Freezing the Harvest (Part 1)

It’s mid-summer, and that means fresh fruit and veggies! Even with our small garden, we usually end up with more produce than we can eat ourselves. Add in our trips to the farmers’ markets, and there’s a veritable cornucopia of locally-produced food that must be eaten or saved now. We don’t (yet) have a pressure canner, and not all produce is safe to be canned using a water bath. Therefore, the only safe method available to us for preserving all of the harvest for winter is freezing.

Freezing is not the most energy-efficient method for saving produce, of course, but it is quick, doesn’t heat up your house much (compared to canning), and it’s easy. However, learn from my mistakes! There are some preparations you should make before embarking on your freezing adventure.

Freezer choice
My biggest mistake was overestimating the size of our fridge’s freezer. Sure, when it was empty, the little freezer on top of our fridge looked huge. But even when I utilized all of my best Tetris skills in packing it, I was disappointed in the small volume that the little thing could hold.

Additionally, our refrigerator’s freezer had an automatic defrost cycle. Frozen food has two enemies – air and temperature variations – and exposure to either causes freezer burn in frozen foods. The automatic defrost cycle in our fridge’s freezer made it a poor choice for long-term food storage, since the freezer warms itself up slightly to defrost itself. So, to address the size problem and temperature fluctuations, we bought a chest freezer.

Chest freezers come in two main styles: chest and upright. Chest freezers tend to hold more and are more energy efficient than upright freezers. Upright freezers, on the other hand, have shelves like a refrigerator, so it’s easier to find things. Which you choose is up to you and how you think you’ll use the freezer. You’ll also need to decide whether you want a freezer that will automatically defrost itself, or one that must be manually defrosted every so often. (I suggest getting a manual defrost freezer, due to the problems with automatic defrost I explained above.)

Finally, you’ll need to select a size. If you plan on freezing a lot of produce and/or meat at one time, or if you have a large family, you might want to consider getting a larger freezer. If you live in an apartment and floor space is limited, you should consider a smaller freezer.

There are lots of resources out there to help you choose a freezer. I suggest grabbing an issue of Consumer Reports that features freezer reviews – check your local library for back issues. Once you’ve decided on the style and size you want, find out what’s available in your area before making your purchase.

Power
A freezer won’t work without electricity, as some of our friends in the Chicago area found out last weekend when a windstorm ripped through the area and knocked out their power for two days. An item on my fabled “List o’ Things To Do” is researching small, portable generators to power our freezer if our hydro goes out. Fortunately (knock wood) we haven’t yet suffered the same misfortune as our friends, but it might just be a matter of time. Losing an entire year’s meat and veggies to a power outage would hurt.

You should seriously look into getting a generator if your house experiences power outages frequently, or if you plan on keeping a small freezer at the cottage (where the hydro might be a bit spotty). Do some research before buying a generator, though, since there are several different kinds to consider.

Also, regardless of your power situation, think about getting a freezer alarm such as the one sold by Lee Valley. The alarm will warn you if the temperature in your freezer rises too much, and will hopefully give you time to either fix the problem or find someplace else to store your food.

In my next entry I’ll go over what types of containers you’ll need for storing your food, and how to prepare the produce for freezing.