Choosing a freezer
My favorite freezer is just over 15 cu ft. and chest style. I would call this a medium sized freezer. It's a nice size for buying bulk meats plus a few extras of other things that don’t fit into your fridge freezer.
If you are a single person you will likely want a smaller one or a big family will want a larger one or two of these depending on how much you like to store at a time.
Say you're a family that is just getting started. I would recommend this one or around this size.
The great thing about a large freezer is it's just the beginning of a way to buy not just meat but other foods in bulk as well. We like to stock up on french fries or frozen pizzas as a way to avoid fast food. If you have a garden you can freeze many vegetables or make freezer jams from local fruits.
Now is the decision for a stand up or a chest freezer.
Stand up freezers take up less floor space and are a lot easier to organize. You can see everything you have and nothing gets lost at the bottom. This is also easier for young kids to be able to get things for you as well. Or keep popsicles in during summer and it's an easy treat the kids can do all by themselves.
This is a great option for anyone that can’t bend over to get into a chest freezer, or if you're shorter. It can be hard to get items from the bottom of a chest freezer.
But on the down side of that, it's easy for the door to be kept open on these. My sister lost an entire freezer full because her young kids didn’t get the door shut all the way.
Not just if you have kids, meat can fall off a shelf if not stacked right and can bump the door open without you knowing especially if it's in a garage or area that you aren’t in multiple times a day to notice.
Chest freezers are more efficient because when they are opened the cold air stays in. You can fit more in these with the same amount of space just because there's no shelves taking up room and every bit of the space can be filled without needing to stack a certain way.
But if you aren’t good at rotating the meat you can lose many packages at the bottom. You also have to dig to find items each time.
New freezers are very cost efficient. We add in a new freezer every couple years and I have never noticed a significant difference in our electric bill when we add in a new one. When kept full or even half full it's not going to take as much to keep cold.
I have heard many times that people are scared that their electricity will go out and lose all their meat. This is my experience, I have never had one go out before. I had one come unplugged on accident because the kids dropped a tool on the cord and we didn’t notice until the next day in the summer. But thankfully it only had a few pounds of meat in it.
We might just be lucky but in 12 years of us keeping a deep freezer we have never had the electricity go out long enough for us to lose a freezer full. Knock on wood. If the electricity goes out in the winter it's no big deal because it's likely below freezing anyways or cold enough it will take several days for them to thaw out.
The chances are pretty slim. But remember to keep it closed if your electricity does go out, if full it will take a long time for it to completely thaw out. It will likely be a couple days before they will thaw out because they're so insulated.
Hopefully that eased your mind some.
What are your favorite items to stock up on in your freezer?
