I bought this yesterday at an estate sale. How does this tray defrost meat in minutes instead of hours.
In: Chemistry
In theory, you’re putting the meat on a surface that can more efficiently move heat away from the point of contact. You’ll see lots of demonstrations with ice cubes – an ice cube on the counter will cool that one small part of the counter down towards freezing. Put the same ice cube it on one of these, and the small area coldness is now spreading out through the entire thing.
It’s worth noting that they really don’t thaw meat that much more quickly than just leaving it out, and that thawing meat on a counter can be dangerous.
When you have a steak sit in its package on a table or something like a wooden or plastic cutting board or porcelain plate, it quickly cools down the surface it’s on but that coldness doesn’t spread around. This is because all of those materials are bad at conducting heat.
A metallic tray, or any metallic surface to be clear, works much better because metals are great at transferring heat. So, as the tray cools down, it quickly picks up heat from the air around it and that heat is transferred to the steak and this continues.
The best thing to do is just put whatever you want to defrost on an aluminum pan and place it all in the fridge. If you make a space under the pan (like a cooling rack) it will go a bit faster still. It will defrost much faster and safely.
It’s basically a really conductive material. It transfers ambient heat from the atmosphere through the tray and into the frozen meat, which defrosts it. It’s definitely quicker than laying it on a cutting board or the counter but miracle is probably a strong word. Most tests I’ve seen show it being roughly as effective as lukewarm water in a pot.
Marble or granite works as well. You can buy a square foot tile at almost any home improvement store.
So as OP let me recap. To defrost most effectively……
1. Have a metal tray. Copper is best? Other metals are ok.
A. Or ceramic or granite slab?
B. Whatever metal tray you have, having ridges or waves is preferable over having a flat surface? What about just a grate?
C. Having something non metal under the metal like a wood spoon or something is still even better than just sitting out on countertop?
What is the best way to defrost period?
evThe simplest explanation is that they’re made of metal, and that’s pretty much 80% of the “miracle”.
Metal is a very good conductor.
When you place your frozen food on the defrosting tray, the metal acts like a “heatsink” for the cold food, quickly cooling itself from the frozen item on it. At the same time, the tray quickly absorbs heat from the air around it.
Basically, it makes the process of equalizing the temperature very quick, because metals are good conductors of heat.
The remaining 20% of the miracle is how the tray is actually designed. [A tray like this is actually a very good design.](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BJBTP7GG?content-id=amzn1.sym.386c274b-4bfe-4421-9052-a1a56db557ab&s=kitchen&sp_csd=d2lkZ2V0TmFtZT1zcF9kZXRhaWxfdGhlbWF0aWM&th=1) It’s literally designed like a heatsink. The fins at the bottom allow the tray to have much more surface area, and more surface area exposed to the warmer air around it allows it to equalize temperature much, much faster – just like real heatsinks.
You can make your own “miracle thawing tray” by simply putting your frozen items on a cookie sheet, and then putting that cookie sheet on top of a cooling rack. The metal cookie sheet does most of the thawing job, and putting the cookie sheet on top of the cooling rack simply elevates the bottom of the cookie sheet so it is exposed to air instead of a non-conductive table surface, ensuring the cookie sheet does its job optimally.
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