Deep freezer organization

Ragingirishman2 · February 15

I was freezer diving the other night looking for some chicken and thinking I needed better organization instead of just dropping everything in there. I was thinking of some bins to organize chicken, ground beef, etc. Does anyone else do this?

GrateEggspectations · February 15

I try, but it is an uphill battle. I keep all portioned and vac sealed meat in the bottom bin of a standup freezer, with other items on shelves with a modest level of organization.

For a while, I kept a meticulous record of the freezer’s contents. I loved the utility, but it was not without some effort to always keep up to date.

When putting portioned items in the freezer, I almost always indicate both quantity and weight along with a date and a description (E.g., Chicken Breasts (2), 1 LB, November 2024). Makes it so easy when looking at recipes and comparing against my inventory.

Ragingirishman2 · February 15

Everything I vac sealed I label what it is, the weight and date. My issue is that it’s all mixed in with other stuff like a whole turkey, ham, and other stuff that just sits in the bottom of the chest freezer. I did a big clean out last year so I need to get some organization in place this year

alaskanassasin · February 15

I use the produce bins and drawers I have kept from old refrigerators to separate the major protein categories.

DoubleEgger · February 15

Large bags might be an option. More flexible than crates.

GrateEggspectations · February 15

DoubleEgger said:

Large bags might be an option. More flexible than crates.

A good thought. I only like see through containers, because I never use what I can’t readily see from the fridge and freezer.

dbCooper · February 15

Organization is the easy part, maintaining it is harder, especially if your better half is the "stuff it in and close the door" type. Overall it's a minor thing but frustrating.

caliking · February 15

When we had a chest freezer, we would keep frozen gallon jugs of water as a bottom layer. Helped keep things out of that black hole that is the bottom of every freezer

milk crates are also useful for organizing chest freezers.

Over here, a painter’s tape label/sticker goes on the door whenever something goes in. When that item is pulled out of the freezer, the sticker gets peeled off the door. This works well for us, as you can easily see what’s in the freezer at any given time. We found this easier than maintaining a freezer inventory spreadsheet, or a white/dry erase board.

Ragingirishman2 · February 15

dbCooper said:

Organization is the easy part, maintaining it is harder, especially if your better half is the "stuff it in and close the door" type. Overall it's a minor thing but frustrating.

The chest freezer is my domain. The pantry and fridge are in a constant state of me re-organizing as she just puts things where ever.

MaskedMarvel · February 15

I gut mine about once every year. Some of that stuff needs to get eaten. So. Many. Chicken breasts!!!

Anyway - I do a lot of pulled pork by the pound and sell it with a jar of sauce. I just got let go from my job, and I’ll have about 150 lbs getting picked up in a week or so. So - I acquired a chest freezer. It doesn’t normally run. It lives on the deck under a waterproof bag cover. And it’ll hold about 200 pounds of individually frozen pulled porks.

Made trying to keep the stand up freezer WAY easier.

MaskedMarvel · February 15

Fridge:

Fridge door has condiments, butter, hot sauces, some wine bottle height stuff. Easy grab high use.

Top shelf is drinks.
Next down is “easy in easy out” - leftovers and stuff that can be grabbed or dropped in that don’t need to be cooked. Snacks.
next is jars - bbq sauces, pickles. Not condiments. Those are in the door.

Next is the raw shelf. Everything there has to be cooked to be eaten. And - it’s easy to clean that shelf.

Short drawer is easy in/out ready to eat cheeses and meats. A few specialty condiments like German mustard that looks like a tube of toothpaste.

Middle drawer is the low humidity - fruits. Berries.

Bottom drawer is high humidity - vegetables.

Kitchen freezer is fancy ice, ice cream and some frozen sugary stuff, occasional liquor bottles, and quick in/out meats and veg .. everything gets it’s shelf - anything that doesn’t belong gets moved to the upright deep freezer.

MaskedMarvel · February 15

FREEZER-

top shelf - soup containers. Stocks. All those things that are easy grab and can be just set in the fridge for thawing easily. There is a box of high end breakfast sausages up there too.

Next shelf - heaviest. Giant ass turkey. Pork butts. Brisket. Things that are chest high for lifting and bulky. Mostly meats.

Next down - bags of vacuumed super hot peppers and bags of smoked pork butt. The peppers are sealed about four to a bag (I use less per batch, usually) and then are in just grocery bags to keep them together, and the bags of butt are sealed by the pound and then set into aluminum half pans - five pounds per pan. There’s 35 pounds in there right now. I can tell just from counting the pans.

Next shelf down is ready to eat cooked - only needs thawing. We had TONS left over from our wedding. That’s what’s mostly there. The bags are not weighed, but they are stacked in a metal hotel pan that’s maybe 4” deep to keep them from going everywhere.

Pull out bottom wire basket/drawer is bags - mostly easy frozen veg from Costco, some chicken nuggets. That style of thing.

The door has each shelf for each type of meat. Chicken breasts. Pork chops. Beef. Seafood (and my jars of smoked Wagyu beef tallow).. And there’s a “cooked” shelf where it just needs to be thawed to eat. That shelf also has the freezer packs for coolers.

