How well does food keep in freezers during a power outage?
Posted by dbdCobra@reddit | preppers | View on Reddit | 75 comments
Two weeks ago, a huge storm rolled through and knocked out our power. Our freezer was almost full to the brink. That night, I went out and bought some immediate supplies plus a bag of small ice. The outage lasted 48 hours to the mark. The ice kept perfectly (It was right at the door of the freezer). I also had some frozen pizzas, microwaveable meals..etc. I also got Lunchmeat and cheese, which I placed on the ice. Does anyone think it kept? I read this thing about "Hot Spots" in freezers during outages. Just wanted to justify throwing out food.
Ancient_Decision4194@reddit
Lunch meat is two words, not one and doesn't need capitalization unless starting a sentence.
Correct term is deli meat, or meat from the deli, or delicatessen.
Ok?
dbdCobra@reddit (OP)
Really....?
Ancient_Decision4194@reddit
well, just that its dumb and incorrect. That's all.
Mel691@reddit
Should have bought dry ice
Decent-Apple9772@reddit
Do you have mental problems?
Have you never used a cooler or refrigerator before in your life?
Maybe some of the food started to melt a bit. Who cares? Unless it’s ice cream you were going to thaw it before you eat it anyways.
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dbdCobra@reddit (OP)
Wow that seems like a incredibly rude response. I never had a power outage more than a few hours ever in my life. Let alone 2 days. I think this was a fair question to ask.
Polar_san_@reddit
Depends on how big is the freezer and how full is it, power outage is a really common thing in my house so we usually pack the freezer as full as we can so the cold and ice stays.
As far as I'm concerned the food should be good for 2/3 days if you don't open it, after the third day some of the food might be going bad.
Keesag05@reddit
I lost power for days after hurricane, live in apt building with Chest freezer in another building garage. Generator for 1hr every six hours. Then installed cellular alarm by MarCell. It is a cost of about $100 p/yr, but alerts to your phone by text, email, and app. Hadn't alerted for 7mths until today, where that building lost power 3 times. There was no need to react, but knowing we might need to was worth it's weight in gold. Alerts on outside temp, humity, power, etc. Marcell
hoardac@reddit
I have a set of digital wireless thermometers that record the temps and have a high alarm.
Trail_Breaker@reddit
If the ice kept you should be fine.
I freeze water a small clear plastic container. After it turns to ice I put a quarter on top and leave it in the freezer. I'll check it after a power outage. If the quarter is at or near the bottom then I know that it was warm enough for the ice to melt and I'll start throwing things out.
OnTheEdgeOfFreedom@reddit
Good mercy, I use a penny. You rich folk, honestly...
alphabetstew@reddit
You guys are using money? I just freeze half empty water bottles sideways, then stand them up when I need an indicator. If the ice is still sideways it's probably good.
MeanBart@reddit
I just use a rock
OnTheEdgeOfFreedom@reddit
You guys have bottles? We had to use clay bottles we made from the mud near the creek. Some people are so fancy.
digital_jocularity@reddit
I think I just broke a rig during my guffaw for your comment. Thanks a lot!
Icy-Ad-7767@reddit
We no longer have penny’s 🇨🇦
TacTurtle@reddit
This. Penny on a cup of ice.
Ice melts, penny falls = food should be discarded.
Dangerous-School2958@reddit
Read my mind
recyclingloom@reddit
(1)Depends on the brand. (2)Depends on how cold’s your freezer at that the outage starts. (3)Depends on if your freezer is on top of your fridge or an independent freezer. (4)Depends on how much you’re going into that freezer for different items.
nonnativespecies@reddit
Also depends if the separate freezer is a chest or upright.
PrisonerV@reddit
Chest freezers can hold safe temps for days.
Also get some cheap digital thermometers and put them in your fridge and freezers.
ryan112ryan@reddit
I also freeze a little cup of water, the put a penny on top, put a little more water to freeze it in place. If the penny is not on the bottom then I’m good.
PrisonerV@reddit
Thats fine for if you want to know if the freezer contents are bad but if you're in an outage, at what point do you need to take action? Your penny can't tell you the freezer is now too warm and you need to move items or add ice. Spending a $1 on a mini digital temp gauge will.
plasticfrograging@reddit
You can use the penny trick for finding out if you lost power while you were gone (vacation or work) to know if your food may have been compromised. Like if the coin is on the bottom of the cup and the water refroze, you know your freezer thawed out for quite some time
climate-tenerife@reddit
Fill a tupperware with water snd freeze it. When frozen, place a penny on top of the ice and close the lid, store it in tge freezer.
