Food in the Freezer in Powercuts ...?

[diamond lil]

What's the best way of dealing with frozen food if you had a powercut ? Is there a set procedure that other preppers all know and I don't ? We just start eating the stuff in the fridge first, trying not to open the freezer doors at all for as long as poss. Then we eat any cooked foods in the freezer, and lastly we cook raw food and make it last as long as possible. What do others do ?

[Carrot Cruncher]

Its recommended that the fuller (is that a word?) the freezer the longer things will stay frozen, so if you have advance warning etc fill some pastic bags with water and chuck them in as well

[diamond lil]

Can you put plastic bottles of water in the freezer for storage ?

[Carrot Cruncher]

You would have to leave room at the top for the water to expand as it freezes, some plastics get very brittle at cold temps as well.

[diamond lil]

Yes knew you had to leave room but didnt know how tough it would be in extreme cold. Suppose the only way is to try it...

[the-gnole]

We have a stack of chemical cool box blocks in the freezer and it is always pretty full, also have a lot of "disposable" stuff in there, but if I had a big value of meat in there the best thing is to deal with that first, pork, beef etc is a case of cook it and keep in a cool place and eat as much as possible, also check if anyone else has got power, not all power cuts are wide-spread, it may be 1 in 3 houses if the contractors used a 3 phase cable and use seperate phases to each house.

I used to hear people say stuff the freezer with old newspapers and/or hay.

[Carrot Cruncher]

Carrier Bags/bin bags etc are made from LDPE and are fine at low temps, most "pop" bottles are made from PET which isn't so good. Worth a try though.

[diamond lil]

Ok ta

[Red Doe]

The main thing in a powercut is to NOT open your freezer, I believe most chest freezers are ok for forty eight hours, smaller uprights, twenty four, before the food begins defrosting.
Newspaper, hay etc can all be used to pack around the stuff and acts almost like a vacuum flask, insulating the food from warming temperatures.
But in a power cut we had last winter, it was so very cold out there and very deep snow, we just put most of the stuff outside where we knew the fox or birds wouldn`t reach it. Kept colder than in the ruddy freezer! (temps were minus 24 mind you)

[Red Doe]

Meant to add, I remember gran managing many years without a fridge! She had a pantry which was cold, and kept milk in jugs and bottles by standing them in a butler skink of shallow cold water, with towelling draped over them, this wicked the cold water round the jug or bottle and kept it cold.
Meat was simply kept in an old metal meat safe or covered in mutton cloth or muslin. It was also cooked quickly.