Everything is dated - sometimes we write on the vac bag, many time I just use scotch tape and fold the end over itself for easy removal.

FINAL NOTE - we got some of those cheap plastic organizers. For example - soda water is sideways in a plastic rack that makes it A LOT EASIER. stuff like that.

Good luck hope it helps.

RRP · February 15

Not the answer you were looking for but this is the reason I'm such a fan of an upright over a chest style. Granted things can always get pushed to the back of a shelf, BUT the back of an upright shelf is not as deep as the bottom of a chest. Each shelf level is reserved for one kind of meat and ONLY that kind. In 58 years we have only had 3 such freezers and every one has resided in our garage and even here in IL that has never been a problem. The door has ample storage even by itself and that's where I store all the frozen soups I make plus small items. The only thing I miss in our current 21 year old one is the previous two had pull out wire baskets at the very bottom. In my next life when I buy one it will have that basket for sure unless I'm in Hell then I can't have a freezer there anyway...

alaskanassasin · February 15

Love the upright @RRP rocking the pull out basket as well. It’s full of burger

Canugghead · February 15

@caliking you have room for jugs of water? amateur

Stormbringer · February 15

I have an Excel spreadsheet with what is in each shelf, when it went into the freezer and when it needs to be eaten by.

caliking · February 15

Canugghead said:

@caliking you have room for jugs of water? amateur

caliqueen couldn’t reach the bottom of that freezer without falling in

kl8ton · February 15

I had this going at one point. I think I got the bins from the webstaurant store. Label maker labels with peel off pretty easily if I ran out on a product.

kl8ton · February 15

I switched from chest freezers to upright for easy access.

With a chest freezer you could employ a bin method and stack them on top of each other.

Find bins that just fit in your chest freezer and organize the meats in the bins (or vegetables if you're wasting freezer space on those). You can then quickly pull out bins to freezer dive. It becomes a 30 second affair instead of frozen hands and 5 minutes of digging in the mountain of frozen meat as you grab that 20 lb brisket off the bottom of the freezer and the rest of the contents caves in to fill the void.

johnmitchell · February 15

@kl8ton Sweet.I trust you have a backup generator

RRP · February 15

kl8ton said:

I had this going at one point. I think I got the bins from the webstaurant store. Label maker labels with peel off pretty easily if I ran out on a product.

IMPRESSIVE How big is that sucker? And where do you have it located?

danhoo · February 16

I use cloth grocery bags for anything smaller than 5 lbs.

lkapigian · February 16

I’ll be switching to a upright for sure for my next one , that being said my chest freezer is strictly for extra sausage , bones for stock etc , rarely make food from frozen

MrCookingNurse06 · February 16

caliking said:

When we had a chest freezer, we would keep frozen gallon jugs of water as a bottom layer. Helped keep things out of that black hole that is the bottom of every freezer milk crates are also useful for organizing chest freezers.

Over here, a painter’s tape label/sticker goes on the door whenever something goes in. When that item is pulled out of the freezer, the sticker gets peeled off the door. This works well for us, as you can easily see what’s in the freezer at any given time. We found this easier than maintaining a freezer inventory spreadsheet, or a white/dry erase board.

I may have to try the painters tape labels!!

we have an upright as many have already said. That’s a game changer

JohnInCarolina · February 16

kl8ton said:

I had this going at one point. I think I got the bins from the webstaurant store. Label maker labels with peel off pretty easily if I ran out on a product.

What’s that, about one week’s supply at your house?

Ragingirishman2 · February 16

kl8ton said:

I switched from chest freezers to upright for easy access.

With a chest freezer you could employ a bin method and stack them on top of each other.

Find bins that just fit in your chest freezer and organize the meats in the bins (or vegetables if you're wasting freezer space on those). You can then quickly pull out bins to freezer dive. It becomes a 30 second affair instead of frozen hands and 5 minutes of digging in the mountain of frozen meat as you grab that 20 lb brisket off the bottom of the freezer and the rest of the contents caves in to fill the void.

You know the struggle. Wow, that pic of your freezer is impressive.

shtgunal3 · February 16

@kl8ton impressive! What’s in the Melissa shelf?

kl8ton · February 16

johnmitchell said:

@kl8ton Sweet.I trust you have a backup generator

I do.

kl8ton · February 16

@RRP
I don't know how big it was. I bought it used. I looked up similar units and maybe it was 49 cubic feet? It was in the garage. Barely fit under the 8 foot overhead door.

@shtgunal3 haha! Not pieces of someone I murdered. It was for space I lent to SIL. We bought a couple steers that forced the freezer purchase.

All in all it was a very expensive endeavor. I probably had 3 grand in service work and shelves and bins. Two or three "emergency service calls" as I didn't just have another freezer to put the stuff in while this one was repaired. If I were to do it again, I would buy new. The money I saved buying one and a half steers, I spent on keeping the freezer going and organized. I never fully trusted that machine. Buying SRF or prime stuff at the butcher counter is cheap in comparison.

Deep freezer organization

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