How to organize and DEFROST A CHEST FREEZER (like a pro!)

one of our most important preserving tools today we're talking everything freezers how to defrost a chest freezer the proper way how to organize your food so that it doesn't get lost in the depths of the freezer the pros and cons of a chest freezer and the alarm we use so that we don't lose all our precious food if something happens I've also got resources for inspiration and instruction if you need help with freezing the fruits and veggies you grow and I've created two free printables a freezer inventory list and a freezer defrosting checklist so that using your freezer is a joy and not a chore how do you know when it's time to defrost well most manufacturers recommend defrosting when the ice build up is a/4 to a/ inch thick and for us that translates to about one time a year and I see you guys out there with your thick thick ice walls who haven't defrosted your freezers in like 3 years why this is important to do is that as the ice builds up it can accumulate near the door like this and make it difficult to close and seal properly this leads to temperature fluctuations and freezer burn and it also decreases the lifespan of the freezer so to get started turn off the freezer and actually most manufacturers recommend you unplug it when you do this and then we're going to take everything out and we'll talk about organization in a minute but you can see here we keep everything stored in boxes which makes this really really easy if you just have everything piled on top of each other in the freezer I can see how the prospect of defrosting seems overwhelming and also how do you even find anything in there I know that I really hate the feeling of defeat that comes from knowing you have good food in the freezer food that needs to be used and that you want to use but you can't find it or you just cringe at the thought of having to dig for it whenever I start to feel this way it's usually time for a reorganization or a clean out and once all the food is out of the freezer we work as quickly as possible because cold air sinks we use a fan to help blow the cold air up and out you want to make sure you get that air circulating all the way to the bottom so we're propping up the fan here to position it just a little bit better it usually takes about 10 to 15 minutes before the ice starts to loosen from the sides and by the way this waiting period is a really great time to organize an inventory your food how you organize everything is up to you but we tend to keep like with like all the berries and different fruits together in a box all the green beans and broccoli in another and I'll put things like broth and dairy together I also keep one of the top boxes open for things that I grab often like herbs or readymade soups or leftovers and we actually have more than one large freezer the freezer we defrosting today is where we keep all the fruits and veggies we grow and it also holds Pantry items like nuts dried milk powder bread ice cream things like that our second freezer this freezer here holds all the meat and we take a really similar approach to keeping it organized there's a couple boxes of ground beef there's one with steaks and roasts and then there's a pork box and a chicken box and a seafood box and everything is always very easy to find and very easy to get to one thing we're doing today while we have this all torn apart is replacing some of the boxes because their handles have broken over time and that makes them really difficult to lift out of the freezer it's really nice probably necessary to have handles on these boxes because they can get really heavy our favorite box are these big ones they're called banana boxes and they are what bananas are shipped to the grocery store in we also use Banker boxes and I've seen people use simple like doubled paper grocery bags or even fabric grocery bags to help organize the point is that when the food is contained in something it's easy to lift out and reach the other stuff at the bottom and that way your freezer doesn't turn into a black hole where food disappears forever once things are organized we put heavy blankets over over the boxes to keep the cold in and as long as you don't do this when it's blazing hot out the food will stay frozen for the short time it takes to defrost the freezer if you are wondering how I became such a freezer wizard I've been freezing our produce for a long time it's my favorite mode of preservation and I wrote a book called freeze fresh which has an incredible amount of information basically everything you need to know for freezing produce I'll put a link for this below you can find it wherever you like to buy books okay here's a huge mistake I see people making with their chest freezers do not pry the ice off you have to wait for it to release you can help it a bit like we're doing here by pushing it down but you do need to be gentle and you don't want to pull on it otherwise you can damage the walls of your freezer and yes this is very satisfying to do kind of like kicking the icy snow chunks off your car tires in the winter mistake number two is using something metal to scrape the ice off the wall BS are off the bottom of the freezer don't do that and you also should not use anything with heat like warm water or a hair dryer do collect the ice while it's in big chunks because it's easier to pick up that way but use something plastic when you're making any contact with the walls or the floor we are using a plastic container it's just like a plastic food container and a pro tip we put a bucket in the freezer so we