Originally published at Notes from the bunker…. You can comment here or there.
I dont eat too much of it since I seldom eat breakfast, but I do like bacon. I prefer mine chewy, which is not to say undercooked. I dont like crispy, crunchy bacon at all. No, I prefer it to be chewey..like apiece of roast beef or somesuch. Your buddy, the Zero, scored today at the local Albertsons. Every day I pass by the bargain/remindered meat bin. Perfectly good meat but its on its last day to be sold. They either have to mark it down and hope it sells, or it goes in the landfill and no one makes money. The meat is perfectly fine as long as you either a) use it immediately or b) immediately put it into cryostasis in a nice, big, white, upright freezer that keeps everything at a very lovely below zero…(Its in the basement so it really is below Zero, I guess.)
Todays score? Oscar Meyer Thick Cut bacon for $0.99 per one pound package. I can make enough BLT's for a whole parking lot full of tailgate parties.
Im the first one to say that when the wheels fly off of western civilization electricity is going to be, at best, unreliable. So why a freezer full of meat? The freezer isnt for TEOTWAWKI.. the freezer is for the more sedate disasters and calmities. The 'I lost my job', the 'I cant work until my back heals', the 'No cash until Thursday' sort of incidents. In short, its for taking the weight off the wallet during a personal time of financial trouble. When you dont know where the next twenty bucks is coming from it'll be nice to know that meat will not be a problem.
=====
The freezer, by the by, has not always been hassle-free. I once accidentally unplugged it and didnt know it for about five days. You can imagine the carnage. A $12 freezer alarm would have saved me a couple hundred dollars in meat. Hence, we now have the freezer alarm.
If youre going to do the buy-in-bulk-and-refreeze-at-home deal, which really does save money and is extremely convenient, you need to keep in mind a few things..
- Freeze in small, usable quantities. Do not freeze a 12# block of ground beef unless you think youre going to use a 12# block of ground beef all at once. Lay it on the counter, section it with a long knife and make a dozen 1# packages of ground beef instead. It stores easier and is easier to use.
- When you do break down larger packages into smaller ones, a vaccuum sealer is immeasureably useful. I vaccuum seal anything that isnt already vaccuum sealed.
- When using a vaccuum sealer on meats, esp. chopped/ground meats, its alot neater if the meat is frozen to a solid texture. This means that when your vaccuum sealer is sucking the air out of the bag it wont get full of juices as the bag compresses and squeezes the unfrozen meat. So: subdivide meat in the quantity you plan to use, freeze to a solid/liquid-free state, and then package. For example: I buy a 10# slab of ground beef or maybe a 12-pack of pork chops. I wrap an individual serving in wax paper (to keep it from sticking to the other meats) and stick those dozen or so parcels into the freezer for a couple hours to freeze. Once theyre frozen they get vaccuum sealed. The two hours or so the stuff is in the freezer solidifying in prepartion of being packaged isnt really long enough to promote freezer burn or anything, so when youre putting the meat in the freezer to 'set' dont worry about it being airtight or exposed to the air…you just want to wrap it in plastic or wax paper to keep it from sticking to the next bundle.
- Date the stuff. Real simple: big magic marker with the month and date. Label it if you think youre gonna not be able to figure out what it is.
- Dont just pile the stuff up on the shelf in the freezer. Get a cardboard box (or cut one to fit) to use as a 'bin'. Fill it high with vaccuum sealed frozen chicken breasts, write “Chicken Br.” in big letters on the side of the box and tuck it away on the shelf. Why? Cause the less stuff gets moved around in the freezer, the better.
- Try to rotate stock…freshest stuff up front/on top, take from the bottom/back of the bin
- This is pretty hardcore and I dont do it, but some folks suggested it and you ight appreciate it. Take a digital picture of the inside of the freezer and tape the print to the door. Then, when the power is out, you can open the fridge quickly and know exactly where the item you want is without wasting time (and letting cold out).
- Chest freezers are probably better than uprights since opening an upright freezer lets all the cold cascade out the bottom when the door is open…alot like opening a closet thats filled with water. Chest freezers keep the cold in, since the cold air sinks, but theyre a bit more annoying in organization.
- The oldest stuff I've consumed out of my deep freeze is four year old ground beef. Once thawed it looked and smelled just like recently purchased beef. Cooked up just fine and tasted like it should. Why? Stored in the deep freeze, stayed frozen, was carefully vaccuum sealed and was inspected before cooking. If a vaccuum sealed package loses its vaccuum it doesnt mean you cant use the meat, after all its still frozen, right? However, there *may* be some freezer burn. Big deal. Cut off that portion and feed it to the dog.
- Keep a small flashlight on top , or affixed to the handle , of the freezer so you have a handy light source to use in case you have to access the freezer in the dark or the lighting isnt conducive to reading the labels.
- Even in a perfect environment with no power failures, dont keep the door of the freezer open longer than you have to. If you really need to rummage grab the bin, pull it out, and close the freezer door! Get what you want out of the bin and then put the bin back in the freezer. Do not stand there with the door open rummaging trhough the freezer..youre letting the cold air out, creating more work for the compressor, starting a thawing process and generally being wasteful. The freezer is like a hostage extraction (except with food): plan what you want, get in, grab the goods, get out. Seriously, man..close the damn door.
- The more full a freezer is, the more cold it holds. Your freezer works less to keep a full one frozen than to keep a near empty one frozen. Meaning: it takes less energy to maintain 120# of frozen turkey than it does to maintain a solitary half gallon of ice cream. If your freezer isnt full, fill it up with some bottled water. The plastic bottles wont explode, they can be used in coolers to keep things cold, and if the power goes out it'll help to keep your stuff frozen.
- My resources say you can figure a full freezer will keep stuff edible for three days without power assuming you dont open the door alot and insulate the unit with a blanket or two thrown over it. If the power outage happens in the winter, youve obviously got some better options.
- One more things and then Im off my freezer-soapbox… the method used for freezing meats is the same you should use for freezing ready-made meals. Fore example, if I made a huge amount of chicken creole I'd measure out an individual serving, put it into a square container of some sort, freeze it solid, remove it from the container and then vaccuum seal it, date it, and put it away. Then, when I dont feel like cooking, I can just pull out a package of it, toss the pouch into boiling water or let it thaw and reheat. Handy that.