Christmas gift Q: freezer?

[Deleted]

My parents like to give us one "big" Christmas gift every year. As an example last year it was a new mattress and box spring, which we really needed. The budget is usually around $500. They'd rather give us something we need than a bunch of random things.

Anyway, this year H and I are tossing around the idea of askin for an freezer for our garage. I garden, and never seem to have enough space to "put up" tomatoes, make ahead meals, etc. And I'd like to buy half a cow from a local rancher, but we have no place to store it. The debate seems to be chest freezer vs. upright...

Does anyone have an extra freezer? Chest or upright? Pros? Cons?

[arch01]

we have a chest freezer and i sort of wish we would've gotten an upright. the only downside i see to an upright is that in our garage, we wouldn't have room to open up the door with the car in there (it has to be in a certain spot due to the limited number of outlets). we have a chest freezer and things have a tendency to get lost in the bottom. i used to be better about keeping a list of what was in there, but not so much now.

[giantsgirl]

I have an upright and love it. I went for an upright over chest so that things don't get "lost" in the chest freezer. Everyone I know with a chest freezer ends up with stuff at the bottom that never sees the light of day. I like being able to buy meat in bulk when on sale and make lots of food to freeze. It also frees up space in the upstairs freezer to keep a few bottles of vodka and some glasses chilled ;D

[Deleted]

Nov 25, 2012 15:06:35 GMT -5 giantsgirl said:

It also frees up space in the upstairs freezer to keep a few bottles of vodka and some glasses chilled ;D

I like your style!

I'm sitting here thinking about all the yummy things I can stock away in the freezer. Primarily Christmas cookies. At the same time I'm thinking I'd like to lose 20lbs...

[Deleted]

We wish we had gotten an upright. For us it would have saved some space in the furnace room, but I think it would be easier to keep organized/see what we have. We feel like we're always losing things in the chest.

[tacokick]

We have an upright I like a lot. My parents have a chest on and I don't like having to hang into it to get things.

One tip: we have a dry erase board stuck to ours and I write on it what is inside so I don't forget.

[Deleted]

Nov 25, 2012 15:34:21 GMT -5 tacokick said:

We have an upright I like a lot. My parents have a chest on and I don't like having to hang into it to get things.

One tip: we have a dry erase board stuck to ours and I write on it what is inside so I don't forget.

This is brilliant.

[chessie]

We have both. Chest, sucks because you have to remember to move new meat/etc to bottom and rotate or you maybe forget whats on the bottom. Good part though less waste of energy. Upright, better organization, Con- waste lots of extra energy to keep cool. Depends what your going for, for us all our meats can do fine in the chest in different boxes.

[dragonfly08]

We have an extra chest freezer. Great in terms of storage space, but not nearly as easy to use as an upright. I often have to empty half of it to get to what I need. We're in the middle of renovating the kitchen and we're actually replacing it with a full size upright freezer (and getting a full size refrigerator as well, so trimmed out together they'll look like one double-sized unit). I'm insanely excited about that.

ETA: I've done the dry-erase board thing, too, and it's a must especially with the chest freezer. Before I started, I could never remember what was in there and lots of food got wasted due to freezer burn.

[Deleted]

We have a chest freezer. We just couldn't justify the extra expense of an upright. if someone else was buying I would have gotten an upright.

I don't use a dry erase board but I have a list on a bulletin board in my kitchen of what's in the freezer. We buy a quarter cow every year and it is the only way I am able to keep track.

[audette]

I have a chest freezer. I love it.

I love it so much, we'll be buying one to use in Korea while we are there, even if they cost twice as much there... (different electric grid means it makes sense to get a different one there than to bring ours along).


I will never opt for an upright freezer. I'd lose stuff in the back of it all the time, and they tend to frost up worse because of hte loss of cold air every time you open them.

I've never had trouble keeping things organized in our chest freezer. I organize everything in zones - one area is for pre-made meals, one is for frozen meat, one is for frozen veggies. If we had a bigger one (ours is 7 cu ft, which is on the small size, but moves fairly well, as it's lived in a half dozen places since I bought it), I'd organize like mom used to in her _huge_ one - cardboard boxes to help define the zones and keep things organized. No tops, they just sit in the freezer and keep things separate.


There are more size options for chest freezers, too.

[MixedBerryJam]

I love my upright ... I know chest freezers are better for energy consumption, but my parents had one when I was a kid (the biggest day of the year was when mom would defrost it in the middle of summer and we'd have a neighborhood snowball fight) but I was always afraid I'd fall in. I suppose it's just as easy to organize a chest as an upright, but I have saved leftovers/roasts/ non-stackables in the bottom drawer and then each type of meat has its own shelf. Bacon and butter on the door. It's pretty much the only place in my house that's neat as a pin all the time. I am also a fanatic about wrapping/rewrapping to avoid freezer burn: I individually wrap everything (steak, chicken breasts, etc) in plastic wrap in one direction, then another layer of plastic wrap in the other direction covering the first layer's seams, then multiples in a ziplock bag with a post-it label inside the bag so it doesn't wear off (even sharpie comes off in the freezer).

ETA: And the one thing I'd add about energy consumption is that I really don't think it's that big a deal for the freezer. I mean, it's not like the fridge where you're opening it 75 times a day -- the freezer is pretty much opened once a day. But I am careful to lock it, on the off chance it doesn't close securely. You only have to lose the contents of your freezer once to learn that lesson. My key is on a string, tied to the door handle.

[moolarkey]

We got our upright, it's a small one, at a discount store. We got it really cheap because it also had a dent in the side. Operates fine but they couldn't sell it at even their regular price with the dent in it.

[flatlan]

We got a chest freezer because that was what was in the budget at the time. I really wanted an upright but settled for a chest. I get lots of good use out of our chest freezer but an upright would be so much easier to organize.

[isabel]

DH and I plan to buy an upright freezer for the garage for the exact same reason. Once we buy a house next year this will be one of our first purchases. So excited about it!

[jackie011]

This is exactly what we did last year- ILs gave us the money and then we went and bought it on some weekend when they were having a blowout sale. We bought a 13.7 cu ft upright for about $350. The lady at the store said this would hold between 300-350 lbs of meat- yikes!

[minniebee]

We have an upright in our garage love it!

[Deleted]

I'm 99% positive you can write on any freezer or regular white fridge with dry erase markers. Just use a wet washcloth to erase to get it out of the crevices in the texture.