To thaw or not to thaw...

[Anonymous Modernist 7039]

From the topic "When to Thaw and When to Cook Directly from Frozen" (MC 2,258-264) I get the impression that the best option most of the time is to just cook directly from frozen.

Have you done any experiments to see if water loss is reduced if proteins have been thawed slowly before cooking sous vide?

Conventional wisdom has it that thawing should preferably be done in the refrigerator.

[Anonymous Modernist 310]

The water loss due to freezing is cause in the freezing part. It's when the cells are ruptured by freezing and it's why you're losing liquid. The reason it's traditionally better to unfreeze in the fridge is to prevent part of the meat to spend too much time in the temperature "danger zone". if you're not cooking too large pieces of meat and you don't pack your bath with too much frozen meat there should be no problems with cooking meat directly from the freezer.

[Anonymous Modernist 18304]

I always do cold water thawing but yes refrigerator thawing is believed to be better than any other thawing method.Refrigerator thawing takes 24 hours to defrost every 5 pounds of frozen food like ham or turkey.And major advantage of this method is you do not need to cook the food right away if you change your plan not to cook, and it can be kept in fridge for additional 2-3 days after being thawed. And in cold water thawing you have to cook immediately after it gets thawed.