# Brown Meat from Food Saver



## b.adams (Apr 3, 2009)

Hello,

I am pretty new to using a Food Saver and I have a question about what I have noticed with beef. I buy beef at the local store and its looks nice and red and I come home and put it in the vacuum bags and seal it and toss it in the freezer. When I want to cook it I let it defrost in the fridge but when I do that it turns brown and looks bad. Is that normal? I took out of the freezer a nice looking vacuum sealed piece of tri-tip on Sunday afternoon and put it directly into the fridge to defrost and tonight (Tuesday) I took it out of the fridge and it is brown in color. The date I labeled on the bag is 7/9/9 so it has not been in the freezer for a long time and I am wondering if I am spoiling the meat or if I am paranoid, I keep tossing it in the garbage because I think its bad.


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## blueicus (Mar 16, 2005)

All meat exposed to too much air or heat browns... it is simply the nature of the chemical change to the myoglobin in the meat. The food saver doesn't create a perfect vacuum so any O2 in the air that remains will oxidize the meat inside.

Cut open your meat, it will still be a bright red.


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## ed buchanan (May 29, 2006)

Sometime oppisite is true. Take chopeat, outside could be bright red if you split it in half inside will be brown, This is because of no air. Sometime a food sealer generates heat also and this does not help. Try dipping piece of meat in water put on flat pan and freeze .Then take out frozen and vac pac. It will stay red and actually the water glaze will even protect it more.


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## blueicus (Mar 16, 2005)

I should've been more specific... air helps turn meat red and brown depending on the circumstances. You're looking at three different forms of myoglobin, all of which have different colour. The standard myoglobin is this purplish hue, metmyoglobin (the undesirable one) is brown, and oxymyoglobin is the "desirable" bright red hue.


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## b.adams (Apr 3, 2009)

Thanks for the info, next time I will dip the meat in water and pre-freeze first as suggested.


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