To get a freezer, or not

I have lived on this land for 4 years now without a freezer or refrigerator.

I'm considering getting a freezer.

Most people here probably have a freezer and think it's a no brainer to have a freezer in this modern world.  But imagine the permaculture dream life.  Does it have electric freezers in it?  Mine doesn't!  They are not a technology that fits well in an ecological system.  They are, like all the rest of our high tech stuff, an artifact of this moment of our ecocidal culture.  Our ancestors never had them and our descendants probably won't either.  But, like computers, which I use, they exist right now and can be used, for good or ill, so we have to make these decisions.  That said, I'm not judging those who use freezers.  I use all kinds of other modern luxuries that harm the ecosystem, and in this thread I'm debating with myself about getting a freezer too.  

I've spent five years honing non-refrigerated ways of doing food.  We have a decent size strawbale/cob pantry that stays around 60-65F through the summer, and I've got many hundreds of glass jars, wood-fired hot water for cleaning them, and a rack to dry them in the sun.  Two extra large Walk Solar Dehydrators (32sqft of dehydrating surface area), a quality pressure canner I can use on the woodstove, and much experience preserving/storing all our food with these methods.  Food is hardly ever wasted here.  Anything can be tossed in the dehydrator and dried, e.g. if we squeeze a lemon for juice on something, I dry the squished lemon and have lemon powder to put in things.  

What we lack most, is the ability to keep a lot of meat here, to put up a huge amount of meat all at once, and to have ice-cold drinks and smoothies in the summer.

I'm looking at the sundanzer 14 cubic ft chest freezer, that could run on 12v directly from the batteries.  It would be $2k delivered.  An alternative is getting a used AC freezer for a few hundred bucks, but that might be more than our solar can handle and likely wouldn't last as long.  We have 2200W of solar panels, but are in the forest so we get about 6kwh total in a day, in the peak of summer, and a lot less during winter.  


It's a struggle to decide.  I feel like this could have significant impacts on my lifestyle, some of which would be nice, and some I would not like.  I thought it would help me to write out the pros/cons.  And hear if anyone has opinions.  I'm curious if anyone else here lives without refrigeration?  Anyone do it by choice?  What's your rationale?


Pros of getting the freezer:
- We could store meat here.  This would give more flexibility and freedom to our diet.  Currently we only eat meat after we go to town and get some, and generally that's not a cost effective way to have meat, and it also means we can't choose when to have meat, since we can only get what's available that day and it has to be eaten right away after a town trip.  I do make jerky sometimes, and I could step up my jerky game.  It doesn't need to be that much work, almost any kind of beef even with fat can be sliced and salted and dried, and keep for a while.
- When I happen on a windfall of food that could be frozen, I can make use of it.  As food gets more expensive which it will, this will matter more and more.  But honestly, with the big dehydrator and canning, I rarely miss these opportunities already - meat is the only one.
- If I kill one of those wild pigs that wreck havoc around here, we could butcher and freeze it.  I wouldn't likely be able to make that much pork jerky successfully on the spur of the moment in the dehydrator, especially in winter.
- Having ice year round (I almost never have ice here, it's rarely cold enough in the winter).  In the summer, this would be a huge luxury.  But, we have a year-round creek and a pond here, so we can cool off even without it.
- I could freeze big blocks of ice to use to keep the pantry extra cool and keep all that dried food good for longer.
- Being able to freeze berries etc instead of drying them.  Surely people enjoying the pleasures of frozen strawberry smoothies (etc etc) during the summer is a good thing.
- Having ice could help someone in an emergency if they need an ice pack or what not, or in a heat wave.  But again we have a creek that stays somewhat cool even in summer, so it's unlikely the ice would make a life/death difference.
- I could freeze leftovers, currently I have to re-cook leftovers every 24hr or dry them, to keep them good.  So, I wouldn't need to cook fresh food as often.
- When it does fail, it's still a big mouse-proof insulated box that could be repurposed into a root cellar type of thing.