If the power ever goes out, check the penny. If it's still on top of the ice, everything stayed frozen. If it's at the bottom of the tupperware then assume your food is spoiled.
kalitarios@reddit
the food safety "Danger zone" is holding food at 40-140°F - water melts at 32°F - it can still melt and be ok as long as the temp didn't go above 40, those inexpensive thermometers can tell you better than water, since there's an 8 degree gap between frozen water and actual spoilage
FlashyImprovement5@reddit
You pack them properly.
An empty freezer will thaw fairly quickly. You can take 3/4 full water bottles and fill all of the empty space in the freezer.
And in power outages you can wrap quilts around freezers for extra insulation.
Nathan-Stubblefield@reddit
If someplace has dry ice I’d throw some in.
GuaranteeSudden3899@reddit
Personally, I like to go and get 10lbs of dry ice. It’s super stinkin’ cold and does a great job keeping the food frozen for long periods beyond 48hrs. But this is all dependent on the temperature gradient between the container (fridge or freezer) and the outside environment (inside house/garage/or outside). The larger the gradient, the faster the loss of cold-ness.
I’m in the Pacific Northwest and we had a 2 day power outage. The thing that saved us was that it was still in the 50-40 degree range for weather. If I was in Texas in July or august, I probably would have had a public barbecue so as to not waste food
mmaalex@reddit
Fridge freezers, a couple days tops.
My chest freezer seems to make it about a week, with opening it once a day to check the temp with a laser temp gun quickly.
When the chest freezer has open space I add 2 liters bottles filled with water as extra ballast.
wihaw44@reddit
mine can lasts 24 hours frozen if I don't open it
D1rtyH1ppy@reddit
Lpt: when the power goes out, don't open the fridge or freezer at all if you are trying to keep the food. Everytime you open the door, you are letting in warm air and breaking the vacuum.
roughneck_mofo@reddit
During an outage, you can also cover with blankets I have 6 moving blankets just for that. I also have 2 liter bottles of water in the corners I put a few drops of food coloring on top after frozen to judge melt if out of town and power was knocked out.
BallsOutKrunked@reddit
we used to run the generator for 3 hours in the morning and 3 hours in the evening, it's 1/4 the consumption of running it 24 hours.
enough to cool the fridge, freeze the freezer, and it's when most people in the house are doing stuff.
wwglen@reddit
It is actually a little bit more than 1/4 the consumption as the compressor will be running harder when it has power.
I tested my refrigerator/freezer combo on a 1-on/3-off duty cycle and used about 2/3 of the power of just leaving it on. That is because when I left it on about 1/2 the time the compressor was off but with the 1/3 duty cycle the compressor didn't shut off when the power was on.
OnTheEdgeOfFreedom@reddit
Yup, same. Sometimes 2 hours in the morning. That was enough to recharge batteries, fill an IBC from a well, keep the freezers happy, run the furnace long enough to keep the house from freezing, and do any cooking that wanted the electric stovetop. I never saw a reason to run one continuously.
Lopsided-Total-5560@reddit
Our power was out for a little over a week after hurricane Helene. I only started running the generator for our two freezers after day 2. I ran the generator for two hours every six or so hours and everything kept fine.
lomlslomls@reddit
Depends on where you live I guess. In Florida, hurricane Irma knocked our power out for a week. I had the fridge on generator during the day but not at night as I didn't want the gen running unattended overnight. Big mistake. It was 90 in the house, no AC of course. At day three we called it and dumped everything in the fridge and freezer.
Chest freezer will keep cold much better and sips electricity. We have one now.
By the way, ice and/or dry ice doesn't work very well in the fridge/freezer. Best alternative we've found was to pack a good cooler with perishables and ice. That will last a few days or longer if you can get more ice.
slendermanismydad@reddit
I keep the ice packs that come with shipping cold stuff and stick those in my freezer. They're big and meant to be reusable. That helped me a lot in my previous place that had some kind of block wide electrical issue for a year. If you don't have those, fill Ziploc bags with water 2/3rds of the way and store those in there.
Get some thermometers. Your food is probably okay. The food insulates each other.
TheDudeOntheCouch@reddit
If you have room freeze some 1gallon jugs of water it'll help keep the temperature down
OGbigfoot@reddit
I have frequent power outages in my area during winter. I just keep several milk jugs full of ice in my standup freezer in the garage. Never had a problem even with some power outages lasting a couple days.
