Power is off and freezer is full- wwyd?

[SickMaker]

Leave the freezer closed for as long as possibly. Do not remove and plae any food in water or salt emersions as salt does not lower the temperature of ice and water, yet salt lowers the freezing point of water by a few degrees. Best thing to due, if possible, is keep the insulated freezing closed and eat dry or canned goods.

[Maast]

Run the genny once a day to keep it frozen, rotate out frozen water bottles to coolers to keep food from the refer good.

If it looks to be a long term (PAW/SHTF) event, start dehydrating over the wood stove to the "crispy critter" stage and seal the results up into mylar w/ o2 and moisture absorbers.

Google "hamburger rocks" to see how to make dehydrated hamburger that stores for about a year.

[Greyfox]

Jerkying it would be a good plan too

jerkying it is all ways my answer.

[jakesway]

lots and lots of salt, we'd have to do the old school here. with this, one of the first things we need to do in the post zombie infection world is secure a source of secondary electricity. electricity is what keeps our world from being what it is in the present to being planet of the apes.

not much to add, you nailed it, seal the freezer to keep the cold in for as long as possible. this should keep the food for about a week i think. that should be enough time to find enough fuel to power your generator.

[RogerK]

My goal for the end of this year is to not require a freezer or refidgirator at all

[ninja-elbow]

Two important things to consider BEFORE the power goes out:

- full freezers actually use less energy than empty freezers
- you can always use more water storage

Thus, if there's any free space in your freezer, pack it with water in Soda bottles. Leave a little room in the bottles so they don't burst while freezing. Havin a lot of ice in a well-isolated container like your freezer effectively makes it an ice box, and will keep it cool for days without power. Oh, and if you thouroughly clean the bottles and make sure to use clean water, you can so count that as water storage.

I don't have a big family freezer but this is what I have done in my fridge/freezer. A few 1 and 2 litre bottles of frozen water come in handy a few other ways too. On top of the above advice, you can take some of them frozen bottles and stick them in your fridge to keep that going too.

I've also used frozen 1 and 2 litre bottles for ice packs to sooth a sore foot or elbow, in ice coolers for trips where you need your ice cooler, as a swamp cooler on the 2-5 100 degree days we get here in the summer ... bunch of stuff.

[Southron Boy]

We've had spring storms around here lately that are the worst, and most frequent, that I can remember. Consequently, the power has been going out a lot. A week or so ago, power was out for over seven hours at my house, and some people locally were without electricity for several days.

I had just decided to put some of my stored water in the freezer when, you guessed it, the lights went out.

[Silent Kube]

Several years ago, a friend of mine had his fridge die on him. He knew it would be awhile before he had the money to replace it so he called everyone he knew and said "I've got food, you bring beer." Best impromptu party I've ever been to.

[mariposa]

I've been through this more than once. The first time was after Hurricane Frederick, and a neighbor said he was firing up the grill because his food was thawing, and invited us to bring anything we wanted to cook. It ended up being a nice party for that block of condos (4-6 households).

After Hurricane Ike, I cooked what I could, and filed an insurance claim for the rest.

[Krustofski]

and filed an insurance claim for the rest.

I actually never thought of that. If you've got a lot of expensive meat, that's certainly worth the hassle. I'll have to take a look at my insurance policy.

[Fkawi]

After hurricane Ike our power was out for about two and a half weeks ware we lived. we cooked all of the meat in the freezer and kept it in a hanging basket. We gave some away but we did not lose any food that mattered. Just about every ones food was destroyed by about day 3 or 4. On Galveston Island all the sea food and food in the restaurants were stinking so bad that a rumor started that the smell was decomposing dead bodies. We did not lose much as we had lots of canned food and fruit from before the storm hit. If I had to dry meat I would just throw a smoker together real quick and dry what I could.

[mariposa]

and filed an insurance claim for the rest.

I actually never thought of that. If you've got a lot of expensive meat, that's certainly worth the hassle. I'll have to take a look at my insurance policy.

My homeowner's policy covered $700 of refrigerated food, minus a $200 deductible. I ended up with $500 to restock my fridge after the power was restored.

[AK49er]

Two important things to consider BEFORE the power goes out:

- full freezers actually use less energy than empty freezers
- you can always use more water storage

Thus, if there's any free space in your freezer, pack it with water in Soda bottles. Leave a little room in the bottles so they don't burst while freezing. Havin a lot of ice in a well-isolated container like your freezer effectively makes it an ice box, and will keep it cool for days without power. Oh, and if you thouroughly clean the bottles and make sure to use clean water, you can so count that as water storage.

Good point, I do that too. We pull the ice bottles out of the freezer for road trips, to keep food cool. When they thaw we drink 'em. I had wondered if they help keep the freezer running w/ less energy, I don't know why or how that works but I kind of wondered it.[/quote]

It has to do with the specific heat of water being significantly more than that of air. I couldn't find a good value for air because it seems to change with pressure but it takes 5-10x more energy to heat water than it does air so the frozen water absorbs 5-10x more heat in your freezer allowing it to stay colder longer. Some where on here was a neat thread about someone who was talking about water walls being used to help heat and cool houses and thermal mass etc. Long story short: we should all be filling our freezers and fridges with water bottles to save energy anyway

In other words, when the fridge is full, the cold doesn't all blow out the door when it is opened, like the air. And more stuff in the freezer means the freezer has to cool less air to cool the food.