Need deep freezer chest advice :( long post

[wegotchickens]

Saturday night I got a pork roast, bacon, beef, and spaghetti sauce out of the freezer. I stood and listened to the vacuum seal make it's usual suction noise. I was sure the door had closed.

Sunday at 5pm DH says, "Now I don't want you to get upset, but... the alarm for the freezer was going off. The door wasn't closed all the way." He said he didn't think it was that bad. He'd been in & out of the basement all day, so I was sure that he'd have heard the alarm if it had gone off any earlier. I remained calm & finished what I was doing.

When I finally did go downstairs I was horrified. There was a puddle drying by the freezer door. The red 'bad light' was still on. When I opened the freezer I found that most of the apple and peach slices I'd bagged were completely thawed. Some ice cream had melted bad enough to leak from the carton. All these things were near the top of the chest. The bottom had all the meat stored tightly packed in 2 drawers. The meat was vacuum packed and seemed just as hard-frozen as before.

Do you think the meat will be okay over the next 3 months?
I know all the fruits will have to become jams & butters now.
And there will be zuchini bread and lots of veggies with dinner the next few nights.
But we just can't eat that much meat that fast!

 

[Tn Gamebirds]

If the meat was still frozen hard it will be fine i would think.
Nothing to worry about

 

[HennysMom]

if the meat was still frozen - then you're okay... if it thawed... then you will have to cook it and then re-freeze it in dishes you make with it.

I've had that happen before

and we ended up having a "cooking weekend" - where sauces, soups, stews were made and food-savered. It was quite the pain but in the end, it all worked out because I ended up having "all ready made" food in the freezer for those nights I didnt feel like cooking.

I'm sorry this happened to you but hopefully you can save the meats.

ETA: make a veggie soup with the veggies

Use some chicken and/or beef stock and make a wonderful veggie soup!

 

[sred98]

I agree...if the meat was still frozen, it's still good! Veggie soup sounds like a good idea!

You could also make apple and peach pies and freeze them, if you didn't want to make them all into jelly. Cobblers freeze well, too. Thank goodness the meat was still frozen!

Shelly

 

[chickendaddyjim]

I am so sorry for you. I know how you feel but I didn't find mine till everything thawed out. We had just bought our upright and the men that delivered it laid it flat in the truck and did not tell us brought it in the house and plugged it up. It cooled for a couple of weeks and then one day I went in and everything was ruined leaked everywhere. The company I bought it from sent a repair man and he said the compressor was burnt up. so we tried to get them to replace it they said that they would have to get in touch with GE. this went on for 3 weeks . Finally I called GE myself and they sent me a new one strait from the factory and sent me a check for 250 dollars to cover the cost of the food that was lost. It wasnt GE's fault it was the delivery men. It didn't cover half of my stuff that was in there, but it helped. I lost all my veggies I grew myself, not to mention all of my meat, dear, turkeys, chicken hamburger ham.ect. boy what a mess my dogs sure got to eat very good.

 

[wegotchickens]

Thanks, TNgamebirds. I was hoping it would be fine, since it still looked and felt like a brick of meat-colored ice. But I was afraid I might be missing some little bit of info that I needed to consider.

Henny's Mom, the soup is a wonderful idea. I'm really hoping the meat will beokay because there is more there than I can cook up even in a week. Lots of roasts and whole chickens. Family-type meals meant to generate lots of leftovers. So I'm sure hoping I don't have to process it all at once.

sred, I've enevr frozen a cooked cobbler but I guess I will have to try. When I put all those peaches & apples away I'd placcned on having cobbler regularly all winter and I really don't want to give that up!

chickendaddyjim, I cried when I carried up those thawed bags full of fruits and veggies. All that work! DH kept saying "It's only food! It could've been worse!" And while I know that's true, I still felt so upset!! It took me a few minutes of mourning the loss of my plans before I could count my blessings. I am very very grateful it did not ALL thaw.

Thanks for the input everyone!
I'm starting to think that packing the frozen meat down low, and tightly together, may be what saved it. I had put the bagged stuff near the top and it was not tightly packed at all. Plus, not as dense as roasts and such.

 

[seismic wonder2]

If the vacuume packed stuff was thawed but still chilled everything will be just fine. re-freez it.

If it was just like wrapped in plastic, thawed but still cool, cook it.

If it was at room temp for more than an hour or two, toss it. not worth the risk.

Ice cream on the other hand.....can't help ya there.

 

[wegotchickens]

Quote:
Nothing was room temp. Even the fruit still had some ice crystals and was cold to the touch. But definitely soft and too thawed to refreeze.

The vacuum packed meat seemed to be still hard as a rock. Glad to know it could be refrozen without trouble.
I'll check on the chicken, though. I had a couple of packets that had the chicken in halves. I don't think those were vacuum packed, since there are stryrofoam platters holding the meat in place. Those packs may need to be brought up and eaten.

Yeah, DH is disgusted about the ice cream. He'd been wanting to get into it for days. We actually put it in the freezer upstairs, unopened, to see if it was still edible after it refroze.

 

[greyfields]

It would take 24-48 hours at room temperature for the meat to actually thaw out. I wouldn't worry too much.

The fruit/vegetables, however, would have thawed more quickly. They've probably lost quite a bit of quality. You don't have pigs by chance, do you?

 

[wegotchickens]

Nope, no pigs.
I figure apple butter & peach butter are in my future. The fruit thawed more mushy than I had expected...