Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Deep freezer

It was only -2F again this morning and it's only barely climbed into positive digits so far.  What a great time to defrost the basement freezer!

This is the best weather for defrosting.  Everything inside was loaded into carry bags (good grief that little freezer holds a lot of stuff!) and then hauled upstairs.  Originally I was going to stow everyone out on the deck, but then I saw that it was only 27F in the breezeway (and out of the wind) I decided to save myself a few steps and stashed everything there for the duration.

I don't defrost the freezer nearly often enough, maybe every 18 mos.  The freezer itself (a 30+ year-old JCPenney model - back when USA made heavy-duty, long-lasting appliances) works great and builds up very little ice, so I pretty much leave it alone and let it do its thing.

Anyway, once unloaded and the ice removed, it was no trouble to give the insides a good wipe with warm water and baking soda.  There.  Nice and clean and ready for reload.


Before reloading, I took a few moments and wrote up a list of items going back in.  Now no more guessing and/or fishing around for something down there.

The downside of this freezer is that there is no real easy access to anything on the bottom.  So I decided to actually sort the food (by items), leave them in the carry bags, and just lowered them into the freezer.  Now at least I can pull out the bags and fish through THEM instead of pushing through a lot of loose piles of stuff.

I ended up with nearly a full bag of some freezer-burned cooked meats (not much) and vegs from 2010/2011.  I don't mind about the veg - frozen veg make great starter for spring compost piles.

Bottom line - I'm good to go for another year or so. 

Say, do YOU have any tricks to help you find stuff in the freezer?


4 comments:

  1. Great minds! You might recall we got a new chest freezer before Christmas and I am doing exactly the same - using carrier bags to store similar' items in order to save the "digging in the bottom' antics.

    Working so far . . .

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    1. Heh. Must have something to do with the weather. Have you cleaned out all the lint in your dryer vent tube yet? *hint hint* ;-D

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  2. I do carrier bags or boxes for both chest freezers. Thankfully the new upright doesn't require them.

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    Replies
    1. Gee, apparently I'm the last to 'invent' this storage technique. LOL

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