Aibu to think a chest freezer is a waste of time?

[flownthecoopkiwi]

New house came with a large chest freezer. Currently only using it to store bags on. I've seen my in-laws and it's full to the brim but would probably need one of those arctic exploration core drills to get through the decades of random frozen produce that they never eat.

Are they just pointless because you forget and never eat the stuff in it OR are they brilliant?

There was a thread a few months ago where someone referred to a 'freezer spreadsheet' - I think that's what I'd need to make a chest freezer work

Out2pasture not sure how to organise such a small chest freezer .. every time I search for something it all gets jumbled up again. I've tried using carrier bags in there but still end up with freezing hands and everything everywhere!

Useful if you batch cook. Useful if you raw feed a dog. But otherwise - get rid!

My ice cream maker doesn't fit in the fridge freezer, so that is the main purpose of our chest freezer even if I haven't made ice cream in over a year.

However it is great for bulk buying and freezing. I use things like muscle foods and buy loads of chicken all at once so I have food for the next however amount of months.

It entirely depends on how you intend to use it.

Yorkshire maybe some big clear plastic storage boxes? One for each type of food? Then you could stack them in there and just lift them out to rummage through.

I have 2 chest freezers. We buy meat in bulk and store allotment produce in there. I wouldn't be without them now.

We used to have one and I absolutely hated it. I used to groan every time I needed something out of it and had to half empty it into one of those plastic laundry baskets to find stuff.

I have a biggish chest freezer in the garage. I use coloured recycling bags for filing stuff in categories. If you just throw stuff in willy-nilly you end up with too many mystery items.

Yellow bag is meat/quorn/main course stuff.
Green bag is veg and oven chips type stuff.
Blue bag is fish.
White bag is ice cream (we stock up on Haagen Daaz when on offer)
Silver bag is frozen blocks of garlic/ginger/chilli/various herbs/parmesan/brie/mozzarella etc.

When new shopping arrives, take out all bags and check nothing is lying on the bottom. Add new shopping. Replace bags.

I agree with OP that many people use their stand-alone freezer badly; leave stuff to get bad freezer burn & then toss items out.

when we downsized in 2014, we sold the chest freezer with the house (over 35 years old and still working, huge coffin type, with a whole basement built up around it....therefore not able to take it out of the house anyway)
I had strawberries from 1988 and blueberries, cans of fruit concentrate from before 2000.
soooo our new fridge has a big freezer compartment with drawers. but not so big as to cause me problems with management.
I still find myself hoarding fruit to bake with but unwilling to bake as I eat it all and put on weight soooooo easily.

www.samsung.com/us/home-appliances/refrigerators/4-door-flex/23-cu-ft-capacity-counter-depth-4-door-flex-refrigerator-with-flexzone-stainless-steel-rf23j9011sr-aa/

I have a small chest (ooooh matron) freezer and it's a bit crap really. Couple of bags of frozen chips and it's practically full. Tbh I haven't a clue what's in it.

I prefer freezers with a drawer. If you've got a deep chest one, how do you know what's lurking at the bottom?

We have three freezers :) One combo fridge/freezer in the kitchen (Freezer 1), an upright freezer in the garage (freezer 2) and a decent size chest freezer a bit further into the garage (freezer 3). I adore all of them for different reasons!

Freezer 1 has the "ongoing / in use" stuff - open bags of frozen veg, chips, frozen meals in bags and containers, open bag of sausages, beefburgers etc.

Freezer 2 has the "we need this periodically" stuff - loaves of bread (goes mouldy too fast it we leave it in the pantry), unopened bags of veg, frozen cake from previous birthdays (we portion it up and put it in lunchboxes every now and again), butter packs, food waste which is frozen in bags in the bottom drawer and then put into the bins on collection morning. It's well organised (thanks DH) and is easy to get stuff as all in drawers.

Freezer 3 currently has 1.5 pigs in it (in the form of bacon, hams, sausages, mince, chops) and half a cow (in the form of joints, mince and steaks). It's invaluable and means we can have organic home grown meat delivered once every 3-6 months. I also know the butcher who processes the animals so I get to choose exactly what goes into the sausages and I know how they are slaughtered which alleviates somewhat my ethical concerns over eating meat.

