Don't Trust Your Freezer

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  • I used to live in South Florida and The Keys. I am seeing far too many people on MDS talking about what they have in their freezers for SHTF. For as much political BS we deal with here, we are mostly shielded from Mother Nature's wrath here in Marylandistan.
    As a "survivor" of several actual hurricanes (I am unaware of Maryland ever dealing with a true hurricane- Agnes in 1972 was a tropical storm)
    I know that the power grid can't be trusted and all freezers eventually fail. MDS members need to know how to preserve meats via table salt or curing salts. Please do some research and buy some Cure #1 and Cure #2. Your life will really suck if you lose power for a week and have no means to keep your freezers <25f.
    I'm just sayin...
     

    Archeryrob

    Undecided on a great many things
    Mar 7, 2013
    3,064
    Washington Co. - Fairplay
    even with Pink salt (cure #1) you need time and cold temps to cure it. Then smoke it to make pests uninterested in it. #2 is for dry curing and unless your basement is very chilly you're not doing it there either.

    Without cold temps you are not preserving meat for long periods without drying it. It also will not be like the jerky you buy in the stores. That has too much moisture to preserve long term. Long term jerky you need to chew just to re-hydrate just to eat. I used to make some like that in pepper and stopped as i got so many complaints. "its tough and hard to chew"
     

    Traveler

    Lighten up Francis
    Jan 18, 2013
    8,227
    AA County
    I love the legitimate jerky. It's supposed to take some effort to tear off and chew. Back in the old west, I believe they would re-hydrate it in stews.
     

    Archeryrob

    Undecided on a great many things
    Mar 7, 2013
    3,064
    Washington Co. - Fairplay
    I have made real jerky and cross cutting the grain is extremely important, if you don't want to loosen your teeth or unless is small enough cuts to fit as one bite. I did it as black pepper flavor and just slowly chew and your saliva re-hydrates it as you chew. I have great memories of the flavor of sucking that saliva back out of the re hydrated jerky.
     

    Alphabrew

    Binary male Lesbian
    MDS Supporter
    Jan 27, 2013
    40,749
    Woodbine
    100% agreed. We were damn fortunate to have functioning utilities during quarantine. Can’t always count on being that lucky. Also freezers can fail, kids can leave the door ajar, etc. Lots can go wrong with relying on a constant flow of electricity.
     

    bratgirllcp

    Ultimate Member
    Jan 13, 2013
    2,795
    Grasonville MD
    Be thankful you have a freezer, ours failed in May none available maybe in January I have a few places who will contact me when they are available I was also warned not to go to Lowes, Home Depot, they are very happy to take you $$ and months later still no freezer and people have hard time getting money returned sorry i vented!
     

    E.Shell

    Ultimate Member
    Feb 5, 2007
    10,245
    Mid-Merlind
    I had one die and lost 2 deer and about 30# of fish from a Hattaras trip. It quit while I was away for the weekend and was dripping a fine blend of fish juice, deer blood and fox bait when I got home...
     

    bratgirllcp

    Ultimate Member
    Jan 13, 2013
    2,795
    Grasonville MD
    I had one die and lost 2 deer and about 30# of fish from a Hattaras trip. It quit while I was away for the weekend and was dripping a fine blend of fish juice, deer blood and fox bait when I got home...

    oh my gosh i thought i had a mess to deal with I feel you pain
     

    Pinecone

    Ultimate Member
    MDS Supporter
    Feb 4, 2013
    28,175
    I love the legitimate jerky. It's supposed to take some effort to tear off and chew. Back in the old west, I believe they would re-hydrate it in stews.

    The basis of chili.

    And Hungarian goulyash (a soup, not the Americanized version).

    Both were based on making dried (REALLY dried) beef edible.
     

    engineerbrian

    JMB fan club
    Sep 3, 2010
    10,148
    Fredneck
    Years ago as a kid our vertical freezer that was full of meat tripped the breaker and we didnt find it until a few days later. Dad reset the breaker, re froze everything and took the contents of the freezer to the dump.

