Organizing a Chest Freezer

[bluebird]

Any tips? I thought of laundry baskets in the bottom, one for meats, one for veggies and so on. Help!

[Crafty Amanda]

I have this problem too. I thought of milk crates, but that can get VERY heavy. We purchased a side of beef, so what we ended up doing was organizing the meat by cut. So I placed all roasts on the right, hamburger in the middle, steaks, chops, and stew meat on the left. Everything else I throw on the top LOL (like bagged vegies, bread, etc).

The other thing I do is label everything with a black Sharpie marker. Otherwise I wouldn't know what anything was!

[elrey]

I just wish I had a chest freezer.

[preacherswife]

I got tired of standing on my head and risking falling into the chest freezer and turning into a giant popsicle, so i tried wire freezer baskets, but they didn't work out so well. What did work out was the square plastic pails we buy kitty litter and laundry soap in. They stack two by four in the bottom of the freezer, and two deep. The bottom layer has the lids on so they stack squarely. They are easy to pull out by the handles. I freeze most dishes in 8x8 inch pans slipped into gallon ziplocks, and they fit nicelly into the buckets. The handles make it easy to pull out the bottom layer without the acrobatics.

[Lisa Berry]

I have wire baskets on top that slide (DH found extra at thrift sales, only 2 came w/frezzar)) and milk crates below which I stacked 2 high before baskets. I didn't need to lift them out because I put like items below and above as much as possible. Beef, Pork, Deer and Lamb have their own sections. The baskets hold breakfast things (bacon, scrapple, etc.) as well as bread and kid microwave stuff (corn dogs, beef rollups,etc.) and I am lucky to have 2nd upright freezer which I put veggies and fish and odd ball stuff in, I don't like it as well but it was free so

[patsAZ]

Preacherswife, Your idea sounds wonderful to me. I have spent more time head down in that blasted freezer than I can count.

I don't have any wire baskets in mine. It was free so I gave my upright freezer to one of my daughters. I have often thought I gave her the wrong one.

So now I've got to start buying kitty litter and soap until I get my freezer filled. I don't really mean that quite the way it sounds.

Thanks for the tip. patsAZ

[bluebird]

I like the milk grate idea! Right now I am using boxes. I got some heavy ones when I bought groceries today. Now I need to take dh out and show him how it is organized.