Re: freezing dairy? (and fruit)

[Guest guest]

At 03:54 PM 5/8/2002 -0700, you wrote:

>After the cells walls break, the food elements, now

>separated rather than whole, will begin to break down.

>In dairy, according to AV, this process is slow enough

>that it is reasonable to eat the dairy within 24 hours

>after it has been frozen. After that period, the fresh taste

>and good food value and available enzymes are lost.

However, if you happen to be in the mood to make wine, you can put this

" cell walls breaking " to good use. We once spent HOURS pulverizing whole

plums so they would ferment well, then discovered you can freeze them and

ferment them when they thaw. Since we add yeast (winemakers being picky

about breeds of yeast), the loss of the natural yeast isn't an issue.

However, I have never noticed that the natural yeast is killed by freezing

(I don't know about enzymes). For the most part, frozen plums come out

mushy, but otherwise they are as good as fresh, at least for winemaking.

Probably for other fermenting too. So if you are concerned about getting

nutrients out of cell walls, freezing works!

Heidi Schuppenhauer

Trillium Custom Software Inc.

heidis@...