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Pad Patter: Defrosting the ol' Freezer??

AnneofAlamo

AnneofAlamo

Slippers IN sunshine? Even better!
Joined
Aug 30, 2009
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Ya'll know we are a big family that leave a bit out of the way for shopping. :giggle
I have two fridges (full size) one in kitchen, the other is in what is supposed to be an eat in kitchen...but it is now storage for our kitchen things...Big pots, etc and the extra fridge.
We also have a big stand up freezer in the patio (off the kitchen) that we use for our dining room, because a table that fits 8-10 doesn't fit in what is supposed to be the dining room...lol (that has a game table in it).
Anyways.................
It looked like the Artic frozen tundra, until yesterday!! :imok I couldn't even use the top shelf, so much ice!

I unplugged it :waiting :funfunand let it melt and encouraged the big pieces into a bucket...and now this morning I will clean it with bleach and plug it back in. Aaaaaaaaaaah, this is a chore that is supposed to be yearly, I put it off for 3 years...but it is done.
Tomorrow, I go to the big city for :shopping shopping and pick up the meat :moo for my boys wedding, 38 days away! To fill it up! lol:woot
So................
have you or do you defrost yours?
 
I don't think I've ever defrosted our inside kitchen freezer. That one seems to be in good shape, for now. Our outside one was defrosted when Hurricane Sandy hit... so, I cleaned it up. Not having power for 10 days forced the chore. Then 2 months later we moved, so it was emptied and unplugged again, and wiped down - not a huge undertaking from just 2 months... I haven't touched it since then... and it's still in good shape.
 
Only by "accident"! :) Ours defrosted itself about 6 months ago....no clue why other than that maybe the door didn't get shut well enough. Luckily I found it before everything thawed, but we lost quite a bit of food. :( I spent a whole night cooking up what I could save.

Yay for the upcoming wedding - although, not so yay for what you might spend on meat today! Yikes! :(
 
Ours needs to be done too, Anne. I keep hoping my son-in-law will do it, hehe!
 
i've never done that. we have an extra refrigerator/freezer combo in our garage but it is just a standard hand me down that i got from my parents. doesn't need defrosting.

i can't imagine the food you must go through at your house anne! and yay for wedding meat shopping! :giggle :beat
 
I just use a HUGH knife (not necessary but makes me feel better) to chop away the ice when it builds up too much for the outside freezer door to close properly, :giggle #denial
 
LOL Jen!!!!!

I can't remember the last time we have a normal fridge freezer?
Ours is auto-defrost so I dont really need to do anything...
we use to have a need to defrost fridge freezer when we lived in Brazil, and what I would do was to make it defrost even faster, use a hair dryer ... mainly because in north east Brazil, if you have the stuff out of the cold for too long (like defrost over night) the food goes of as is too hot...
I should is clean my fridge now... thanks for the reminder LOL
 
Nope. I never have defrosted a freezer. We inherited a small upright freezer from my parents a few years ago when they decided they didn't need it anymore. I don't really use it for anything other than the bags of fish that my Hubby brings home after successful fishing trips. But I myself haven't personally even looked in there since we got it. I don't even know if it needs to be defrosted. LOL!

Hurray for wedding food shopping. 37 days now! Woot!
 
We don't have an additional freezer, I wish we had, but we don't. We have a TINY refrigerator which means we have a tiny freezer.
 
i've never defrosted a freezer either - i just have a fridge/freezer combo and it never seems to ice up ... good luck with the shopping! i'm sure that's going to be a lot of meat :)
 
I don't really need defrosting. The freezers do ok on their own for that, but I do really need to organize. I have a nasty habit of wrapping stuff and sticking it in the freezer and forgetting about it. Then I don't know what I've got, where it is or how long it's been there. I'm so organized in most other areas, I guess I just have freezeritis....

Oh Anne - so exciting. What cha gonna make with all that meat. Ideas and recipes maybe?
 
We used to do that too yearly. But when the freeze came to smll, we bought a new stand up one.
WITH NO DEFROSTING function!!!!
This is really fabulous, we never have to defrost it...
I ony clean the slides out on occasions when I have time and I notice it's necessary.

Such a timesaver and... I dreaded this fun job also very much!!!!
 
Lindzee said:
I don't really need defrosting. The freezers do ok on their own for that, but I do really need to organize. I have a nasty habit of wrapping stuff and sticking it in the freezer and forgetting about it. Then I don't know what I've got, where it is or how long it's been there. I'm so organized in most other areas, I guess I just have freezeritis....

Oh Anne - so exciting. What cha gonna make with all that meat. Ideas and recipes maybe?
Click to expand...

I have discovered the way for me to keep myself organized in this department is to make a freezer inventory every couple of months and keep a list on the side of the fridge. Then when I fill it up with freezer meals or have meat in it, I can just add to my list and then mark it off when I use it. It has helped me a TON. That being said, I need to do a freezer inventory soon because I have fallen off the wagon a bit :(

And defrosting our deep freeze out in the garage needs to happen--probably this summer. I need to use as much as possible though, first!
 
I do it every few years. One time I threw out 3 turkeys that had been in the freezer for over 3 years and were badly freezer burned. We were going vegetarian at the time, so it wasn't hard to let them go. Since coming back to the dark side and eating meat again, I have a pair of steaks in there now that are at least 2 years old (not looking so good, either). The steaks were on sale and I just never got around to cooking them, beef just doesn't have the flavor it used to years ago.
 
oh I am doing smoked brisket mixes with some pork (pulled beef and pork) for the wedding reception. 80 pounds of meat! lol I start cooking the week before the wedding!
 
My refrigerator has broken about 5 times over the last 10 years we've lived in this house. The freezer portion of it is TERRIBLY small so we can't really fit that much in there anyway. Because it will just stop working randomly and we have to toss everything I don't tend to keep a lot of stuff in either the fridge or freezer side of it. Long gone are the days of 10 bottles of salad dressing.

I have a tiny dorm fridge in the garage unplugged (and have had one(s) like it off and on from kids and dorms) that we bring in and plug in when it happens to try to save a few things. Don't plan to live here for more than a year or so when my youngest is done with college so I can't see buying a new one just yet.
 
What an accomplishment for you Anne - and wowsers that you are preparing the pulled porks - thatsalotta meat!!!!

We used to have a big freezer that needed defrosting every now and again, but since it's just hubs and I, we just use the freezer on the side by side refrig that we have.
 
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