Organizing Stand Up Freezer

[mattferg84]

I finally stepped up from a small 5.2 cu ft chest freezer to a 20 cu ft stand up freezer! I wanted to see if you guys had any recommendations for organizing your freezers. Do you guys use baskets or just stack the meat as high as you can? Or should I get more shelves? My processor freezes the burger flat so I want to make sure I dont have a meat avalanche when I open it too. I'll have a bull I shot a week ago as well as a mule deer and antelope from last year. I have another deer and antelope tag this year so I should have quite a bit of meat by the end of the season. I'm probably overthinking it but hate having to search for roasts, steaks or meat from a particular animal.

BTW I will be adding a WKR sticker to the freezer. Hopefully a WKR doesnt steal my FOAL (freezer of a lifetime) while I'm away from the house.

 

[elkyinzer]

Definitely recommend totes or baskets with some type of organization system.

One thing I'll caution against is the plastic totes I use get brittle in there. Not a big deal but you do have to handle them a little carefully or they crack up.

I'm not a very organized person and it works pretty well for me. Once in awhile I'll find something 4 or 5 years old but generally I have a good handle on things and I'll do a bit of a flip once in awhile.

 

[cnelk]

You’ll save a lot of room if the meat packages are flat, vacuum sealed items.

Avoid moving the packages around as that dings and makes holes in the plastic.

I have 2 upright freezers in my shop. The shelves and door wings in them are sufficient to hold a lot of meat.

A freezer alarm is also a good investment

 

[Maverick1]

I use milk crates. Works really well with the upright freezer.

 

[Matt83]

If your looking for a cheap option, boxes from Costco work great. I like the cardboard boxes that peaches and nectarines come in. They work great and the best price…..free


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Elkfitness]

Echo what others have said. If you have shelves already, they will work great. I don’t have anything else in mine and things stay organized well enough. Plus one on the freezer alarm. Mine saved a bunch of meat one time.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[mattferg84]

You’ll save a lot of room if the meat packages are flat, vacuum sealed items.

Avoid moving the packages around as that dings and makes holes in the plastic.

I have 2 upright freezers in my shop. The shelves and door wings in them are sufficient to hold a lot of meat.

A freezer alarm is also a good investment

I was looking into a freezer alarm too since this is a used freezer. Do you know if theres any thatll send a notification to your phone? Just worried in case I'm out of town.

 

[Pony Soldier]

Top two shelves- steaks and chops, bottom three shelves - roasts. Second upright - hamburger top to bottom. Chest freezer - unground hamburger meat in 80-90 lb bags waiting to be ground. Smaller chest freezer - sausage, pork chops, ham, ribs and what ever else we made out this year's pigs. Throw in a collection of waterfowl as encoutered. The collection will hold up to three elk, two pigs and 10 geese.

 

[camping1601]

Cardboard boxes in mine.

 

[Gwchem]

Wire baskets and cardboard boxes in the upright.

My upright died, so it's baskets and milk crates in the new chest freezer

 

[Justin Crossley]

Mine went from this...



To this. Ordered the plastic trays from Amazon.

 

[mattferg84]

Mine went from this...

View attachment 457172

To this. Ordered the plastic trays from Amazon.

View attachment 457175

That looks good

Sent from my SM-G981U using Tapatalk

 

[hunterjmj]

I use liqueur store boxes and they seem to fit good plus they are free.

 

[justinspicher]

I have some old plastic bins from a toy shelf my kids didn’t use. They are different colors so a simple label helped me ID what was in them. Each shelf is for a different animal……..top shelf is for frozen pizza.

 

[Haggin]

Another vote for totes or baskets. We use these from amazon, fit side by side on the shelf and don't flex like the clear totes. I like how the packages of ground beef or game stand up and not roll around.

Amazon Baskets

 

[magtech]

How to organize freezer:
Find empty space, jam in meat
Stack door until its full, but doesn't affect door closure
Becareful when putting in unthawed meat. If its stuck in the grate you'll hate it.
Last but not least, don't let your wife go in there, she'll leave the door open once and ruin the whole party.

 

[ToolMann]

I use wire baskets for ground meat. Need to get a few more for everything else.

 

[doc holiday13]

Freezer alarm. It will save you from loosing meat and possibly having to replace your freezer. You can buy a 3rd party alarm that runs over wifi and sends you alerts

Keep a list of everything you put in there and mark it as things go in or come out

 

[H2PVon]

If it's organized where's the fun? Sometimes I even label things wrong just to get a surprise.

 

[92xj]

Flat package all your grind/fresh sausage/etc. You can fit twice the pounds per shelf when doing this.