Cons:
- I would devote more time to figuring ways of preserving food and cooking/eating/growing that depend on the freezer and electricity, and less time to the other wood/sun powered food ways that I currently do.  All that freezer-dependent knowledge and practice would suddenly become worthless when the freezer fails one day.
- My lifestyle would be less connected to the land and seasons and weather.  If I went to the freezer when I was hot rather than to the creek, I would lose touch to some degree.
- The seven generations from now would not be grateful that I enjoyed an inappropriate technology and left a toxic mark on the land in the form of a deteriorating freezer.  I see no benefit to the earth in the longer term by getting a freezer.
- Money and time spent on getting, setting up, and maintaining the freezer that could be used in other ways.
- It would stop working eventually.  Google says chest freezers tend to last around ~10 years, which seems absurdly low, but even if it lasts 20..  How long before I'd need to pay who knows how much for a technician to come way out here, or to replace the thing?
- The freezer wouldn't fit in the kitchen or pantry, I'd either need to build a bear-proof shed for it behind the kitchen, or put it in the shop which is a good 150ft walk from the kitchen.  
- Probably would end up using lots more plastic bags.  Jars are great for dried things, and while they do work in the freezer, they're more of a pain for frozen things - I can imagine trying to get frozen berries out of a jar..
- Cleaning up wet/icy bags and jars etc, more of a hassle than dealing with dried foods.  
- Worrying about the freezer if I leave the land to travel which I sometimes like to.  Will something go wrong with the solar or just not enough sun in the winter, and things thaw before I get back?  This might prove to not be an issue, but something I have to think about.
- I don't consider solar panels to be renewable energy - they make use of the sun but they also depend on lifespan-limited technology including toxins and heavy metals etc etc.  Solar electricity is a great luxury, and enables us to do a lot of things easily that we couldn't otherwise.  But it won't last forever, and it absolutely does pollute the earth.  

Basicaly how often will you use it.
How often do you go to town?
I live 8km from a town, I go in most days for work, get the paper and groceries.
I rarely store meat more than 2 days.
$2000 for a freezer in my case is not smart.

wow. nice con/pro list... looks like a stale-mate...

You've done an amazing job of building a freezer-free system. Nice!

I don't think you have to choose, or lose what you have achieved. A freezer is one tool in your toolbox. For most people, I personally think a freezer saves money, saves fuel, and is better for the health of the biosphere. Compare this to Skip the Dishes - oy!

The environmental equation, as I see it:
- if  it saves you one tank of gas over the course of a year, you are way ahead in terms of emissions and ecological impact
- if it allows you to harvest local meat in season instead of supporting feedlot operations, you are ahead in just about every category I can think of
- if you extend the useful life of an older, working freezer (which you got for free), saving it from the scrap heap, you have extended its useful life and its embodied energy (also: this is under the radar -- you haven't signalled the system to build more)
- if you make a deal with a local grid-tied resident to host your freezer, trading useful goods/good food for the few dollops of electricity it uses, IMO you get mega permie points

My 2 cents'.

Is there a meat locker in your area? They used to be rather common in small towns; like a frozen storage locker to keep your venison or side of beef.  Usually would process the meat for you for a fee also.

Maybe harder to find nowadays.

Mk Neal wrote:Is there a meat locker in your area? They used to be rather common in small towns; like a frozen storage locker to keep your venison or side of beef.  Usually would process the meat for you for a fee also.

Maybe harder to find nowadays.

Good point, very true! This was common before electricity came to rural areas. They used ammonia as the refrigerant, highly efficient but dangerous in a leak. A local butcher, small-scale abattoir, or custom meat shop may have suggestions. (Of course the local ice rink has the perfect solution, but good luck selling that.)  

Is there a meat locker in your area? They used to be rather common in small towns; like a frozen storage locker to keep your venison or side of beef.

Not that I know of.  This could work great if I lived in town, but I wouldn't make any extra trips 15 miles each way to town just to pick up meat.

Douglas Alpenstock wrote:
The environmental equation, as I see it:
- if  it saves you one tank of gas over the course of a year, you are way ahead in terms of emissions and ecological impact

I don't know about this - the embodied energy in a freezer is quite a lot, and the ecological impact to the land of the toxic refrigerants, electronics, and other materials, plus the fuel burned in extracting and shipping the materials to the factory, etc, and shipping the freezer from the factory to this land, would need to save many many trips to town to break even.

