Iced up freezer

meames_2

My freezer must have had the door open a teeny bit. Nothing has defrosted but it has iced up so the drawers mean the door will only shut if something leans against it. So it needs defrosting.

Unfortunatley it us packed to bursting, there is no meat (but a bag of prawns I will throw out). Everything is vegetables or veggie. There is far more than I could eat in a couple of days, plus a few made up veg curries and loads of chopped up veg or fruit (a whole drawer!)

If I put it in the fridge, although it will be turned off it would be packed tightly. Do you think it could cope with an overnight thaw and be put back in the next day? There might be one or two losses but could most of it me salvaged without killing me do you think?

Thanks

Mimi_Arc_en_ciel

Can you get your hands on a steamer? Will defrost it really quickly x

cornishchick

Put a spare quilt in the bath, fill with the frozen stuff, and cover with the other end and any new papers you have, any food you intend to eat in the next two days put in the fridge, this will keep the fridge cold.
Now scrape as much build up off as you can with something like a credit card or plastic spatula untill the drawers close. Then put everything back. No need to do a full thraw untill you have eaten down your stocks,
If you see what I mean ,

imho

I put all freezer contents in boxes then cover with a old duvet then boil up the kettle and fill bowls up with hot water and put in freezer, shut freezer door and within 20/30 mins its defrosted.Lots of soaking up the defrosted water up though.

pigpen

why throw the prawns??? Just cook and eat them first..


I take a knife to mine.. then use the hairdryer to get rid of the rest.. works really quickly, nothing even defrosts in the interim.. I have a 4 drawer frosty freezer which takes about 10 minutes to defrost this way.

Lilyplonk

Have you got one of those 'large insulated chiller/picnic bags'?

I used one last week when mine needed a serious de-frost.

I managed to get loads into it along with a few of those 'frozen food carrier bags' that you get from the supermarket.

It DID mean that I had to speed up the defrost by using a hairdryer to help the worst of it along.

Good Luck with it.

Runnerduck

i load mine all into washing baskets then attack the freezer with a hot hairdryer and knife, it dosent take long, your food will be fine all piled together it will stay frozen

splishsplash

pigpen wrote: »

why throw the prawns??? Just cook and eat them first..


I take a knife to mine.. then use the hairdryer to get rid of the rest.. works really quickly, nothing even defrosts in the interim.. I have a 4 drawer frosty freezer which takes about 10 minutes to defrost this way.

This is what I do too. I would put lots of towels on the floor in front of the freezer while you do this though, as it produces a LOT of water. I just leave the stuff on the side while I'm doing it - takes no time at all.

torbrex

i turn my fridge to its coldest setting for a couple of hours and put all my frozen food in there along with as many picnic ice packs and ice cube trays as I can fit in.
Chip away as much ice from the freezer as I can then a bowl of hot water in the bottom shelf with the door closed and change it every 15 minutes until completely ice free, mopping up any drips that have missed the bowl as I go along.
I'm usually done in less than 2 hours, switch back on and re-pack the freezer.

meames_2

Thanks for you advice, all done before bed and food still frozen!