Upright freezer opinions?

[ducklite]

We've been looking at upright freezers.

We want frost free and a good Energy Star rating. We'd prefer to find one in a black finish Does anyone ahve one, and what brand. What do you like/dislike about it?

TIA!

Anne

 

[golfgal]

My recommendation would be not to go with frost free. The frost free feature tends to burn food faster and easier. We have a frosted freezer and don't really have a problem. Since you aren't opening it all that much it doesn't frost up very quickly. The last time we defrosted it was in May of last year and it isn't even close to needing it done again.

 

[mickeyfan2]

Ours is white. It is a Frigidaire.

 

[Southern4sure]

I had a huge Kenmore chest freezer the first time and it was a pain to defrost. Things would get buried at the bottom and I'd forget about it. I'm 5'4" and basically had to climb into it. I was so glad when that thing died.

I now have a Magic Chef 22 cf upright frost free. I bought it in July of '96 and it is still going strong. I would never go back. I can see at a glance what I have and nothing gets buried. It is much easier to stock. I buy meat from a butcher and have him to wrap it with their freezer wrap and it is fine. If I freeze meat using freezer bags, I wrap in several layers of saran wrap first.

I think the key to any freezer is to not let things stay too long otherwise you will get freezer burn no matter which kind you choose.

 

[PlutoPony]

Frigidaire Frost Free in white. Haven't had a problem with freezer burn on anything except ice cream (DS uses the "LIFO" method of ice cream inventory management). Seriously consider getting one with an interior light if the door won't be opened near a very good light source. Even though we have an overhead light right in front of our upright freezer in the basement, I wish I'd gone up a model to get a built in light - back corners of the bottom shelves are difficult to see.

 

[ducklite]

Thanks for your responses.

It would be in the garage, and opened a couple times a week I would imagine. It won't be over stuffed, and I'm the queen of organization so I would use a "bin" system to rotate everything.

The garage is well lit, so the interior light doesn't ahve to be super bright. Also I'm tall, so that's not an issue either. I'd like black because it hides a multitude of sins, I'd be happy to have to wait a couple of months for a special order. Oh, and a key lock is imperative--I'm a safety freak.

Anyone else?

Anne

 

[Southern4sure]

I keep mine in the garage and I have a light inside the freezer. When you first get your freezer, put some milk containers and etc filled with water and freeze to use up space until you have your freezer stocked the way you want it. If not, the freezer will run more often because of the empty space. The more you have in your freezer the less it will need to run (you will notice it on your electric bill esp with the freezer in the hot garage of FL) and also the ice containers will help keep your freezer cold if you have a power outage.

 

[KristiKelly]

We had a white Kenmore Frost Free. Last year we went to the beach for a week, came home, the next morning DS went to get waffles or something out of it - can you guess what's coming??? It had died apparently while we were at the beach and OMG the smell!!! It's in our mudroom and we had to open all of the downstairs windows. Dh & I were both gagging trying to clean it out.

We could've gotten it fixed but the smell was there to stay so we sent it to the dump.

Now we have a GE Frost Free. I don't want to deal with defrosting it myself.

 

[ducklite]

I keep mine in the garage and I have a light inside the freezer. When you first get your freezer, put some milk containers and etc filled with water and freeze to use up space until you have your freezer stocked the way you want it. If not, the freezer will run more often because of the empty space. The more you have in your freezer the less it will need to run (you will notice it on your electric bill esp with the freezer in the hot garage of FL) and also the ice containers will help keep your freezer cold if you have a power outage.

Great idea--thanks! When we first moved into the house I didn't keep a ton in the freezer because we weren't here that much, but one of the things I did do was keep about ten gallon sized Zip-Locks of ice. It did as you described, and also had another use. I would check to make sure it hadn't melted and then refrozen when we would come in, so I knew that the stuff in the fridge and freezer had stayed cold (no power outage) and were still safe to eat. It's not an issue these days though.

I don't plan on keeping much meat in it. Mostly bread items and veggies. I recently planted a "war garden" in pots on my lanai, and will freeze some of my "crop" for use later in the year.

Anne