- if it allows you to harvest local meat in season instead of supporting feedlot operations, you are ahead in just about every category I can think of

This is probably true, but we already don't buy feedlot / industrial meat.

- if you extend the useful life of an older, working freezer (which you got for free), saving it from the scrap heap, you have extended its useful life and its embodied energy (also: this is under the radar -- you haven't signalled the system to build more)

Good idea.  This would eliminate the environmental cons from my list.  Just wait for the right free freezer to come along.  Someone will need to get rid of a working freezer one day.  The other lifestyle considerations still apply, but if I got the freezer for free, it would be easier to stomach making less use of it.  The challenge is that an older less efficient AC freezer would likely need more electricity that our current solar system can afford.  But if it's free, and proves to need to much power, I could turn it into just an insulated storage box.

- if you make a deal with a local grid-tied resident to host your freezer, trading useful goods/good food for the few dollops of electricity it uses, IMO you get mega permie points

This is a good thought, but not sure the math checks out around here.  A freezer that uses say 1-2 kwh / day would cost $80-$160/year just in electricity at 20c/kwh.  Getting an efficient freezer here seems nice because it would just be using excess electricity we already generate with solar panels.  I've thought about renting freezer space from a neighbor.  My neighbors generally keep their freezers full already but could make some space for me.  If I had neighbors who wouldn't mind me dropping by every few days to pick up some meat, this could work.  In practice, I doubt I'd end up choosing to walk the mile round trip to the nearest neighbor just to get meat for dinner very often.  That much time could be used to go pick berries or mushrooms or do other fun/useful work.

Thanks Douglas for those ideas.

I'm leaning toward, wait for a free or very cheap old freezer to come along, try it out, and if it uses too much power, use it as a mouse-proof storage box.

I feel knowing more about someone's lifestyle can be a big help when advising yay or nay to a freezer to get a freezer.

If a person is homesteading with animals a freezer is almost a necessity.

Like Mk Neal suggested, using a local meat locker is really helpful.

Where I live hunting is a biggie so almost every town has deer processing.

Renting a locker might be cheaper than buying a freezer and paying for electricity.

I have 3 freezers that are full of deer meat and other meats/vegetables.

Years ago when we had our homestead, we used the local meat processor to butcher the cows.  It was so easy just to rent a locker from then to store the meat and use the freezer at home for daily uses.

This is a great thread!  Thank you, Phillip!

One thing that I missed while writing the original post, I've thought about this before but never actually done it.

Meat can be pressure canned.  Another option if I killed a wild pig or otherwise had a lot of meat to deal with at once, would be to get busy cutting it all up and pressure canning right away.  It might be a long day.  If it was a big animal, perhaps multiple days.  With capacity of 14 quarts in the canner at 90 minutes per batch.  With a freezer you just wrap and pack in the freezer- I'd have to get meat off bones for this.  But, the easy hunks of meat could go in the canner, and meat that is hard to get off the bone could slow cook next to it, and when it falls off the bone either be eaten or canned or dried later.  Fat can go right into a pot to render, no need to freeze it at all.  Nothing need go to waste.  And as a plus, this meat is good to store for many years with no electricity, and is ready to eat with no need for cooking later on - just open a jar.   No plastic involved.  Could even add seasoning/herbs/mushrooms during the canning.  This method will work as long as my supply of jars and lids lasts, and as long as the canner lasts - which should be a while, it's metal-on-metal with no rubber gasket.

If I had a cattle ranch or something then yeah, this method might be impractical - but if coming by a large amount of meat is a rare occurrence as in my case, this is another option.  The pressure canner is itself expensive, but I already have it, and it should have a long lifespan.

Edit: Since posting this I butchered and pressure-canned my first deer and it is delicious.

Very comprehensive list of pros and cons indeed. Well thought out!
I have also pressure canned moose and fish.  Canned fish is a favorite here, we like to agh a half jalapeno, seeds and all, salt and some liquid smoke (could actually smoke it first too but I don’t have a smoker so buying it works well for me). The canned moose is awesome in any form of meat usage that isn’t roast or steak. Pot pies/pasties, gravy, stews/soups, just on the side (very similar to tender juicy roast), a sandwiches or crackers. I both moose sbs fish also have the added benefit of being mobile with no refrigerator so lunches on the go are really nice.

