Fridge/freezer off for 8 hours

cazs

Hi all,
My fridge-freezer went off for roughly 8 hours as whilst I was out at work, all the electrics went off.

No idea why as I was not there to blow any fuses...

Is it okay to keep and eat the food in the fridge and the freezer?

For example, some fresh mince I had frozen in the freezer, I was able see blood at the bottom of the tray... The same pack of mince that I was keeping in the fridge (I had 2 identical packs) looks ok, just a little little blood at the bottom.

What shall I do? Only did a big shop on Sat so don't want to throw everything away...

krlyr

8 hours with the door shut shouldn't be too much of an issue but if you're worried, you could treat it as if you've defrosted it to cook (so dependant on how soon it was frozen/how long a "fresh" date it had, cook it tonight/tomorrow/at the weekend) and re-freeze the cooked meats. Cooking changes the makeup of it and makes it safe to re-freeze.

Avoriaz

Does the freezer have a Maximum Temperature button? Our Bosch fridge freezer has one that, when pressed, shows the maximum temperature that the freezer has reached.

It is unlikely that your food will have defrosted in 8 hours without power. A few hours above the recommended temp of minus 18 C won’t make any significant difference.

Use the contents as soon as you can and judge the food by appearance, smell and taste.

If it looks ok, smells ok and tastes ok it should be ok.

I wouldn't worry about a bit of blood (the red juice is actually myoglobin as most blood is removed during slaughter) in mince. That is normal.

Make sure that you cook any defrosted food, especially meat, thoroughly.

Alternatively does your insurance have cover for frozen food? Only use that if the food really has gone off.

fluffpot

As long as the door was not opened in that time, the temp will have not dropped that much. I think it'll be fine