And I keep a few of those icepacks from home chef deliveries in my kitchen freezer.
ResponsibleBank1387@reddit
As long as the door is closed, five days.
Little_Low2794@reddit
A few days at the most. To alleviate it once you get a chance invest in an indoor generator to extend the life a little bit. Many different brands but the top on the market right now is still Generac and depending on the size you can power your whole house or just a portion of your house including freezer, fans, lights at the minimum. Worth some research on.
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swirlybat@reddit
i keep a 3oz cup of frozen water (those lil bathroom cups) with a quarter on top. if it sinks, trash.
violetstrainj@reddit
Get a fridge/ freezer thermometer. Back in September we had an extended power outage, and all of the stuff in my freezer was still frozen solid, but I was afraid of the stuff in the fridge so I threw it all away, except the veggies.
atropear@reddit
Is it a thermometer that records a temperature somehow?
Effective-Being-849@reddit
I use the Govee fridge thermometer, the app that comes with it tracks temperature over time:
goddessofolympia@reddit
I have a Jackery 2000 v. I figured out that it has charge-through...charging? Anyway, I plugged the freezer into the Jackery and the Jackery into the wall. Gives me an extra day and a half of freezer time, although I understand that in a long-term power outage, what you actually do is only plug in the freezer part time and it stays frozen, so it'd probably be at least a week, maybe
Psychological-Way339@reddit
Freeze a little bit of water in a clear container along with a coin. When the water freezes then put the coin on top and you'll be able to know if it gets too warm because the coin will either move down in the container or go towards the bottom. It's an easy indication to tell if the freezer got too warm. It's especially useful if you're gone and don't know there was a power outage for a period of time and when you come back everything's frozen again.
Hot_Annual6360@reddit
Nothing, if you don't open it it lasts 48 hours frozen, it also depends on the temperature outside and inside, in case you arrived and it wasn't frozen yet, but as a general rule, it is rare for it to drop more than 4/5°, it also depends on how long you open the doors or not.
EverVigilant1@reddit
depends on the freezer and the ambient temperature outside the freezer.
It was probably OK and the food probably did not go bad.
Formal_Pension_9456@reddit
Don’t open them and they can be good for days
Longjumping-Day7821@reddit
They work great with a generator. I’d get one.
27mwtobias27@reddit
We don't eat meat and have other things in our freezer like fruit, leftover rice, tofu, bread, cheese, nuts. So I pretty much feel that for the fruit, cheese, tofu and rice, if it's still cool to the touch when power returns, I'm using it. Bread and nuts I'm definitely not tossing.
ellasaurusrex@reddit
When we lost power during Helene, it was about a week and a half before the food in our freezer dropped below 45 (i temped things periodically). It was (luckily) packed full, and I put a bag of ice in about halfway through. Limit the amount of time it's open, and you should be fine for quite some days.
I wouldn't throw out anything, personally, I think it's all fine.
AdditionalAd9794@reddit
Depending on how much you open the refrigerator and how well insulated id say give or take 4 days. I think after 5-6 days your kind of pushing it.
Yet claims to be able to keep ice for 3-7 days. I saw a video where they tested that claim against competitors in the summer. The Yeti was able to keep ice through 90°F days for 3 days and 8 hours
I suspect your freezer is a step up from a yeti cooler and if your conditions outside are cooler, your stuff should be able to hold up longer.
We had a 10 day power outage here, day 2 we were binging on seafood and ice cream, day 3 or 4 we pulled out a nice NY Strip roast and threw it in the charcoal/wood smoker
msoats@reddit
Just had wildfire here, once the power went out I didn’t open it again until it came back on 2 days later. Everything was still frozen solid except the ice pops on the door, they were SLIGHTLY soft, but not melted. I was shocked, I had just stocked the freezer and was panicking.
Rogerdodger1946@reddit
Many years ago, we had an ice storm. I was able to get dry ice which kept my deep freeze frozen for 5 days. This is better than bags of regular ice, if you can get it. I had to drive about 5 miles to find dry ice.
