Okay, so this is a really lame topic but it is what is on my mind today.
We need to buy a new Chest freezer. Our current one is about 9 cubic feet and it runs 1/2-3/4 full depending on where I am in a once a month cooking cycle. I like being able to throw a 20 pound bag of ice down there occasionally or a series of cakes without having to shuffle things around.
So now we are debating if we should go bigger or stay about the same size.
There are 2 schools of thought, I guess.
On the one hand I don't want to hoard food in there. I want my food on a rotation cycle through there so things don't go to waste and so I can keep track of what I have.
On the other hand we do have a lot of boys and our future freezer needs may increase somewhat. It would give us flexibility to buy parts of cows and stuff on occasion.
I am thinking we may go somewhere between a 9-12 cubic foot freezer.
Also Energy Star versus just efficient- any thoughts on that?
So what is your chest freezer strategy? How do you keep things organized? Uprights are an option I guess we could consider- better organization but not as flexible for awkward sized items etc...
Tell me!
4 comments:
Ok I just asked Paul how big our freezers are. We have two uprights. He said they are 14 cubic feet each! We originally had one and was able to put in 1/4 cow, 1/2 pig and 12 or so chickens. THis year we bought 1/2 cow, 1/2 pig and 6 chickens. Plus I buy milk from a farm and freeze it, since the farm is 1.5 hours away. We need the freezer space. This also enabled me to freeze 12 or so meals for after baby came. I was the one who wanted uprights and now that we have two, I'm glad we went that way. Can't imagine having two chest freezers down there. I'd definitely go bigger than smaller. You won't regret that. And you might want to consider the upright, especially if you end up buying another like we did (and if that's another "boy" bun in the oven).
Unless you need it to hold a large animal carcass or don't have a tall enough space, I'd probably go with the upright. The shelves are nice for keeping everything organized.
I haven't looked at freezers but when we were shopping for our refrigerator I found that there was little if any difference in price for the Energy Star models. I would work on the assumption that energy prices are going to increase over the life of the unit so spending a little more for a more efficient one is probably worth it.
I would definitely recommend an upright freezer. I tend to keep items in certain locations throughout the freezer that way I know what to make based on where I have voids. The door space is wonderful and the wire drawer on the bottom keeps my fresh bread from getting smashed before it is completely frozen. We currently have a 20+ cubic foot freezer that is located in our garage (closest spot to the kitchen). It makes unloading the car a breeze.
Wow. Really wierd. The spam verification word was "chest".
I ordered the 13.7cu upright. We were going to buy the 8.8cu chest, but we found out it didn't have a lock on it. Going to the 12-13cu range, the upright will fit a lot better than the chest of that size.
The other interesting thing is I ordered it from Steve's Appliance, which is a local family-owned, Christian-run business. So when they put me on hold I was listening to KTIS, and they were playing that John Waller song with the lyric, "I will worship while I'm waiting,"
:)
Thanks for the input!
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