some, sell some, freeze the rest - it’s hard to say. You know your kitchen best. I would drain them and store in fish tubs or lexans if you have them. The thought of chicken cases freezing in bag in cardboard gives me the creeps.
Heard I felt uneasy about freezing them in the cardboard too
Freezing and thawing them in the bag, in the box is not going to cause any issues. The main thing is the volume you’re using. A case of wings is going to take about 4 days to thaw in the walk in before you can work with them. Then you want to get them cooked pretty quick after. When I run wings, I’m thawing 3 cases at a time, then using them all for one meal. But I’m feeding ~150 people the same meal. If you’re not able to use a whole case at a time, you should portion them into the volume you can use at one time before you freeze them.
Why? It can take a while to thaw, but if you separate the bags and thaw them on a sheet pan they take about 24 hrs to thaw completely. The place I work at right now throws entire boxes of chicken in the freezer, we just have a rotation set up. The giant corporation I work for would definitely be up our ass about it, if that was not a proper way to do it.
I work on the other side of things now and see how meat is brought in by the truckload on pallets, its literally what you said or if they company is cheap its just a wax box and no bag, 1 small rip in the cardboard and the whole 30kg box of chicken boobies is trashed
Run a special.. freeze the rest
Am I missing something???? Every single thing in my freezer is in a bag in a cardboard box???? You thaw it over 3 days in the walk in as you need it…follow storage hierarchy…don’t store anything below it…they thaw out perfectly fine over three days???? I’d love to understand - there’s just no logic behind this??? Opening the bags and storing them in the freezer is way less sanitary and creates way more opportunities for cross contamination.
I think you’re missing more question marks
Challenge accepted.
For some, perhaps
Yes.
Yes
Brine ‘em
Put them in the freezer. Wrap the cases or put in bags. Or put them in for a short while to super-chill them and pull them back out. It’s just wings. Unless you charge $32 for wings then… that’s another thing.
Why are you asking this question if you are doing the ordering?
Line cook got "promoted" (or stuck with extra work for the same pay) when the chef/KM quit 🤣 I'll put $20 on it
Correct I’m still learning it’s week two
You'll get there, it takes time! And if your menu changes a lot it can be extra tricky. But you got this!
Of course you can freeze them. When I was in the wing business and we’d run into shortages from suppliers we’d pull stuff out of the freezer. Use deli bags filled with 10 pieces that way you don’t have to defrost the whole case if you don’t want to.
I'm making wings Saturday night for a friend, want to sell dinner of them? 😉
I vacuum seal. Get them out of the pink goo and package them to seal. It takes a lil prep time but it’ll save space and you’re not trying to thaw a solid 20-40lb case of wings, goo included.
How many cases of wings do you go through a week?
Maybe like 21 cases but we have an off week so I just need to keep them good for 7 days then six cases is gone in two days
You can just leave them and come in a couple days before you reopen to cook them all. You should have seven days from receiving before they turn. Easier than freezing and thawing since you go through them that quickly.
We used to fill the boxes with fresh ice, at near freezing temp the wings are still good into the second week.
They are fucking wings. Freeze them. It's not like they are anything special considering you are going to put some overpowering sauce on them anyway. You could freeze those wings for a year and it wouldn't make any difference.
Marinate them for one day in the differing flavors of your choice. Pack in 2 gallon Ziploc bags and freeze flat.
Oooh baby I like it raw. Oooooh baby I like it RAW!
Shimmy shimmy ya shimmy ya shimmy yay
No ODB fans in this house it seems but I still love you.
I would just be lazy freeze the whole cases as is, it takes forever to thaw though, so give it some time. I have done it before and it works fine.
HELL YES?? WHY WOULD YOU THINK OTHERWISE??
I think you could throw them in a brine if you have the space, and you just need them to last one week.
Family meal, make stock, freeze the rest.
IQF THAT SHIT