Large Meat Freezer

[treillw]

The freezer chest freezer that I had for years finally died yesterday. Any advice on getting a new one?

Maybe may eyes are bigger than my stomach, but the 20 CF freezers at home depot and lowes don't look like they will hold a ton. I'm not seeing that anyone makes a bigger one. Do you know of any?

Best place to buy one? Deals?

Thanks!

 

[Pacific_Fork]

Just don’t buy a frost free freezer. 21 cu ft is a minimum for me, depends on your needs.

Honestly used freezers on craigslist is what I’ve done on both my freezers. Saves so much money. I just got another 21 cu ft stand up perfect working freezer for $100 in Spokane.

 

[treillw]

Just don’t buy a frost free freezer. 21 cu ft is a minimum for me, depends on your needs.

Honestly used freezers on craigslist is what I’ve done on both my freezers. Saves so much money. I just got another 21 cu ft stand up perfect working freezer for $100 in Spokane.

Why not frost free?

 

[Pacific_Fork]

Freezer burn, they don’t get as cold, etc. Do some google and rokslide searches too, you’ll find every hunter who keeps meat for a long time advises against them. I also asked an appliance guy one year at home depot and he also told me don’t buy a new frost free for meat.

 

[Weldor]

I use 2 upright 21 cu. no more chest freezers for me. to much trouble digging through the botttom. I do use my chest freezer to chill meat when I get home and ready to butcher. Than I put it away til next year.

 

[Lytro]

I use two smaller freezers - One chest freezer that I think is 12 cu ft and an upright that's 11 cu ft. Both were fairly inexpensive non-frost free options under $300 at the time bought from Sam's Club and Best Buy. I like having 2 smaller freezers because I can downsize to only one freezer about half way through the year, and I can easily move both around by myself. If I were buying one large freezer, I would prefer an upright over a chest freezer.

Before I bought the upright freezer, I remember fitting a bull elk, 2 whitetail bucks, and a pronghorn in the single 12 cu ft chest freezer. 2 years ago we killed 9 whitetail/muley bucks that completely filled both freezers. Last year I had a bull elk, 3 whitetail bucks, and a muley buck with plenty of leftover space in the upright. A 20 cu ft freezer will fit a lot of meat if organized well. Might be a different story if also used for other store bought frozen foods.

 

[Dented]

Upright for me too. I've got a chest freezer, when it dies I won't get another one.

 

[chizelhead]

I prefer upright manual defrost 21 ft3. I use baskets to organize. It holds a lot. I also have a matching refrigerator that converts to a freezer if in need. It's frostless, but store bought tends to go in there when I need more freezer capacity. I've never used a chest freezer. They tend to lose capacity with forgotten stuff on the bottom, and I don't like digging.

 

[butcherboy]

I use an upright for all my steaks and roasts and a chest freezer for nothing but hb, sausage, and store bought items. No digging needed. Just place any new stuff on the bottom and older on top. I don’t ever have problems with frost free.

 

[BuckRut]

Make sure it's bigger than you think you need. They don't work as well when they are really jammed full. I also only to with uprights.

 

[Boarmaster]

I been using chest freezers for 40 years. When this one goes out I am going with an upright. I’m tired of digging and trying to keep my chest organized. I eat about everything I kill in a year so I am going with a frost free. I have read that modern frost free will not cause freezer burn. I also have hunting friends that have bought frost free uprights after decades of chests and every one of them agrees that the way to go.
None of them are having freezer burn issues. It was a topic at camp last year.
Everyone has a somewhat different need but I am going to give a upright a shot. I might even buy one before my chest craps out. I will just keep ice and unprocessed quarters in the chest and finished product in the upright.

 

[LongWayAround]

I bought a 15cf Kenmore last year. It seems like a good quality unit and the delivery guys said that they do not see very many of them returned with warranty issues.

 

[Gone4Days]

I have a frost free upright and it’s awesome. Bought on offer up for $20. Owners thought it was broken, but was only 2 years old. I figured it could easily be fixed. Bought new start capacitor for $17 and been working for 3 years hassle free.

Frost free -No emptying the whole freezer and manually defrosting. I don’t believe the people who say “don’t store meat in frost free freezers”. If they are getting freezer burn maybe the meat wasn’t wrapped correctly.

In fact, lots of people who don’t have frost free neglect to manually defrost, and you lose cooling power really fast if you have ice build up and your freezer temps don’t won’t get cold enough.

I put a temp monitoring device in my meat freezer in case something happens an alarm will go off. The device monitors weekly high/low temps. my frost free ranges from a high temp of 0°F to a low of -10°F. It NEVER goes above 0° (trust me I glance at it daily). Monitor on left is meat freezer, one on right is refrigerator.


It’s perfectly fine to store meat in a frost free freezer my goodness. The whole freezer doesn’t thaw, a small heating element warms up the cooling fins just to melt forming ice in the fins. that’s all it does.

 

[Steve from GA]

There's another thread where I share my experience with my frost free freezer. Suffice to say, I think the "frost free phobia" is BS. My big ass upright frost free freezer mostly stays at -10 F and occasionally cycles up to 5 F. Everything I put in there stays rock solid, freezer burn free, and in tip top condition.

 

[butcherboy]

My giant freezer at my plant is frost free. Programmed to defrost 3 times a day. It stays about -10 and warms up to about -3-0 during the working hours but that’s because it’s being opened a lot to put fresh meat in and bring frozen meat out.

 

[Tjdeerslayer37]

a buddy of mine has one of those big gas station ice freezers that they keep outside, works great and i bet you could find one decently cheap secondhand

 

[darthjaydub]

I have a large Frigidaire stand up. It was the biggest one I could find. I went away from the chest freezers, because everything just gets buried.

 

[matt grieger]

id scan through facebook market place before i bought new.... i always see large freezers on there for a good deals... i picked up a large chest freezer for free before

 

[Ikmclean]

I picked up a midea convertible freezer/fridge, it's nice to put it into refrigerator mode to age quarters in the early season

 

[mioduz]

I am on the hunt for a new freezer as well and appreciate the advice on avoiding frost free. I guess i thought they all where at this point