Deep Freezer Organization tips/tricks

[Tail_Hunter]

I sometimes buy 50lb boxes of meat from a wholesale butcher and I re-use the heavy duty boxes in my chest freezer.

 

[pirogue]

For all these “milk crate” answers, do you mean the look-a-likes, or the real ones obtained behind the grocery store?

 

[AK Troutbum]

Oh shoot, keeping a freezer organized is easy, it’s keeping it full that’s the hard part.
I find that I have no choice, but to layer stuff, which has worked out pretty well for me, but obviously having multiple freezers also helps.
Backstraps, tenderloins, and roast on the left, then Tupperware bins with salmon and halibut in the middle, then burger, Italian and breakfast sausage in the right Tupperware bin, then ribs on top of that.

My big chest freezer also came with these four plastic bins that I put two on each side with miscellaneous cuts of meat and burger, etc., then throw some frozen vegetables in the middle, and in this case, a chicken as well, and I’m done. As those freezer bins get emptied, I’ll just pull them out and fill them back up with whatever is underneath, or whatever I need.

Finished off with a couple 30 lb. dumbbells to keep the lid down.

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[as.ks.ak]

For all these “milk crate” answers, do you mean the look-a-likes, or the real ones obtained behind the grocery store?

The real ones! I live down the block from the store…


**ninja mode engaged**


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[Charlie Brown]

Large chest freezer here. I just cut thicker pieces of cardboard for dividers.

Same. Works great. Tried boxes but you loose to much room

 

[WV Mountaineer]

I own two dedicated freezers for my proteins. One big floor model and a smaller floor model. All ground in the smaller one. Everything else in the big one.

Every Sunday morning i get stuff out of both freezers. Steaks, sausages, frozen fish, wild game, roasts, burger, etc….. In a quantity needed to get through till Friday’s supper.

I plan based on logistics and obligations and pull from both based on that. I’m not picky. Just fragile with results. And, for me this works best. Because mixing grind with everything else makes it harder having a diversity of meals for supper.

 

[Rich M]

We use 1-quart freezer ziplocks for ground meat and the meat stays fine for years. They hold a lil over a pound.

Anyway, wife drinks vita cocoa coconut juice stuff and it comes in a box that will fit 15-18 1-quart freezer bags full of ground meat. Got 1 freezer stacked full of these boxes full of burger.

The other larger chest freezer is lined w these boxes 1 or 2 deep and other stuff goes on top.

Overflow is the refrigerator in the garage.

 

[Corvus Corax]

I cut some plywood dividers to make silos for specific categories. I probably going to do this to my other freezer also.

 

[Carlin59]

I have two smaller (5ft) chest freezers side by side. Use trash bags to obtain vertical “storage groups” in each. Really easy to pull up ~15 lbs of mixed cuts/grind/sausage at a time. Typically that bag goes to the kitchen fridge/freezer and we work on it for a week or two (pull some every other day or so to thaw). As the spring and summer wear on, I’ll occasionally pull all remaining bags from one of the freezers, line the bottom with half gallon milk jugs filled with water, then replace bags. Keep doing that back and forth until hunting season. Usually by that time I’m almost out of meat, and both freezers are restocked with 1/2 gallon jug ice blocks to throw in coolers for hunting season. Other nice thing about two smaller freezers vs one large freezer is it provides some redundancy if/when a freezer goes down.