Freezer Failed

[CB4]

Did freezer actually fail? Or did it not cycle on because the temp was too low to trigger the thermostat? My shop fridge/freezer will not run if I do not have the heater going and get things up to temp.

You can see my responce to the question below. I will have to look into this and maybe reach out to the manufacturer to see if there is a temp it needs to stay above.

You don't mention if freezer died or power tripped? If on a GFCI get it off of it. It's easily done by switching a couple of wires.

ElkNut

Freezer is working fine since. Neither the GFCI or actual breaker were tripped those were the first things I checked. I unplugged and plugged it back in and the freezer instantly popped on.

Had it happen with a freezer holding breast milk. Rough lesson to learn the hard way.

Oh no, my wife was upset with the meat but luckily our stored breast milk was in another freezer. Loosing that is probably comparable to how I feel about loosing the meat.



To add context this was a standup freezer bought new in Oct 22. The old 20+ year old chest freezer next to it kept running like a champ.

 

[SWOHTR]

Another suggestion, freeze that meat at the lowest temp possible. Buys you a bit more time if the freezer fails.

But to answer the question of "Should I eat it?"
"It depends" - check the temps. I'd toss it though.

 

[ozyclint]

There's value in having a canner

 

[NRA4LIFE]

Sorry to hear, one of my fears. I also use the Mocreo system on all my chest freezers. Sends me notices if anything goes awry. The batteries in the sensor units seem to last forever also.

 

[rocknry09]

The story you have all heard a thousand times. I went on vacation a couple weeks ago and when we returned home the freezer was off and a big pool of blood was below it. 150+ pounds of deer and elk were in it.

However I turned down the heat in the house and when we got home our basement where the freezer is located was at 52 degrees. Would anyone risk it and still eat the meat?

Also asking for recommendations on good freezer alarms. I bought a cheap one off Amazon a couple years ago that wouldnt stay connected to the Wifi and would sound the alarm every time I just opened the door so I sent it back.

Happened to my brother earlier this year. Luckily the ground meat didn't spoil but it wouldnt be good to refreeze so he took it to a local butcher and they turned it into summer sausage.

 

[tpicou]

Happened to me this year when we went out of town but in my case the freezer didn't fail...I did lmao. Guess I didn't close it all the way or something and when we got back two weeks later the door was open and house smelled like death.

 

[ScreamingPotato]

The story you have all heard a thousand times. I went on vacation a couple weeks ago and when we returned home the freezer was off and a big pool of blood was below it. 150+ pounds of deer and elk were in it.

However I turned down the heat in the house and when we got home our basement where the freezer is located was at 52 degrees. Would anyone risk it and still eat the meat?

Also asking for recommendations on good freezer alarms. I bought a cheap one off Amazon a couple years ago that wouldnt stay connected to the Wifi and would sound the alarm every time I just opened the door so I sent it back.

It's gonna suck but I would open everything and smell test each one. If it smells OK you're fine. One of the previous comments mentioned the stuff on top is most likely worse off than the bottom and I agree, start with the top and start sniffing. Personally I've found bags of venison in a cooler luke warm after ice was gone for days and it was actually top notch, must have aged nicely lol. The smell test is always the best bet, don't throw it out willy nilly.

I have this system for both of my freezers, it's never failed me:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08JP39RLP/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

[ScreamingPotato]

Happened to me this year when we went out of town but in my case the freezer didn't fail...I did lmao. Guess I didn't close it all the way or something and when we got back two weeks later the door was open and house smelled like death.

I did exactly that leaving for a ski trip once, it was our inside fridge/freezer though. I remember grabbing the ice bucket to dump into the cooler was one of the last things I did. When we got home you could smell it, door was open a few inches and I guess the freezer detected it and turned itself off. Luckily the inside freezer is mostly commercial bagged/boxed trash but I did lose a bunch of trout (speckled, saltwater not rainbow) and some choice venison that was up for cooking soon.

 

[MuleDeerMike]

TempStick....running 3 of them

TempStick is my recommendation as well. Mine has worked great for me.

Sent from my SM-S928U using Tapatalk

 

[TX_Diver]

I trust thermoworks for all my cooking and freezer needs

Grab a thermopop too for cooking if you don’t have one when you place an order.

I have like 5 or 6 of these (I have a lot of freezers…) and so far haven’t been let down. Used them at work with good results to.

Fridge/Freezer Thermometer (RT801)

Specializing in cool, unique and professional temperature tools. Super-Fast thermocouples, thermistors, infrared thermometers, data logging and more.

www.thermoworks.com

 

[jedi7]

That happened to me over the summer, it was a bad experience and completely user error from unplugging the freezer for my air compressor and forgetting to plug it back in. The new outlet project got prioritized very quickly after that mistake.....

I purchased a Govee temperature sensor but am still working on setting up the alarm for it.

 

[Iowafarmer]

Oh That sucks I had that happen with the freezer in my shop several years ago tripped the breaker for fridge and freezer took me about a week to figure out why my beer wasn’t very cold freezer had elk in it some of the burger still had a little frost in it I refroze it and ate it all some of it was a little discolored on the edge I think probably lost some flavor I’d say if it doesn’t smell try it

 

[Weldor]

I can see the advantage of a alarm if you or someone has access to your freezer, in my case their is no one to rescue my freezers. to rural and no family close enough. It's a gamble I have two uprights and two chests full. We eat only game meat so we try not to use the freezers as long term storage. Somebody needs to make a starlink freezer monitoring company, They can offer a service plan to head out to your place and replace it before the spoilage starts. LOL.

 

[bummer7580]

The story you have all heard a thousand times. I went on vacation a couple weeks ago and when we returned home the freezer was off and a big pool of blood was below it. 150+ pounds of deer and elk were in it.

However I turned down the heat in the house and when we got home our basement where the freezer is located was at 52 degrees. Would anyone risk it and still eat the meat?

Also asking for recommendations on good freezer alarms. I bought a cheap one off Amazon a couple years ago that wouldnt stay connected to the Wifi and would sound the alarm every time I just opened the door so I sent it back.

Your bad luck with the freezer has bitten many of us. As far as eating the thawed meat from a freezer with a pool of blood under it makes me think you may be flirting with a case of the Hershey squirts.

 

[MTN Humper]

You said the outlet and breaker were fine and the freezer started again when you plugged it back in. I would really be suspicious of the thermostat. They can get weak and intermittently stick in position where they don’t switch on, or sometimes off, when they should.

Multiple times I have given stuck thermostats a small tap and they have began operating normally again. Sometimes it only lasts for a cycle or two, other times it I have seen them last a few months. The point is if it was a stuck thermostat it’s not trustworthy.

It is completely possible that the thermostat was stuck open and when cleaning out the freezer it got bumped enough for the contacts to close again. In that scenario it would start working again.

That was the long way to say I wouldn’t trust it for awhile without close monitoring and a possible explanation of what happened lol.

 

[Pacific_Fork]

I use the WiFi temp stick. Never have a worry, also if there’s space I keep large frozen water bottles in the freezer to buy time incase of a failure.