How To Use Chest Freezer For Food Preservation
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Are you aware that despite being the best for preserving foods, you may still experience food spoilage with a chest freezer?
Anyhow, this is why you need to learn how to store your food items properly. Otherwise, you will not enjoy your chest freezer to its fullest potential.
Now that you have probably gotten your chest freezer, you can follow all the steps discussed here to preserve your food properly. And if you’ve not gotten yours yet, check out kismile official website for various options.
9 Ways To Preserve Food In A Chest Freezer
Organize the Freezer
The first step to preserving food items in a chest freezer is ensuring they are well organized. It helps you maximize space to preserve your food and makes them easily accessible. And most importantly, you will be aware of the food you have and the duration at which you have had them. This will help you assist you with preventing buying food that you already have, saving you from food waste and extra spending. So, how do you organize your chest freezer? By doing the following
- Create time to arrange your freezer
- Declutter expired foods and deep clean
- Divide the food Items Into classes to prevent mixup
- Place similar foods items in baskets or storage bins and organize them in layers
- Arrange the food items using their expiry dates
- Label all the foods for identification purposes
Put in Only Foods that Freeze Well
If you want your foods to be frozen well, put in only foods that are freezer friendly. Nothing is more heartbreaking than putting all effort into making a delicious meal only to discover that the taste and look have been altered after freezing it.
Store Only Clean and Fresh Foods
Ensure all food items are washed before placing them in the freezer. Also, do not store foods already showing the slightest hint of contamination or spoilage.
Avoid Freezing Hot Foods
Heated foods should cool before they are placed in the freezer. This is because freezing hot or warm foods has the potential to increase the freezer temperature and can cause the existing frozen foods to thaw. In addition, splitting up the food into smaller pieces can help accelerate the freezing process.
Freeze Cool Foods Immediately.
Transfer all frozen foods purchased from the store to the freezer immediately after you get home. This is to ensure they are not exposed to room temperature for long.
Set Your Chest Freezer to 0° F (-18° C) or Cooler.
Store foods at 0° F (-18° C) or lower, which is the recommended temperature for freezing foods. This temperature level should be consistent to prevent the freezer from warming up. You can do this by avoiding opening the freezer door unnecessarily.
Freeze Foods in Small Quantities.
Big chunks of food will take several hours to freeze, so you should cut the food items into small portions so they can freeze quickly. This will also assist you to avoid defrosting more than enough food items.
Freeze Foods in Transparent Freezer Friendly Containers
You should freeze all food items in transparent sealable bags or rigid containers. Using sealed containers helps to prevent air from entering the food so that it can remain fresh.
The sealable plastic bags should be positioned flat in the freezer so that they can be piled up vertically to save space. The transparent rigid containers can be made of either plastic or glass, and they are suitable for all foods, especially liquid and semi-solid ones.
Also, they can be placed over each other in layers to organize your freezer.
Whatever container you choose to use, either bags, plastic or glass containers, just be sure to check if they are freezer-friendly or not.
Know When To Throw Foods Out
Constantly check frozen foods for expiry dates, and make sure you avoid freezing expired foods. However, if you are unsure how long a food has been kept in the freezer, toss it in the trash.
This problem can be averted by sticking to a constant turnover of food. You can accomplish this by using older food products before the new ones.
Conclusion
When you want to preserve foods in a chest freezer, it is necessary to carry out the First In, First Out (FIFO) technique. Use foods that have spent the most time in the freezer ahead of the newer ones. This will help you avert food waste, contamination and also save you from excess food costs.
