# Organizing a chest freeze



## faithmarie (Oct 18, 2008)

I thought this was a good idea ..


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## mdprepper (Jan 22, 2010)

What a great idea! I too have tried the boxes and plastic totes in there with dismal results. I think I will give this a try. I don't keep many frozen fruits or veggies, so I will try the different colors for different types of meat. :thankyou:


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## kappydell (Nov 27, 2011)

I have boxes - but they are heavy and too hard for my roommate to handle without help. This looks like a viable correction...thanks for the post.


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## AuroraHawk (Sep 12, 2012)

My biggest objection to getting a chest freezer has been the lack of organization and head standing time. This is a fantastic way to organize a chest freezer. Time to start looking for a sale on them.


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## Sentry18 (Aug 5, 2012)

Well I found a project for this weekend! We have enough of those bags to fill 10 freezers.


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## faithmarie (Oct 18, 2008)

I don't have fabric bags anymore they are the plastic kind ... I wonder if they would work ... or if they would crack ... and they are all colorful... I like hers ... red for meat green for ......


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## Sentry18 (Aug 5, 2012)

I have used plastic bags before but they are fragile when really cold. Most of my fabric bags were free, lots of places give them away. The last pair of shoes I bought from Runner's Warehouse came in one of those bags as did my last HP printer. I know, odd, but it was another free bag!


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## faithmarie (Oct 18, 2008)

I had a lot of the fabric bags but gave them away with stuff I would bring to friends and family and now the stores around me have fancy ones with pictures on them and are kind of water proof .... I miss the plain fabric ones


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## StillStanding (Jan 24, 2009)

The main thing to realize with chest freezers vs uprights is that you aren't going to fill an upright all the way full. They have shelves and you have to fit the food in and stack it in such a way it doesn't all fall out, so there is to some extent a gap between the food and the door.

People get chest freezers and fill them up all the way to the top. Now if you do that it will work but you'll have poor access to stuff. There's no way to keep them organized if they're full. So if chest freezers are your thing (and there are good reasons to use them) you have to size them so you have some extra space. Then you can set up bins on the bottom and have enough clearance that the wire baskets on top will slide back and forth for access.

I usually use cardboard boxes or paper grocery bags depending on what I'm trying to do. Plastic grocery bags work OK for a while but they will eventually break from being flexed in the cold. The tyvec and fabric reusable shopping bags would probably work OK -- I haven't tried them -- but I like free better than cheap.


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