Should i defrost my freezer

Having to manually defrost a freezer is a household chore most people could live without. It can be a messy and time-consuming job, so we've put together 10 simple steps to help make this dreaded job as painless as possible. But if you still have an older-style freezer that ices up and needs to be defrosted, follow our steps below to defrost it quickly, without ending up with water all over your floor, or losing any frozen food.

Or, read our fridge freezer and freezer reviews to buy yourself a new frost-free model and save yourself the effort. They could also damage or break your freezer and invalidate your warranty.

To defrost a freezer quickly, follow these 10 simple steps:. If you leave it long enough, enough ice can build up to prevent the door from closing properly, so you're better off defrosting the freezer before it gets to this stage. As well as this ice squatting in space where your food should be, the ice although cold actually acts as an insulator.

This means your freezer has to run longer and work harder in order to penetrate that block of ice to keep your food cold. This means it will cost you more in electricity to run. Frost build-up can be caused by leaving the freezer door open, or because there's a problem with your freezer seal. If your freezer seal is on its way out, it might be time to buy a new freezer. Check out our guide to the best freezers to see all those that rank top in our reviews.

The simple answer is as soon as ice build-up becomes noticeable. This can be frozen again without a higher chance of food poisoning. The Food Standards Agency advises that defrosted food can be stored in the fridge for up to two days before it needs to be cooked or thrown away. If you want to keep your food frozen while you defrost your freezer, you may have to invest in cool boxes or cool bags, freeze the ice packs that go in them and then pop your frozen food in there.

Keep these out of direct sunlight. Even if you have a frost-free freezer, you should make sure it is fully dry and aired before your move, otherwise you could end up with a musty smell inside. Never leave food in your freezer and expect the movers to move it full. When you're packing it up, make sure you remove all the shelves and trays — and any other removable parts — and pack them, otherwise they could break in the move.

Yes water hose works real good. My Holiday freezers is on the back treated porch. I remove every thing and place in boxes with a blanket on top. Sit Freezer upright it will be necessary to keep the drain hole cleared out to finish draining. Then a big bath towel is used to mop remaining water out. Wash cloth with baking soda in water to finish cleaning. Cool day is best. Colder is better. You know, even us old guys need a reminder, once in a while. Thanks for the reminder.

Love your page and contentment to all of us. Carry on! Is there any way to prep the clean freezer, to minimize the build up? I have heard rubbing the walls with rubbing alcohol. Never tried it though. With that said, I want to say a big thankyou. I Google ed defrosting a deep freeze. I just finished de-icing my deep freezer in the garage. Thank you!!! I defrost my upright once a year. I live in Quebec and winters get cold up here, so I wait for an extra-cold day and put all my food in boxes to be taken outside in the balcony.

This also gives me a chance to organize all my frozen food. Steamer is the only way to defrost with out issue.. I have a Zanussie under-counter freezer frost free, so called. Mine is set fairly low and still it defrosts but re-freezes too soon which blocks the drain hole to the plastic reservoir tray.

Therefore what happens, the melt water seeps out under the bottom food storage tray then freezes. Check the back of the appliance for the hose that takes the melt water away. Sometimes that have a trap at the bottom that blocks. On Zanussie I think they have a rubber valve at the bottom of the hose that gets sealed with dirt, remove and clean.

If the fire gets out of control, simply close the lid which will starve it of oxygen. Otherwise, the fire will soon melt the ice, the paper will absorb the water and the whole exercise takes minutes. You can also use gasoline or alcohol if you prefer not to have to pull mucky toilet paper out of the bottom of the fridge.

I met someone one day who never had to cook a turkey and was going to put it directly on the rack!!! I did provide a roaster and gave a few instruction… That probably avoided a house fire!!!!

Awesome post. You made one older millennial guy feel like a man, defrosting my own freezer. Because I had a constant heat source, unlike what you have when you use pans of hot water that cool down as soon as you put then in the freezer, defrosting was a snap. However, in my humble opinion, this method is completely dangerous.