don't have to lift the ice all the way up and out now you can see very clearly here to what is one of the cons of a chest freezer and that is that you need to be fairly tall and able-bodied to get to the things in the very bottom however there are a lot of Pros that come with a chest freezer and they are my preferred type I just think they perform better than uprights chest freezers also have more usable space inside compared to an upright and they are typically less expensive to buy and less expensive to run because of the way everything packs snugly into a chess freezer food will last longer if the power goes out then it will in an upright usually buy a whole day two other cons are that they take up more floor space than an upright and they usually only come in this very utilitarian white color now after we get all the ice out we go in with a big towel for the bulk drying and we wipe everything including the walls and the floor once we have most of the water out and there are no big puddles left we come in with some super absorbent tea towels or like flower sack type towels to do a final drying and don't forget underneath the lid and around the top Edge there's usually some moisture there too you really want to get the inside of the freezer completely completely dry and probably the most important part now is the time to turn the freezer back on we want this back on as soon as possible so we do this when we're almost done with the drying do not forget set an alarm on your phone if you need to tie a string to the door if you're prone to forgetfulness whatever it takes if you want all these freezer defrosting steps and tips in one easy place to read I created a free freezer cleaning checklist that you can print and have with you and I'll put a link to that in the video description below if you need help with inventory and organization I also have a freezer inventory list that you can print as well now load everything back up and as far as how to keep track of what you have in the freezer especially if you have a lot of different things I do think it's helpful to keep a list and if you have my book freeze fresh I have no doubt that your freezer is full of all kinds of unique and delicious Goods you can keep a paper inventory list on a clipboard near the freezer and check things off as you take them out or just keep a note on your phone but a written list is also really helpful for meal planning and making sure that you actually use up everything you work so hard to preserve even if your list isn't always up to date I think having an imperfect list is better than having no list at all one thing that you might find you need to do is Alter your boxes and kind of customize them for your freezer we often have to shave a little off the top to make them fit and make the freezer close without interference this is a new Banker box we switched to and it's just a little bit too tall for the space so Carl's using a box cutter just to trim it up once we get to the top layer we add a box and then close the lid of the freezer to make sure it closes correctly and then we add another box and check again if there's a problem something sticking up too high it's easier to tell after each box Edition rather than when you have them all in and you will see here Carl turning this box around it was actually cut to fit the other direction because of that piece of plastic with the light on it that hangs down from the lid from start to finish defrosting and organizing a huge 20 cubic foot freezer like this takes the two of us between like 35 and 45 minutes it's really not not that difficult of a task and if it means that our freezer lasts longer and our food keeps better it's worth it to keep up with the maintenance now what about freezer security well that's what this little thing is right here we've used these for years and love them they're called sensor push and I have them Linked In the video description below this is a sensor that keeps track of the temperature and it relays the info to an app on my phone here's what it looks like and because the freezer is a big metal box and this communicates through Bluetooth you do need to be within about 20 ft to pick up its signal if you can't be that close you can use their Gateway the sensor push will talk to the Gateway the Gateway uses Wi-Fi to send the data to their Cloud the app reads it from the cloud so you can see the temperature and get alerts anywhere in the world basically in the app which is really great by the way it's very user friendly and useful I have a high temperature alert set now all these points that you see here on the graph are temperatures the red lines is where we had the free freezer open for a long time and it notified us and we have it set to notify us if the freezer gets above 20° our freezers are typically around 0° that way if the cord comes unplugged or the door gets left open or the freezer just malfunctions we'll know before everything is thawed we keep one of these in every freezer they are just so valuable and really great for peace of mind there that is probably more than you ever wanted to know about freezers don't forget to print your free freezer defrosting checklist and your inventory list and check out my book freeze fresh if you want practical and creative ways to freeze produce and as always let me know if you have any questions if 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Channel: Whole-Fed Homestead

Views: 13,703

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Id: iNS6ck2IpxA

Length: 10min 51sec (651 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 26 2024