Is the miracle thaw safe?
I have a miracle thaw from my mother from many years ago. It works fantastic but I would like to know if this thing is safe? Does anything penetrate into the meat?
Best Answer
It's certainly safe in terms of food contact. See How does a Miracle Thaw work? - it's really just a sheet of metal. It's not very much different from just putting your food on a baking sheet. Just be sure to clean it between uses as you would with anything else that touched raw meat.
However, you do still have to be careful about general food safety: it's not safe to leave meat in the danger zone (40 to 140°F) for more than a couple hours. The miracle thaw speeds things along, but it doesn't change that. So if it makes your meat thaw enough in half an hour, awesome. If it still takes 6 hours, you need to find another safe thawing method to use instead.
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Quick Answer about "Is the miracle thaw safe?"
There is no risk of buildup of harmful or unsafe levels of bacteria on perishable frozen food items defrosted or thawed on Miracle Thaw.Does Miracle Thaw work?
When I tested two boards, Thaw Master and the Miracle Thaw, with small frozen chicken breasts, the chicken did thaw pretty quickly, although not as quickly as the products' defrosting time charts claim. It took about 20 minutes to thaw a 6-ounce, flat chicken breast on Thaw Master, and about 24 minutes on Miracle Thaw.Are thawing trays safe?
Defrosting trays provide a fast and safe way of defrosting food and also ensure the food defrosts much more evenly for a better outcome when cooking.What kind of metal is Miracle Thaw?
Compare with similar itemsThis item The Original Miracle Thaw Defrosting TrayDefrosting Tray for Frozen Meat Rapid and Safer Way of Thawing Food Large Size Defroster Plate Thaw by Miracle Natural Heating A Pack with 7 Pieces IncludedColorBlackDefrosting TrayMaterialStainless SteelAluminum6 more rowsDo thawing mats work?
Defrosting trays are made of a material that has a high ability to conduct heat, such as copper or aluminum. Because these metals are good conductors of heat, heat at one part of the metal rapidly moves through it. This causes it to heat up quickly and also cool off quickly. Compare this with a material like cast iron.D Frost Wonder Review: Put to the Test
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Answer 2
A thawing tray is basically a heat sink, a device that helps facilitate moving heat energy from one object to another. Metals are good at this, some more so than others. As Jefromi states, a simple baking sheet will do the same, though with less mass it will not do it as well. The more mass of the same type of metal, the more of a thawing aid it will be, and being less reflective such as the black finish they put on most thawing sheets often helps with the heat transfer.
As long as they are kept sanitary and the safe temperature rules are followed, they can improve food safety a bit by allowing the item to thaw more quickly so they do not stay in that danger zone for too long. But, if you do not get the item, especially meat, off the tray and cook it or store back below 40F promptly you are then exposing raw food to that danger zone needlessly, and I would call that an issue. If the item is too large to thaw in a reasonable time, the tray can then start to actually slow the thawing process. I have also known people to warm the trays. I would consider this a very bad idea, about equal to thawing in a heated pan, not particularly safe nor likely to give you the results you want. The general idea of using a heat sink is to gain some of the benefit of higher temperature thawing without actually using the higher temperature and its associated risks. I think the half hour Jefromi mentioned is likely a good guide. If it takes more than half an hour to thaw, then time to get the item back into a cooler environment, the tray is likely no longer helping the process.
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