Freezing and sending

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sausagemaneric
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Freezing and sending

Post by sausagemaneric » Mon Dec 07, 2015 02:05

Has anyone made, froze and sent sausage with Dry-Ice in a styrofoam shipping chest? I want to send my son some sausage and bacon for Christmas. I would overnight it with Fed-Ex.

Thanks,
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redzed
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Post by redzed » Mon Dec 07, 2015 07:43

Assuming that the sausage is smoked you should not have problems with shipping it that way. I received a FedEx shipment with sausages that took three days to travel from Connecticut to British Columbia in July. They were not frozen nor were they packed in ice, only vac sealed. Everything was fine.
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Post by crustyo44 » Mon Dec 07, 2015 09:23

Overnight with FedEx is guaranteed to be delivered the next day. So go ahead!!! We get guaranteed deliveries with FedEx in 3 days from Florida to Queensland Australia. Dry Ice and suitable boxes are a great way of sending perishables anywhere but might not be required for reasons mentioned by Redzed.
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Post by sausagemaneric » Tue Dec 08, 2015 04:34

Great! These aren't gonna be smoked though. These are fresh links and patties. I will freeze them, vacuum seal them when frozen so they don't get all smashed up, drop them in the freezer once more for good measure. Then pack them in a styro shipping chest with the dry ice. So how does dry ice come? Blocks? Are the sizes already determined and just pick what I need? The shipping ice chest I have is the real deal. It's inside dimensions are 9.5" long, 6" wide and 8" deep. The wall thickness is 2" and the lid fits real tight. I think I could get maybe 4 pounds of patties and links then use the remainder of the space for dry ice. My guess is I would have about 2" left of the 6" wide and the full length of 9.5" and the full depth of 8".

Thoughts?
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Post by Butterbean » Wed Dec 09, 2015 05:07

You might want to check about the regulations shipping with dry ice. Dry ice is considered a hazardous material and if you package it incorrectly and without the proper documentation and fees paid it can cause problems. Small explosions if packaged incorrectly and people tend to get upset about little things like this. I'd suggest asking about this before you do it or just use the frozen gel packs.
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Post by crustyo44 » Wed Dec 09, 2015 19:43

Butterbean is corrrect about the Dry Ice regulations. This was in force many years ago when I remember that excess chilled pig carcasses were shipped as deck cargo only when packed in Dry Ice. I am not sure if it requires special packaging nowadays.
Just freeze your goodies add some gel packs and ship with the 24 hour FedEx service. They will arrive in a frozen condition.
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Post by Butterbean » Thu Dec 10, 2015 03:06

I don't know the rules but I learned they existed after I did something pretty stupid which I think you folks might get a laugh out of so I'll share.

I was going to ship some stuff to the west coast and I planned on using dry ice. Somehow in my mind I got the idea that since dry ice was frozen CO2 if I restricted the ability of the gas to bleed off then it would stay cold longer. (sounded plausible at the time)

Anyhow, I took the dry ice and vac-sealed it. I then put this in a styrofoam cooler with the food products. I then sealed this cooler tightly with gorilla tape making sure it was air tight. (to keep the gas from bleeding off)

I then stuck the cooler and put in a cardboard box and sealed with gorilla tape and carried it to the ups shipping place. Thankfully, the person who normally does the shipping was not there so the guy filling in had a hard time trying to figure out the paperwork. As he fumbled through the process this allowed ample time for my package to come alive. We heard moaning and groaning and all sorts of odd noises so we went to the weighing room to see what was going on and discovered my box but it was no longer a box but more like a sphere. Apparently I had done too good of a job sealing in the gas (to keep ice from melting) and due some laws of physics I was unfamiliar with at the time the gas had to go somewhere and it was expanding the box and the contents. Thankfully we were able to deflate the issue before it found its way onto a truck or worse yet a plane.

And yes, feel free to laugh at my ignorance.
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Post by Bob K » Thu Dec 10, 2015 13:16

:grin:
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Post by sausagemaneric » Sat Feb 13, 2016 19:36

Butterbean wrote:I don't know the rules but I learned they existed after I did something pretty stupid which I think you folks might get a laugh out of so I'll share.

I was going to ship some stuff to the west coast and I planned on using dry ice. Somehow in my mind I got the idea that since dry ice was frozen CO2 if I restricted the ability of the gas to bleed off then it would stay cold longer. (sounded plausible at the time)

Anyhow, I took the dry ice and vac-sealed it. I then put this in a styrofoam cooler with the food products. I then sealed this cooler tightly with gorilla tape making sure it was air tight. (to keep the gas from bleeding off)

I then stuck the cooler and put in a cardboard box and sealed with gorilla tape and carried it to the ups shipping place. Thankfully, the person who normally does the shipping was not there so the guy filling in had a hard time trying to figure out the paperwork. As he fumbled through the process this allowed ample time for my package to come alive. We heard moaning and groaning and all sorts of odd noises so we went to the weighing room to see what was going on and discovered my box but it was no longer a box but more like a sphere. Apparently I had done too good of a job sealing in the gas (to keep ice from melting) and due some laws of physics I was unfamiliar with at the time the gas had to go somewhere and it was expanding the box and the contents. Thankfully we were able to deflate the issue before it found its way onto a truck or worse yet a plane.

And yes, feel free to laugh at my ignorance.
So I ended up sending this prior to reading he post above. But here is what I did. I bought a cheap small styro-foam ice chest. Put semi frozen breakfast, bangers, bacon and Canadian Bacon in the chest with one piece of dry ice about the size of a brick in the middle. The remainder of the space I took up with zip-locked bag ice. I put the lid on and securely taped it in place. Put it in a card-board box, packed with clean rags to take up the space. It was very solid and kind of heavy. Fed Ex overnight was right at $300.00. So we finally came to price/time-frame barter that brought us to $194.00, going out Monday Morning West Coast to arrive Wednesday Night @ 8:00 PM Nashville. When it arrived the package was still intact as it left Monterey, and everything was still frozen. So now my question is: why did it not expand with the gas dispersing? Is it because the styro-foam was able to vent through the rags and out the card board box? I suppose styro-foam is not "air-tight" and neither is card board?

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Post by Butterbean » Sat Feb 13, 2016 19:52

You did it properly and the CO2 could bleed off. Had you placed the dry ice in a 5 mil vacuum bag and double sealed the outcome would have been similar to putting an inner tube in a sealed box and inflating it. Eventually something would have to give.

To test for yourself, just put some dry ice in a good quality plastic bag and vac seal it and see what happens.

Meat company up road ships in the manner you did. Their boxes are lined with about 2" of styrofoam and all they do is put a block of dry ice in it and two gel bags and they ship normal freight. Food is still safe after four days.
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