I don't find it particularly difficult to rummage around in the chest freezer to pick out what we need from it but then it really only contains meat and so it's very easy to organise. Big joints in the central part, cardboard box of the different minces on the left hand side, cardboard box of steaks and sausages right hand side, few small extra bits in the baskets at the top. If you were trying to store meat, veg, bread, etc it would be much more difficult to locate what you want when you want it, and I can see you'd end up emptying half of it out to fish out whatever you were after and then repacking it. If the chest freezer is your sole freezer then I'd invest in an upright for day to day stuff and use the chest for storing multibuys and longer term bits.

We have one and it's brilliant,we have a normal fridge freezer in our kitchen with ice,ice lollies,cornettos and Ice cream and a huge chest freezer in our shed that has everything else in it.

There's 7 of us and we usually do a 3-4 week shop at a time so a chest freezer comes in really handy.

We had a single chest freezer as well as a small fridge freezer - both were a pain in their own way - losing things or too cramped etc. Now have an American style side by side (Which has a greater capacity than both freezers together) love that I can actually see what we have now and stuff doesn't get forgotten about. I don't miss my chest freezer, though may do leading up to Christmas when I need to put the turkey in there - new freezer has narrow shelves so not sure it will go in!

Tis great. I baught milk crates to organise it. When it starts getting disorganised/full I tell DP to stop buying meat until we ate all we have. It takes about 2months to eat everything. No need to stay organised, just have alook from time to time. Saves so much shopping time.

Aren't chest freezers a bit awkward if you want something that's at the bottom? Even if you're super organised with a freezer spreadsheet so you know exactly what's in there?

DH wanted a chest freezer but I talked him into a tall freezer with drawers instead. It's taller than me, got plenty of space, and no need to empty the whole thing out if we want something that's stored at the bottom.

I stack 8 poundland plastic boxes with lids in our chest freezer. (3, 3 & 2) There are holes in boxes sides and lids, to let the cold in.

Each box has its own content, when that box empties I buy more. Keeps things organised and the less used food goes in the lower crates and vice versa.

I'd love to have the room for a chest freezer, I bulk buy everything and batch cook a lot, so our freezer is always full.
I do also have a freezer and cupboard spreadsheet through

I have two freezers too, but rather than a chest freezer for the second one, I got a freezer the same height as the fridge freezer that has nine drawers - much easier to organise and see what's there than in a chest. I don't freeze huge chunks of meat though.

My parents had a chest freezer. When they finally moved we found things that had been at the bottom of it for decades!

I've got a huge chest freezer in the garage. I use those blue ikea bags. One for bread, one for meat. I also have a plastic crate for dog meat. There are trays across the top for fruit, veg, chips etc. A side compartment I use for processed food. Brilliant,

One thing, I never put things in there once they have been opened- you don't want random peas, chips and general crumbs lurking at the bottom. Anything opened comes into the house freezer.

irony is we used to have two dogs we raw fed so it would have been ideal...
ok, so if I become organised and buy lots of bags and possibly befriend a butcher/farmer then this could be a game changer for my frozen goods

I love my chest freezer. I have a fridge freezer in the kitchen and a chest freezer in the garage.
I bulk cook a lot, and snap up reduced items to freeze.
I am quite organised, it's not a frozen graveyard, I know pretty much what is in it/

Don't get rid of it! Once you've started using it you'll wonder how you lived without it. Ours is in the garage. We keep in it:
•Bulk meat orders from eg. muscle food. Make sure you separate portions though.
•Bread. Loooads of loaves, crumpets, sandwich thins, tortilla wraps, burger buns, you name it. All bread in a blue ikea bag thing on the top so you can easily lift it all out to get to the stuff underneath.
•lolly ices etc for summer days
•Burgers/sausages/chicken wings/corn on cob. Coupled with aforementioned burger buns, all you need for an impromptu BBQ assuming you've got salad & condiments in house.

I write in a note pad everything that is in the freezer. Then I don't have to keep rummaging through it all only to find we've eaten it or need to buy more of say..peas. Chips etc.