Freezer Organization and Inventory

[silasbowhunter]

Does anyone have a good way to keep inventory of the meat that is in their freezer? I feel like as we get towards the end of the off season or when my beef is running low, I always find something that was buried or forgotten in my freezer. I think this would also help with the meal planning. ie we have 2 arm roasts in there I didnt know I had.

I’m thinking of some sort of dry erase chart that sticks to the fridge. Something like this that would be easily updated as stuff was removed or put in:

Quantity | Cut | Species | Date

5 |1lb burger chub| Beef | 1/8/24


Any ideas or suggestions?


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[AdamLewis]

I have a dry erase board on each of my freezers. When I take something out I erase a tally mark, when I add stuff I update the board.

 

[silasbowhunter]

I have a dry erase board on each of my freezers. When I take something out I erase a tally mark, when I add stuff I update the board.

Kind of what I’m thinking!


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[NRA4LIFE]

I keep it simple and have everything in boxes. Venison boxes, beef box, pork box, sausage box, fish box, crab box, clam box, chicken box, etc. Veggie freezer is the same. I rotate everything 2-3 times a year to make sure nothing gets "lost". Old stuff at the top, new stuff to the bottom. I have numerous freezers.

 

[silasbowhunter]

I keep it simple and have everything in boxes. Venison boxes, beef box, pork box, sausage box, fish box, crab box, clam box, chicken box, etc. Veggie freezer is the same. I rotate everything 2-3 times a year to make sure nothing gets "lost". Old stuff at the top, new stuff to the bottom. I have numerous freezers.

The boxes aren’t a bad idea. I just want to be able to track amounts for meal planning and grocery shopping as groceries continue to rise I want to be more intentional with meals/ingredients!


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[TN Tyrant]

We separate our items in the freezer in larger plastic/paper bags. This allows us to find what we are looking for in an easier manner as well as help us keep tabs on what we have remaining.

 

[Harvey_NW]

I vacuum seal everything, stack in a grocery bag, and label the front with a mega sharpie. When we butcher and process a new animal, we replace accordingly so all the fresh stuff goes to the back and anything from the prior year is moved to the front. Then it's pretty easy to keep a visual tally, and everything is bagged so it can easily be moved without disturbing the vacuum sealed package and help eliminate freezer burn.

 

[pods8 (Rugged Stitching)]

I don't start a inventory until I'm whittling down on something and/or want to call attention to using something.

For organization I have multiple smaller freezers vs big ones, as my inventory reduces I consolidate and shut them down as needed. The two main ones are upright 14cu freezers with bins/boxes on every shelf, either two or one big one. My overflow capacity is a chest freezer.

I generally practice first in first out so fresh stuff I can just load up the chest freezer or a bottom bin in the uprights and sort later when restocking the more itemized stuff.

Bins/boxes keep it organized AND let me pull it out of the freezer and close the door if I need to dig through one or reorganize it.

I also go to alaska to fish so that factors in, usually box/bins go something like (when restocking the box take it all out put new stuff underneath and then put the old stuff on top):
-Back straps & tenderloin
-Whole muscle roasts
-Ground meat
-Sausage or other specialty things
-Fish species A
-Fish species B
-Etc.

The incoming cuts, bulk trim meat, etc. get jumbled up initially when I load it but not intermixed with the above mentioned bins, when those bins start running down I pull from the older stuff.

Also everything I package is labeled in a way that I know which animal it was from (not just species, specifically which animal), year, what it is, weight. Which could be as simple as "WY MD2 23' R 2" which translates to Wyoming Muledeer Doe #2 from 2023, rear roast, 2lb.

 

[Laelkhunter]

I have nylon mesh laundry bags. I separate the cuts of meat packages for each bag. Roasts go in one, ground goes in another, steaks in another, and backstrap in one. You can manhandle the bags and they won't rip, and have a zipper to close it. When I go pick up the meat at the processor, I put each cut into their respective bags, then put dry ice on top. When I get home (24 hour ride), all I have to do is grab the mesh bag out of the ice chest and put it in my chest freezer. I think I paid about $3 for each bag, and they have lasted several years. I reuse them every year after they get emptied.

 

[silasbowhunter]

I have nylon mesh laundry bags. I separate the cuts of meat packages for each bag. Roasts go in one, ground goes in another, steaks in another, and backstrap in one. You can manhandle the bags and they won't rip, and have a zipper to close it. When I go pick up the meat at the processor, I put each cut into their respective bags, then put dry ice on top. When I get home (24 hour ride), all I have to do is grab the mesh bag out of the ice chest and put it in my chest freezer. I think I paid about $3 for each bag, and they have lasted several years. I reuse them every year after they get emptied.

This is a great idea. Thank you for sharing!


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[AKHUNTER]

For years I simply put cut and wrapped meat into plastic grocery bags. The new bags from Walmart are much heavier and work great. Each bag is filled with a particular cut (steak, stew meat, stir fry meat, burger, etc.) and to label I just wrap a piece of masking tape around the grab handle and label it by contents and year. The bags are pliable/flexible and so they can be arranged much more efficiently (space wise) than rigid cardboard boxes. New meat goes to the bottom and oldest to the top of the chest freezers. It's very easy to pull bags out to take inventory, etc.

 

[Austink47]

Increasingly I process and label based the staple dishes we tend to eat. If my wife is getting in the freezer I want it to be easy for her to get what I want her to get. Other than that we just use cardboard boxes to keep critters separated. At least in theory when a new critter comes in it goes to the bottom, ensuring that I don’t end up with a freezer full of 20 year old shanks and liver.

 

[CharlesF]

For a chest freezer we've found that cutting the end off of wax fish boxes and standing them on end has helped tremendously. This makes it very easy to keep salmon, moose steaks, burger etc seperate and easy to access.

 

[CharlesF]

Nerding out a little more, taping a diagram of the freezer and what is in each compartment on engineering paper also helps with little odds and ends or when you have a mixed box of freezer goods.

 

[ScreamingPotato]

I just use old Amazon boxes and write on them with a sharpie. Typically try to isolate a whole animal per box, but as the summer drags on and supplies lower I'll break them out into new boxes per cut, box full of footballs, box of steaks, etc. I never have a box of shanks because those get eaten first.