Freezer Door Left Open Overnight

tesuhoha

Last night I took some chicken out of the freezer in the garage. Its a fridge freezer. When I went in there this morning, the freezer door was open and all the contents were half defrosted. I immediately shut the door and put it on superfreeze but will this be okay do you think? Its full of meat, bread, pizzas, frozen soup etc and I am a bit worried.

joedenise

You really need to check to see if anything is salvageable first. If it's completely defrosted or very nearly you need to cook it and then refreeze. If it's something that's already been cooked then I think it needs to be binned unless you can eat it today.

You really shouldn't refreeze things without cooking first.

Similar thing happened to me a couple of months ago except my DD turned my freezer off while I was on holiday and a lost a freezerful of mainly meat!

Sorry but I'm afraid that some of it will need to be binned.

Denise

tesuhoha

joedenise wrote: »

You really need to check to see if anything is salvageable first. If it's completely defrosted or very nearly you need to cook it and then refreeze. If it's something that's already been cooked then I think it needs to be binned unless you can eat it today.

You really shouldn't refreeze things without cooking first.

Similar thing happened to me a couple of months ago except my DD turned my freezer off while I was on holiday and a lost a freezerful of mainly meat!

Sorry but I'm afraid that some of it will need to be binned.

Denise

Thank you. I had to go off to Zumba. There was a pizza in there which I have refrozen. Can that be eaten today. The problem is that I am not sure of the damage as its all refrozen now. I didn't have time to check it as I was late for my class. I think I will replace the bread. Not sure about the meat. I am going to price it up.

At the top there was still ice on the products but it was wet. I cursed the weather for being mild at this time of year.

pigpen

yeah.. it'll be fine..


The bread is the one thing that is absolutely safe and the last thing to be replacing. Meat is the only thing that is risky and it isn't like it was at room temp. Far too much wastefulness and hysteria over frozen stuff nowadays!


If it had been left a couple of days I'd be binning bits but I frequently do exactly what you have done.

tesuhoha

pigpen wrote: »

yeah.. it'll be fine..


The bread is the one thing that is absolutely safe and the last thing to be replacing. Meat is the only thing that is risky and it isn't like it was at room temp. Far too much wastefulness and hysteria over frozen stuff nowadays!


If it had been left a couple of days I'd be binning bits but I frequently do exactly what you have done.

The meat was still pretty much frozen. The worse thing was the pizza and the bread but I have taken the pizza out for eating today and I am going to eat one of the refrozen rolls for lunch to see if it is okay. Thank you.

joedenise

tesuhoha wrote: »

The meat was still pretty much frozen. The worse thing was the pizza and the bread but I have taken the pizza out for eating today and I am going to eat one of the refrozen rolls for lunch to see if it is okay. Thank you.

With the meat as you say it was still pretty much frozen then I think it's a case of using your nose when it's defrosted.

I too wouldn't worry too much about the bread and with the pizza it really depends what topping it's got - if it's veggies then probably OK but if meat then the "sniff" test.

Denise

MattN

I think it should be fine if they are only partially defrosted. Just make sure when it comes time to defrost for real to cook you give them a good sniff and discard anything you're not sure about. Then make sure the food is well cooked.

As pigpen said, there's too much hysteria about frozen food these days.

Most stuff gets defrosted a bit going in the supermarket trolley, through the checkout then in the car and home and never comes to any harm.

tesuhoha

Thank you. Well my son ate the pizza and I ate the roll and no ill effects so far. I think I will use the meat as soon as possible but I am cooking a roast tonight from meat I had in the fridge (should have had roast yesterday) so won't be able to start on the freezer meat for several days.

calicocat

I've done that before and everything has been fine, no fatalities or illness. The only things I threw out were a few packs of ham and salami etc that had defrosted and was unsure about, everything else I just shut the door and carried on as normal.