Food in a chest freezer after a power outage

[ILiveInFlipFlops]

I know that the rule is something like 48 hours in a full freezer. But what if it's been more than 48 hours and the items are still solid? Some things in the freezer (near the top) were softening, like the frozen fruit. But there was a pound of ground beef that was solid, and a strip of vac-packed chicken that was at the bottom that was still solid. Even the individually vac-packed salmon fillets were still solid and clunked together like bricks when I brought them up.

 

Should I go by time, or by state of frozenness? If something was still mostly solid but softening around the edges (the sausages), would you treat it as if it were in the fridge at the point (so, say, 48 hours until spoilage)?

 

We didn't lose much in the fridge, but we stand to lose a few hundred $$ worth of stuff from the freezer *sigh* Still, I'll take that over an insurance deductible and home damage (or worse) any day.

 

Hurricanes stink.

Edited November 2, 2012 by Sweet Morning Air

[Carrie12345]

Logically, I'd think everything that's still solid is fine. But the paranoid part of me would treat it like it was refrigerated, cook it up, and then freeze the cooked product.

[ILiveInFlipFlops]

Logically, I'd think everything that's still solid is fine. But the paranoid part of me would treat it like it was refrigerated, cook it up, and then freeze the cooked product.

 

Interestingly, I was just researching, and several reliable sites say that if the foods still contain ice crystals, they can be refrozen (most things, not all). I would imagine that foods frozen enough to clunk when moved would be safe to go ahead and refreeze based on that.

 

I think I'll still cook as much of it as I can in the next few days, but I feel SO much better about the freezer right now. It takes a little bit of the sting out of having to throw away pretty much everything in our refrigerator :(

 

Thanks Carrie. I'm glad you guys fared pretty well up there!

[Tammi K]

Interestingly, I was just researching, and several reliable sites say that if the foods still contain ice crystals, they can be refrozen (most things, not all). I would imagine that foods frozen enough to clunk when moved would be safe to go ahead and refreeze based on that.

 

I think I'll still cook as much of it as I can in the next few days, but I feel SO much better about the freezer right now. It takes a little bit of the sting out of having to throw away pretty much everything in our refrigerator :(

 

Thanks Carrie. I'm glad you guys fared pretty well up there!

 

Bold part is exactly what I was going to say. Generally, if it's still frozen inside, it's still safe.

[ILiveInFlipFlops]

Bold part is exactly what I was going to say. Generally, if it's still frozen inside, it's still safe.

 

Thanks Tammi. This is our first time facing anything like this*, so I had no idea what the guidelines are. I'm going to go down and pick through it all now so I know where we stand. We'll be eating a lot of sausage and peppers and chicken soup over the next few days!

 

*knocking on wood, throwing salt over my shoulder, spitting twice, making the sign of the horns

[Denise in IN]

Go by the state of frozenness. If they're frozen, it doesn't really matter if they freezer was on or off, does it? :001_smile:

 

Meat: as long as it's solid or mostly solid, I would consider it frozen and just let it in the freezer. If it's thawed but cold (and it sounds like the freezer was still pretty cold), then I'd cook it.

 

Fruits/Vegetables: If they're thawed but cold, then they can just refreeze. They won't be "individually frozen", but they'll be fine.

 

Anything that's fully cooked can be frozen again.

 

Hope you don't lose too much food!

[Bassoonaroo]

Frozen is frozen.

 

So, if anything is frozen it's good!

 

One thing we do is keep something in the freezer to indicate how thawed things got, if the power comes back on before we're aware of it. You know, sometimes you go on vacation for a week and come back and the lights are flashing on the digital clocks and you know the power went out, but don't know how long. Check the ice cream, popsicles, or ice cubes. If they are out of shape, ask your neighbors about how bad things really were...

 

When the fire came through this summer, we returned to flashing clocks but were elated to see our ice cubes all separate. Neighbors had their power out for days and their freezer thawed and leaked and ruined their floor! We were confident that our food was okay; we've now eaten a lot of it and are fine.

[justLisa]

If it's mostly solid I'd keep it. Thawed fruit can be pureed and frozen in ice cube things for smoothies! Or just make baked goods or jam with them and refreeze

[Mama Geek]

When we sat out a cat 1 hurricane in VA a few years ago and were without power for 12 days, we didn't get into our chest freezer for the first week. We ate strictly out of our fridge freezer combo. We ate things in the order in which they thawed. We got together with friends and had cooking parties. We lost a little and shared some with friends, but it wasn't a problem to eat stuff out of the freezer as long as it was still partly frozen or had been cold only a day or 2.

[butterflymommy]

I was in the same spot this week (48 hrs no power and the freezer was only 3/4 full). I decided to keep everything except what had already been in there too long. So far we've eaten butter and spinach from the freezer and I'm ok.