New spare freezer or fridge-freezer

[TheBermudaTriangle]

Hi all. I'm in the lucky position of being able to buy a spare appliance to keep in our garage. I was initially thinking of buying a spare 'single' standing freezer, for batch cooking etc.

We have an American-style fridge-freezer in the kitchen.

However, I'm now suddenly doubting myself and wondering whether a combined 50/50 fridge-freezer would be better (using the fridge for things like drinks for gatherings etc, bulky stuff like the turkey at Christmas etc).

What do you think?

[TheBermudaTriangle]

Sorry, just to add, the garage is actually a separate room or annex to our home, so not an 'outdoor' or separate building (as I know some appliances are not suitable for being outdoors).

[Ostryga]

I have a standard fridge freezer in the house and an American 50/50 in the garage. I love the fridge outside for drinks/bulky items but I think next time I’d get a chest freezer and just store drinks outside. With the way things are atm I much prefer the freezer space to bulk buy meat and store prepped food etc.

[TheBermudaTriangle]

@Ostryga

I have a standard fridge freezer in the house and an American 50/50 in the garage. I love the fridge outside for drinks/bulky items but I think next time I’d get a chest freezer and just store drinks outside. With the way things are atm I much prefer the freezer space to bulk buy meat and store prepped food etc.

Thanks @Ostryga - that's good feedback. The main purpose for this was for freezing batch cooking and spare meat/fish/veg/milk/bread etc, so maybe I am second guessing myself.

[noenergy]

I have an extra stand alone freezer and it's great for batch cooking. If you already have an American fridge freezer then I assume the fridge is quite big so would go for freezer only. Mine is a huge stand up one and
The drawers make it easy to organise, I find things get lost at the bottom of chest freezers

[TheBermudaTriangle]

Thanks @noenergy - yes, I had read that about chest freezers. Fantastic amount of space but I can definitely organise things better in an upright/standing appliance with shelves and drawers

[Pattygonia]

We have a second freezer too and it's great - for storing fruit and veg we grow, batch cooking, always having a spare loaf of bread on hand etc.
It's a full size tall drawer one and we make good use of every cm! I don't think a 50:50 fridge would be so useful - at the time of year that we tend to need extra fridge space (Christmas!) it's cold enough that veg like carrots etc can be stored in garage and we can always create enough temporary space for eg turkey and trifle by temporarily taking out eg eggs, jam, ketchup - the sort of stuff that is best stored in the fridge but is fine outside it in cool weather for a few days,

[TheBermudaTriangle]

Thank you @Pattygonia - looks like the freezer-only option is the most popular!

[FinallyHere]

We have a Beko stand up freezer in the garage (integrated garage so not stand alone building) because it's good value and they are one of the few manufacturers who not not say can't be in unheated space

It's great and as soon as I started using it I realise how useful it would be to have an extra fridge there too.

Sigh

[Triffid1]

I think it entirely depends on what you need it for. We have a large frige/freezer in the kitchen (but not American style sadly as no space). If I had a garage and space for more, I'd definitely go for fridge/freezer but probably 50/50 because I find at certain times, extra fridge space is SOO useful - Christmas (obviously) but also when doing any entertaining/kids parties. And when I'm not doing the extra entertaining I'd use it for drinks so we're not constantly topping up the kids/adult drinks in the fridge.

The extra freezer space I'd like for taking advantage of occasional deals or some batch cooking, but I'm never going to be the kind of person who buys 10kg of meat at a time.

But if you tend to buy a lot of meat/veg in bulk and/or do a lot of batch cooking, then a freezer only would probably work better for you.

[TheBermudaTriangle]

Oh don't @FinallyHere - this is what I'm flip flopping about! I don't want to have to look at it every day, thinking 'should've just gone for the FF' haha

[NiqueNique]

We buy our meat monthly or sometimes even bi-monthly and I also batch cook a lot so we have an extra full-size freezer in the shed. I’ve found it much more useful than a fridge/freezer would be. But we don’t do an awful lot of entertaining and when we do it’s small numbers these days so we’ve enough room in our day-to-day fridge for drinks and so on.

[TheBermudaTriangle]

Thank you @Triffid1 and @NiqueNique - I am also conscious that I don't want to clutter up our garage space too much either (as tempting as a FF might be), so maybe a single standing freezer is the way to go.

PP have also made a good point about outside temperatures and I could use our shed outbuilding to store drinks, veg etc at cooler temperatures (next to the lawnmower, camping equipment and spiders...!)

[NiqueNique]

Yes, although if you’re storing veg/consumables in outbuildings make sure you get rat-proof containers!