How to get bags of meat to not freeze to the sides of the freezer?

I’d really like steak today, but I can’t get to it because a bunch of other meat has frozen to the sides of the chest freezer and the top of the steak, and it won’t budge unless I switch it off for a few days in a row.

I am wondering if there is any trick I can do to stop this from happening?

The frozen meat is inside reused cryovac bags, which is then packed into a reused supermarket bag, but it still managed to stick. I think I have more luck in general using feed sacks for the second bag, but I’m not 100% sure.

How do you pack your bulk meat into the chest freezer?

We use zip lock bags or food saver bags.  Never had them freeze to the side of the freezer.  Recentle I have started using slider bags from the grocery.

Though maybe that is because I put the bags in the middle of the freezer instead on the sides?

I also sometimes use a basket/box to organize my meats ...

What are cryovac bags?

The bags must be absolutely dry when you put them into the freezer.

Also the freezer must be set so that the temperature is never allowed to rise above freezing point, ever, anywhere inside.

For the most part stuff will stay frozen even if the freezer is switched off for 24 hours, but if the temperature creeps up anywhere inside the freezer, some thawing will take place and water will gather in places you'd rather it didn't and then re-freeze and stick everything together.

My freezer managed to get turned off for a couple of days a few months ago and I had frozen blocks of fruit pulp that I had to rescue which had thawed enough that they had squashed down to become flattened slabs instead of blocks. They are still good to eat, but any changes like that or like excess sticking of bags to the sides of the freezer or to each other is a sign that the temperature regulation might not be as good as it should be.

Edit to add that if stuff is warm when you put it into the freezer, it's going to melt any ice around which will then re-freeze and stick things together. Make sure stuff is as cold as possible when you put it in.

Kate Downham wrote:I’d really like steak today, but I can’t get to it because a bunch of other meat has frozen to the sides of the chest freezer and the top of the steak, and it won’t budge unless I switch it off for a few days in a row.

I am wondering if there is any trick I can do to stop this from happening?

The frozen meat is inside reused cryovac bags, which is then packed into a reused supermarket bag, but it still managed to stick. I think I have more luck in general using feed sacks for the second bag, but I’m not 100% sure.

How do you pack your bulk meat into the chest freezer?

I am wondering if I read this correctly.  I read the the plastic bag is freezing to the side of the freezer wall.

When we process deer we normally have leg potions from shoulder and hind quarter, the backstrap. We don't keep the ribs.  Foodsaver makes a bulk bag which we use.

We age the meats in a refrigerator, drain the blood.

If the meat is wet my foodsaver will not work so we use paper towel though I bet cloth would work to absorb the moisture.

For that fact maybe wrap the foodsaver bag in old towels would work.

A trick that we use is to make dog food.  We put all scraps [not bones] into a crockpot with water then cook until done.

I'm going to put in my vote that there is too much moisture in the freezer or on the bags themselves when they go in. A dry wall of a freezer and a dry cryovac bag should not have anything that will freeze together.

In a perfect world, I'd see about emptying the freezer, clean it well, dry it well, and start fresh with the dryest bags of meat you can, but that is probably not practical :)

So... in the imperfect world, could you use your trick to thaw it just a little, and then use carboard boxes or sheets of carboard to help separate the bags from the edge of the freezer? Although, if the moisture penetrates the cardboard, then that will freeze to the edge.

Matt McSpadden wrote:I'm going to put in my vote that there is too much moisture in the freezer or on the bags themselves when they go in. A dry wall of a freezer and a dry cryovac bag should not have anything that will freeze together.

......cardboard

This is where I was going as well.
I have really limited freezer space and often freeze things flat or in blocks so it all fits. Sometimes that means freezing a bag on a cookie sheet or plastic tray, then removing it, or freezing liquid in a plastic bag within a big square food storage container (think ice cream carton size) and then taking it out when it's solid--- the "phantom container" method.

putting your bag of meat on a flat surface (like a cardboard sheet or something, or using that to position it) might similarly be helpful.

We live off grid and freezer runs on a generator run several hours a day. So we often have the same issues of things freezing to the walls and floor of the freezer. We are planning to add some of the thin foam board insulation to put a layer around the sides and bottom of the freezer then put everything back in.

Might be worth a try. Or even some of the Reflectix insulation used the same way.