Freezer been switched off / door left open - will food be ok?

mutty_hc

Hi all..

no idea how this happened by the freezer door was left slightly open for a period of time (I don't know if it was 6hours, 3 hours or what.) it was about 1/2 cm open, very minimal as when I opened it I just felt it opened a little easy rather than being sealed as it should be - I didn't even notice it was open until I pulled the door so it really was minimal.

There was no water on the floor.

However, most of the ice cream lollies had melted as such or gone gooey. Some rolls in the top shelf also were soft rather than frozen.

I went through the freezer and checked the meat, the beef steak, sauasages and chicken were all hard and definitely frozen as they were surrounded by alot of frozen veg in a large draw. The only other thing that felt thawed was some onion bhajis in the lowest draw. Everything else was basically 70%+ frozen.

Only the ice cream had thawed, which is always the quickest thing to thaw anyway.

SO basically I'm asking what I should do? I automatically turned up the freezer onto a fast freeze cycle and got everything frozen again but I obviously don't want to get food poisoning or something - from google I read that if it wasn't thawed I should be fine - but I'm double checking here.

Thanks.

boredjellybean

I'm not really sure? but if you are in any doubt perhaps you could thaw the meat & cook it then freeze down (ie spag bol, sausage casserole, chicken stew etc?)

Gigervamp

The meat should be ok, but I'd chuck the ice cream and use up the rolls today or tomorrow.

mutty_hc

ok cheers. I will restock the ice cream and rolls then.

joedenise

Agree with Gingervamp. Just dump the icecream and use up the rolls quickly.

Denise

Sunnyday

Chuck the ice cream and the rest will be fine, i`ve often twice frozen bread and it won`t harm it.

SD

horsechestnut

Throw out the ice cream and onion bhajis. as previous poster said, bread will be O.K. and the meat should also be fine, but do check the mince; if it has thawed even slightly, then cook it and refreeze the cooked dish.

Penelope_Penguin

mutty_hc wrote: »

I went through the freezer and checked the meat, the beef steak, sauasages and chicken were all hard and definitely frozen as they were surrounded by alot of frozen veg in a large draw. The only other thing that felt thawed was some onion bhajis in the lowest draw. Everything else was basically 70%+ frozen.

Anything that was still frozen solid will be fine You're not the first person that this has happened to, so as it's fallen from the front page of OS, I'll add it to the existing thread to keep ideas together.

365days

Just got home from shopping. Discovered freezer has been accidently turned off ...... I know how.....son will be slowly tortured later. I could weep. Thinking back it would of been turned off on Tuesday eve. Some things are soft-(Mainly bottom of freezer) some things are still hard - whole chicken.

I have a £200 excess on my home insurance and would lose no claims so not an option and really not that huge a value food relatively.


So do you think anything can be salvaged????

I have a dog and two cats so they may well be dining in style for the next few days........really could cry.

zippychick

365 days... i have just the thread for you! Don't panic! Im sure most of it will be fine. Just keep what's frozen solid :j

Freezer been switched off/door left open - will food be ok?

I'll merge this later
Zip