Freezers

[Mckinnon]

Looking in to getting a freezer for meat storage. A friend has an 8.8 cubic foot chest freezer that I can pick up for way cheap. Just wondering what everyone else uses and how much you can store in there? Looks to me like that 8.8 would hold about 300 lbs....?

 

[Shrek]

I know my 7 cf freezer will hold right at 220lbs of 2lb packs of venison burger. If you can get it cheap I say you can't have too many freezers. I have three 7cf freezers and a smaller on about 4.5cf. I like smaller freezers so I can keep them full or shut them down. A mostly empty freezer uses the most electricity and a full one the least. I put ice pans in my freezers as I empty them of meat to keep them full. When the meat is gone I turn them off to save money.

 

[Mckinnon]

Thats what I was thinking about getting it cheap, Im going to get it today. Good to know about the ice pans. Thanks dave

 

[AK Troutbum]

Don't do it. Spend the money and buy new. I learned this lesson through a buddy of mine who came up from PA to moose hunt with me. We went on a pretty remote hunt that cost a fair amount of $, then he spent another several hundred $ getting several hundred pounds of moose shipped back to PA. He went out and bought a used, but in good condition, freezer at the last minute to store all the meat. Sometime over the next month the freezer went belly up and the next thing ya know he's got a freezer full of very high $ rotting moose meat. My family and I live strictly off the wild game and fish that we kill and catch, and to have one of our freezer go out, and lose a bunch of meat would be devastating for us and something I couldn't afford to happen. Although there's no guarantee, I feel safer with using freezers that I purchased new.

 

[Shrek]

That can happen but I've had new ones go bad also. That is the main reason I have 4 small freezers instead of one or two big ones. I lost everything once to a big chest and swore it would never happen again.

 

[Mckinnon]

Hmmmmm, decisions decisions. The thing about this one is it was only ever used for about 48 hrs to store a pig before they sold the meat. Since then it has been unplugged and not used it all... What would you think about that Ak trout? I am willing to spend the money if I have to and I absolutely DO NOT want to loose any meat.

 

[AK Troutbum]

Hmmmmm, decisions decisions. The thing about this one is it was only ever used for about 48 hrs to store a pig before they sold the meat. Since then it has been unplugged and not used it all... What would you think about that Ak trout? I am willing to spend the money if I have to and I absolutely DO NOT want to loose any meat.

Yeah, I don't know. It sounds like it's pretty much new. You'd probably never have a problem. That whole thing with my buddy just left me a little leary with the idea of buying used freezers. On a side note, I had an old refer, probably around 20 years old that I gave to a friend years ago. He uses it to store beer in down in his garage. That thing is probably close to 30 years old now and continues to run just fine. I guess it just depends on whether your lucky or not.

 

[Shrek]

You could pay twice or more for a new freezer that could go bad and ruin a bunch of meat and if it happens in the first year you get another freezer free or pay half or lessand it could go bad and you are uot the meat and the freezer. After a year you just paid double. Two out of four freezers I bought used.The only thing you get new is one year free replacement of the creezer.the 5cf I got used twenty+ years ago and the big chest that went bad I got new and died in about 6 months. Buy it and plug it in with ice in it and run it a month to see if it is a lemon.

 

[Shrek]

And put surge protectors on all of your freezers. Surges kill most freezers from what I gather. I have surge protectors and two are on one circuit and two on another. I would put them all on seperate circuits but its just not feasable where I live.

 

[Umpqua Hunter]

The very small chest freezers are awesome for hauling meat home from a hunt on dry ice. Many times you can pick two of those up for the price of a larger one, and then also have redundancy if one goes out. Also having two lets you dedicate one to like the ground meat, the other to steaks and roast. Just a thought.

 

[Mckinnon]

Good point on having to of the smaller ones. This one is gonna be $200 if I get it. They bought it for $389....

 

[Shrek]

For a longer trip an inverter in the truck to run the freezer. Thats my plan to get meat from my elk hunt back to Florida. Thats how the steak delivery guys do it every day. An eight cubic foot freezer would hold a whole bull elk and then some.

 

[Shrek]

$200 sounds like a deal for an almost new freezer. I have all of my freezers where I walk by them in the garage when I come and go from the house. I look every time at the light on the surge protectors and on the freezers. Loosing a freezer full of food really sucked and I've had two others go bad over the years but I caught them in time to save the contents.

 

[orionthehunter1]

That does suck the one I bought from lowes is the 24 cubic foot chest freezer and it has an alarm on it when the temperature rises above the setting you have it on. It is actually loud enough that I can here it from my garage in my house. I lost a freezer full of meat before and I will never have it happen again.

 

[littlebuf]

i have 2 freezers. 1 chest and 1 upright. and i still dont have enough,if you can pick up a good one for cheap you should. i just got a walk in freezer off a job. i cant wait to get it installed.its been a dream for a long time

 

[Ray]

In my small house floor space is a premium finite commodity. I use upright freezers. They do not have as high an energy rating as chest freezers. They do allow for more efficient use of the garage.
And I have the flat surface illness, which will render a chest freezer Unusable in no time.

 

[westside elkhunter]

$200 sounds like a deal for an almost new freezer. I have all of my freezers where I walk by them in the garage when I come and go from the house. I look every time at the light on the surge protectors and on the freezers. Loosing a freezer full of food really sucked and I've had two others go bad over the years but I caught them in time to save the contents.

At times you can find freezers for a pretty good price at Home depot or Lowes. I"ve had good luck with my chest freezer so far. I got one for free about sevens years ago and is still running. I worry it will go out so i check on every couple days. I like the surge protector idea.

 

[Becca]

In my small house floor space is a premium finite commodity. I use upright freezers. They do not have as high an energy rating as chest freezers. They do allow for more efficient use of the garage.
And I have the flat surface illness, which will render a chest freezer Unusable in no time.

I like the upright freezers better too Ray, despite all the reasons I know I shouldn't We are currently running three freezers, two full size uprights and one large chest freezer...I am not sure of the CF, but they hold a pretty good volume...half a moose, 2 caribou, 2 Sitka blacktail, one Dall sheep, one mt goat, and about 30 salmon fillets plus misc other frozen goods had us packed pretty full at the end of last season. I like multiple freezers for the reasons others stated, ie redundancy in case of failure, and also because it makes it easier to sort things and know what is where. I find the stand up freezers much easier to organize. The best solution I have found for the chest freezer is to keep different cuts of meat in separate garbage bags, so things don't just turn into a jumbled up mess inside the freezer. Helps me to keep track of what we have and how much of it.

I too have become religious about checking our freezers anytime I come and go in our garage, and hope we never have a catastrophic failure!

 

[AK Troutbum]

One of our freezers is a chest with 26 cubic feet capacity (I think). My wife picked up four large tuperware containers that fit perfectly in the bottom of the freezer, and whenever we load it up with fresh game, we seperate out the different cuts, ie., burger, roasts, steaks, etc. This has work out pretty good for us in that the freezer stays pretty organized.

 

[Mckinnon]

One of our freezers is a chest with 26 cubic feet capacity (I think). My wife picked up four large tuperware containers that fit perfectly in the bottom of the freezer, and whenever we load it up with fresh game, we seperate out the different cuts, ie., burger, roasts, steaks, etc. This has work out pretty good for us in that the freezer stays pretty organized.

Great idea with the tupperware for organization, good way to keep things separated from species down to cut. I think we will pick up that freezer tonight!