If water drips on the skillet controls, I can see damage to them occuring. I would recommend not using this method unless you want to try to win a Darwin award. I have wondered about using a battery-powered windshield defroster or possibly a hand-warmer that campers use. If I put her facing the freezer before I tell her this, she ought to get steamed up enough to finish the defrosting in about fifteen minutes.

I have been disconecting the compressor and then replunging in the refrig overnight. Some frozen foods get a little wet on the outside, but still seem usable.

The compressor is inside an air plenum behind the refrig. Let run for about 8 to 12 hours. Reconnect compressor, plug in refrig. I would repeat process for every 2 or 3 days for a shorter period to see if the insulation gets dried out. I defrost my large upright freezer in about an hour.

Put the contents in a few boxes, heat a couple of pots of water and set on the shelves. In about 15 minutes you're ready to use a shop-vac to scrap and suck up all the ice and water. Don't have a shop vac?

Every household needs a good shop-vac. Wipe down the interior with a few towels and presto - you're done. I too, just defrosted my smaller stand up freezer, last week! Easy Peasy! Have been wanting to buy a larger one and frost free, thanks for letting us know that we too, will just have to accept defrosting as a part of life, lol, thanks for sharing! I thought that was just hysterical.

SO glad that my chest deep freeze is not frost-free. I live in FL so I defrost mine before hurricane season each year, then leave it unplugged until the danger is past. Now that I know I can just tip it over and let it drain onto the lawn, life will be easier! I have one thought to add to your very helpful post; under Step 4, if convenient, I think your compost pile would benefit from all that melted ice.

I save all the water I can from kitchen work to put on the compost, rather than dampening it with a hose. Recycle water whenever possible! I have always defrosted my freezer in the winter. I chose a nice, cold morning, put the food in some baskets or totes then put them all in the RV or a vehicle.

I leave the freezer door open and turn on a small fan to move air around. It takes about 3 hours to be fully defrosted and dry.

I wipe down the walls and wire shelves then plug the freezer back in. Thanks for your post! I just load the frozen food into laundry baskets or cardboard boxes, and separate out the things to be used at once, such as bones saved for making broth. I have a way easier solution, which is to avoid freezer burn altogether by not using plastic bags to store the food, and using a frost-free fridge.

There are 2 ways to do this that I've started using in more recent months. One is to store bulk foods in nylofume bags, the kind used to protect foodstuffs when your house is being tented for termites.

These are not regular plastic bags, but impermeable to air and odors. I saved the half dozen bags that were given to us by the pest control company and reuse them over and over.

The bags are very large, but you may be able to buy smaller ones. The second is to use silicone Stasher bags, which you can buy here among other places I have no affiliation with them. A third method which I haven't used is to store stuff in mason or glass jars with air-tight lids, but I imagine that would work also, but this is not as flexible in accommodating different volumes or shapes of food.

The bags are expensive but should last forever with reasonable care and I find them much more pleasant to use than plastic. The silicone is also impermeable to air and water, and the bags seal tightly. In fact it takes a little practice to open them easily. I find the "stand-up" bag to be a particularly good form factor. I'm enjoying your site, having first found a bread recipe on it in recent weeks and then separately finding it when looking up whether or not one can freeze beets.

Really glad to find that I could! Appreciative of your ingenuity and great info. This site and feastingathome. Thank you so much, Margaret - I'm honored to be counted among your favorite sites! Your tips and thoughts are good - thank you for sharing! I'll definitely check out that site because the few silicone bags I've tried so far have been so hard to get clean that we don't use them much. As for the freezer question - frost free freezers are also continual running to keep the air moving, so it's not great for electrical usage, either.

I do want to lessen our use of plastic, though, so I'm always looking for options! Jenny- Oh, I wish we could roll it out and hose it down- only 45 minutes?! That's the way to go.