Zealousideal-Print41@reddit
It depends on the level of insulation in the freezer. The walls and the door, the thicker the better. Fill, your filled to capacity, good closed. A good while, we bought a Frigidaire with the thickest insulation we could get without ordering better. It says under normal conditions (I know, define normal) they do give a baseline temp and such. It will keep food frozen for a minimum 3 days. We know packed full, everything frozen to 22° its more than 3 days. But only you know what your comfortable with. If nothing got soft, I say keep it. Foods expensive
Adorable_Dust3799@reddit
My little fridge freeze lasts close to 24 hours, i was shocked. We didn't open it at all. Stuff in the middle obviously lasts longer, i have ice cube trays on the door side and veggies in front with meat in the middle. After it became obvious that outages will be a thing now i got a thermometer. It magnets to the front of the fridge and has remotes for fridge and freezer, and tracks hi-low. It is just cheap Chinese crap from Amazon and worth it. Thermometers are pretty low tech. Some connect to wifi and send alerts, but i lose internet after 2 hours and figured its not worth it. Use the penny on ice/ water trick to tell if it defrosted while you were out. Most foods can be refrozed once, so if meat refreezes within an hour or two depending on personal preference it should be ok. If you have compromised or sensitive people only an hour defrosted max.
Paranormal_Lemon@reddit
The fuller it is the longer it takes to thaw. Fill empty space with ice packs. Get a wireless thermometer so you can monitor temperature without opening.
dbdCobra@reddit (OP)
Thank you all. Appreciate the help
TheSensiblePrepper@reddit
If the ice didn't look like it melted at all, it is fine. Stuff below the top layer of food would have been safer.
Let's talk about alarms going forward.
The first are your basic sensors with alarm like this one. It's cheap, reliable if you use Lithium Batteries but you have to check it every couple of months to see if the batteries died and I had it in my basement with the freezers. If the alarm went off, it was very hard to hear in the rest of the house. One of those "do you hear beeping?" Situations and you had to realize to check it.
The second option I really like is these Govee Sensors. They are reliable, the batteries last up to a year, and they pair to a phone app via Bluetooth and/or WiFi. You can set up a range or exact temperature to alert you. Now anywhere in the house I will get the alert on my phone or anywhere as long as the Internet is still connected.
I use both options because I like redundancy.
OnTheEdgeOfFreedom@reddit
Big no to bluetooth. It eats the batteries, and the things in the house that can receive bluetooth will either be powered off to save power or out of range when it matters.
I built my own alarm and ran a thin ribbon cable into the chest freezer for the sensor, with the rest of the (simple) electronics outside. It had a loud buzzer attached. It always worked.
TheSensiblePrepper@reddit
Well, after two years I have replaced the battery once. So I see that as pretty good.
A cell phone with only Bluetooth running will last a very long time and I am assuming that you're just hanging in your house when this happens. If you're not home, your DIY setup is just as useless.
And for your DIY setup, a lot of people either can't or don't feel comfortable messing with that stuff.
You do you.
FloraMaeWolfe@reddit
Probably fine. A tip for the future, add some bottles of water (not filled all the way up though) to the freezer in different places and if the power goes out, they will act like ice packs.
NewEnglandPrepper3@reddit
Depends how full they are. Have some backup power handy though
Dangerous-School2958@reddit
A cheap freezer safety device. Take a cup of water and place a washer or coin on top. If you ever find the coin at the bottom of the cup, your freezer thawed.
Virtual-Act-9037@reddit
An easy way to prep for this question in the future requires a small plastic cup, and a quarter. Fill the cup with water and put it in a corner of the freezer. Once frozen, put a quarter on top. If you aren't sure if the freezer thawed, check the cup. if the quarter is no longer on top, everything thawed out. This is what we do for hurricane prep in case we need to evacuate since it is possible the power will go out and then come back on and everything refreezes before we get back home. If the quarter is halfway down the cup, it thawed a bit, but should still be fine.
Bitter_Albatross25@reddit
Something we do is put water in a Coke bottle let it freeze inverted, then once it’s good and frozen put it in the freezer in the proper direction. This way should there ever be any concern about the freezer warming up we’ll know by the frozen water bottle.
Even_Routine1981@reddit
Probably wouldn't make it in a Texas summer!
Tinman5278@reddit
The generic answer is that anything in a freezer for up to 48 hours during a power outage should be fine. That assumes that the freezer is being kept shut. The fact that your ice didn't start melting is a good sign. That is a sign that the freezer temps didn't rise above the freezing point.
ommnian@reddit
It's fine. I never hauled out the generator till we got to ~36+ hrs. Your ice stayed fine, so you're good. Full freezers in cool places will keep food cold for a solid 2-3+ days.