    To this day I run all of my freezers on their own dedicated circuits and have multiple freezers to lessen the blow of a a failure
     

    Harrys

    Short Round
    Jul 12, 2014
    3,362
    SOMD
    We can meat and vegies learned from my grand ma at 8 years old, wife country girl too. One of the best canned meats is pickled heart. Boil the heart until done, make a bread and butter pickle brine, cut the heart in strips about 1/2 inch then can them, typical HW bath. We also can venison, pork, chicken and turkey. I use to do a lot of smoking but canning is easier yup a slacker.
     

    cmb

    Active Member
    Dec 28, 2012
    499
    Conowingo MD
    Be thankful you have a freezer, ours failed in May none available maybe in January I have a few places who will contact me when they are available I was also warned not to go to Lowes, Home Depot, they are very happy to take you $$ and months later still no freezer and people have hard time getting money returned sorry i vented!
    Wife's Cousin was on two waiting lists for freezers. They found one at Martin's Appliance in Quarryville PA. There were two left out of 6 at the time.Price was less than they were quoted at the other stores for the same freezers. Might be worth checking-out.
     

    -Mil-Surp-Phreak-

    Ultimate Member
    Feb 26, 2007
    2,187
    Gaithersburg
    Be thankful you have a freezer, ours failed in May none available maybe in January I have a few places who will contact me when they are available I was also warned not to go to Lowes, Home Depot, they are very happy to take you $$ and months later still no freezer and people have hard time getting money returned sorry i vented!

    What size are you looking for? We have been getting a steady supply of the Media chest freezers for customers and I have been able to get basic white 21CF Fridges from GE and Fridgedair in about 3-5 business day turnaround at my Lowe's in Kentlands. Shoot me a PM with what you are looking for and I can see what I can do, non-commission based and out of the ProDesk so no incentive for me to take your money for a vaporware product.
     

    lazarus

    Ultimate Member
    Jun 23, 2015
    13,680
    I had one die and lost 2 deer and about 30# of fish from a Hattaras trip. It quit while I was away for the weekend and was dripping a fine blend of fish juice, deer blood and fox bait when I got home...

    That’s awful.

    Won’t do much for you if you are away, but I highly recommend a temperature alarm for your freezer. You can get them for like $10-15 on amazon. Temp probe goes in the freezer and it displays the temp on the outside and will alarm if it gets above the set point you out in.

    Mine alerted me that my wife forgot to close the lid once after it had been open.

    I’ve got a spare fridge (that is in use), chest freezer and as a backup two mini fridges that were converted to fermentation chambers for brewing. But can easily be used as temporary freezers. They’ll get down to low teens if you crank them to the max. That and cramming the freezer space in my fridges would likely save everything in the chest freezer.

    As for power, I’ve got enough genny juice to keep all the cold things cold running twice a day for an hour for about 5-6 weeks before I’d need to siphon cars. About another 5-7 weeks of fuel in the vehicles at any given time.
     

    Blaster229

    God loves you, I don't.
    MDS Supporter
    Sep 14, 2010
    46,410
    Glen Burnie
    That’s awful.



    Won’t do much for you if you are away, but I highly recommend a temperature alarm for your freezer. You can get them for like $10-15 on amazon. Temp probe goes in the freezer and it displays the temp on the outside and will alarm if it gets above the set point you out in.

    I have an alarm as well, with 2 sensors, 1 for each freezer. The base unit is on my fridge upstairs.
    The thing is, it's from China. The ridiculous instructions must have been written by a 4th grade English student from Quan Zhou.

    I know it seems easy, but for the life of me I can't get both sensor settings to match.
    Sensor 1 shows 2 degrees temp, and my minimum alarm setting is at 0, with maximum set at -18. Lol
    Sensor 2 shows 5 degrees temp, with minimum at 2 degrees and maximum 9.

    4 buttons with 1 button dedicated to each sensor. So the buttons are like dual purpose.
    I dunno. Just when I'm tapping the correct burton for the numbers for min and max settings, something changes or something. It's the damnedest thing.
    So here I am with these crazy numbers because I'm afraid to mess with those fvcking buttons.
    Lol. A $15 item has beaten me down. China won.

    What temp settings do you have for the alarm to go off?
     

    Archeryrob

    Undecided on a great many things
    Mar 7, 2013
    3,064
    Washington Co. - Fairplay
    We can meat and vegies learned from my grand ma at 8 years old, wife country girl too. One of the best canned meats is pickled heart. Boil the heart until done, make a bread and butter pickle brine, cut the heart in strips about 1/2 inch then can them, typical HW bath. We also can venison, pork, chicken and turkey. I use to do a lot of smoking but canning is easier yup a slacker.

    Thank you, I made Pickled heart last year and the recipe didn't have sugar and was going to add that this year. We made B&B pickles and I'll use that brine for the heart this year.

    :thumbsup:

    We might cold pack some meat and pressure cook it and experiment with cubing deer and packing vegetable and spices for ready made quart soups or stews you just add flour too. I still don't understand why you can't have a slight bit of flour in the water.
     

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