Keeping frozen food frozen

babs_103

My fridge freezer finally conked out last night and I cannot get a new one delivered until sometime on Tuesday. The freezer part is still working thankfully as I'd just restocked after Christmas.

My problem is how do I keep food frozen from early Tuesday until I can put it all back in the new one?

I have a small lobby which is fairly cold, a patio but we have foxes round here and I do not have a secure box to put it in. There are no neighbours who can keep it for me.

I am prepared to have to waste some of it, I won't refreeze chicken or fish for example but wondered if I should just give in and start again when the new freezer is up and running although I can ill afford to waste the money it may be the safest thing to do.

Thanks in advance for any ideas.

Farway

Buy an insulated large freezer bag from the like of Lild or Iceland and store in there, in the cold lobby

Prinzessilein

Do you have any friendly neighbours who could lend you even half a shelf in their freezer?...this would help you save a little at least.

On Tuesday, defrost your chicken and fish - if it is uncooked....and batch cook soups, stews, curries, casseroles et.c....these will be fine left to cool until the new freezer is up and ready for them. (If it is already cooked then you are right about not refreezing!....time for a big BBQ party!)

culpepper

It should all keep quite happily if you insulate it with polystyrene or bubble wrap and blankets.You could put it in a suitcase for added security from the varmints.

tori.k

If they are not taking your old fridge freezer when they deliver your new one it will be fine for 24hrs as long as you keep the door shut.

babs_103

I can't get out to buy a bag until Wednesday, typical! so I will batch cook the chicken and fish, using some of the veg, and put the rest in a roll of bubble wrap that I had given me as a joke present then wrap in an old quilt and leave in the lobby.

They are taking the old freezer with them so I cannot keep anything in there unfortunally tori.k

Thank you so much for all your help, You have all stopped me doing my impersonation of a headless chicken and I now know what I'm doing brilliant thank you x

[Deleted User]

When my OH worked in the Sudan back in the 1980s I would freeze a huge parcel of bacon for him to take with him o when he was going back after annual leave Then I would triple wrap it in foil before freezing and when I got it out it would go in a plastic box filled all around with bubble wrap.It would last OK through the flight and would still be frozen solid when he arrived in Khartoum then he had an internal flight to Port Sudan on the Red Sea, it would still be a block when he got to his compound out there and he would have to get the cook the leave it out for several hours until they would cook it.He would get a lot of the ex-pats who worked there over that night for bacon sarnies Couldn't get the brown sauce to last though he said it would turn to treacle in the bottle in the heat and tasted horrible :)But my sainbobs best back bacon lasted 16 hours before having to be left out to defrost thousands of miles away:)

babs_103

I do have some bacon lurking at the back of one of the drawers JackieO, but I won't need to worry as now you've reminded me it's in there we will have it for lunch tomorrow and Tuesday. Thank you

zeupater

babs_103 wrote: »

I can't get out to buy a bag until Wednesday, typical! so I will batch cook the chicken and fish, using some of the veg, and put the rest in a roll of bubble wrap that I had given me as a joke present then wrap in an old quilt and leave in the lobby.

They are taking the old freezer with them so I cannot keep anything in there unfortunally tori.k

Thank you so much for all your help, You have all stopped me doing my impersonation of a headless chicken and I now know what I'm doing brilliant thank you x

Hi

Dies the old freezer have pull-out drawers? ... if so you could just pull the drawers out and stack them up in a corner with a bin bag and/or duvet over them whilst they lug the old unit out and plug the new one in, then load the new one when they've gone ... you've then possibly got some reasonable baskets for storing veg etc in the garage/greenhouse or at worst some recycling bin fodder for the next collection ...

HTH
Z

babs_103

I assumed they would need to take everything, but thinking about it they are only going to scrap it anyway, good idea thank you, I will keep the veg in those and just cook the chicken and fish, x

Actually don't you have to keep the freezer on for a certain amount of time for it to cool down? xx

zeupater

# Note for Administrator .... This new 30 second window for post corrections is far too short, you haven't got time to read a post's contents in that time, let alone modify & re-submit! ... If it's deemed necessary, a reasonable & practical timescale to lock contents in would be at least 15-30minutes.

It's a pretty rare occurrence for me to not make a spelling or grammatical error which needs correction and this is the case for a good proportion of members, so any administrator better be prepared to be working through a huge backlog of requests!

Anyway, for 'dies' in the previous post , read 'does' ...

HTH
Z