Update after 1 year:

For what it's worth, I've not bothered with a freezer yet and am more inclined not to going forward.

My experience with pressure canning meat was I think less hassle and effort overall than it would have been to freeze it in plastic and then cook it each time I got some out.  (Counting total effort from butchering through to eating and cleaning up.)  And has the benefit that I've been able to travel two months this summer without worrying about the freezer failing in some way.  Again - the math might would be different if I had lots of big animals to butcher all the time.

In the winter I had a big pot of fermenting oatmeal for several months.  And an infinite soup on the woodstove.  Both of those I could just keep eating out of and adding things to, without worrying about them going bad.  (Except I had to either finish the soup or bring it with me if I left home for multiple days.)

I've been on a two month+ road trip this summer and was able to bring a lot of dried food with me.  I turned all my dried greens and mushrooms into powders, mostly based on nettles and bitter greens, and have one savory blend (with garlic and tomato powder, all the mushrooms etc) and one sweet-ish blend (with things like daisy, sweet cicely, roses etc), and I make oatmeal with the sweet greens and eggs with the savory greens.  This has allowed me to eat tasty/cheap/healthy while on the road, with very little effort and without taking much space in the car.  Bonus tip -- the oatmeal starts fermenting pretty quick in the car, usually within 24hrs. ;)   I have a cast iron and propane stove with me for the eggs, and can often find fresh eggs along the way.

Philip McGarvey wrote:I have lived on this land for 4 years now without a freezer or refrigerator.

I'm considering getting a freezer.


What we lack most, is the ability to keep a lot of meat here, to put up a huge amount of meat all at once

Meat can be canned. We use a freezer but thats just because I haven’t “progressed” down the permaculture path as much as I’d like to yet. I know people who can whole deer’s worth of venison every year though. It limits what your options are as far as cooking goes, but it is shelf stable, already cooked and can be premade meals if you add vegetables and seasoning to the jars before canning.

I know people who can chicken and fish as well.

Philip McGarvey wrote:...
This is a good thought, but not sure the math checks out around here.  A freezer that uses say 1-2 kwh / day would cost $80-$160/year just in electricity at 20c/kwh.  ..

I quite appreciate this. I annually struggle with the idea of a freezer with the advent of friends who are are hunters heading into the field. I have begun raising rabbits for meat also.

For me, canning meat is  the preferred method. Although, I have a 5 year experiment with pemmican going strong, it relying on refrigeration. I am not certain cellaring would have the same effect.

Did I have the footprint for a freezer, or even were I willing to sacrifice the space from other uses, then I could not in good conscience have it running all the time. $160 a year flies in the face of my frugal nature.  However, I would use it to hold meat while I process it by other means. The argument always settles that I will not get a freezer. But, that also limits me to how much meat I can receive/harvest.

Philip McGarvey wrote:Update after 1 year:

For what it's worth, I've not bothered with a freezer yet and am more inclined not to going forward.

We operate very differently. Even so, I appreciate hearing about your experiments.

I know  a freezer free life is possible -- my grandparents did it, and their grandparents. They canned absolutely everything, which is hard work with a big animal like a pig or steer. I do note that as soon as grid electricity became available, my grandparents' first purchases were electric lighting and a freezer.

I agree with your cooking-on-the-road solution. Real food is harder to arrange, but it's absolutely worth it.

It all depends how far someone wants to be old-style. You want to be XIX century or maybe X century or before that. I love XV century Spanish architecture and am trying to recreate it when building, but at the same time I'm using the most complicated piece of microelectronics to write these words and everyone else here uses the same to read them. A freezer is much less complex and highly useful. I want one.

What a fascinating topic I'm just seeing this. The embodied energy discussion is a good one. If you have solar already but are choosing to not use it to it's full potential to me that means it's embodied energy is not being used to it's full extent. If you are choosing to do a trip to town instead of using the energy available on the solar array then you are adding to the energy load instead of maximizing what you already have. Consumption wise our 8 cubic foot energy star rated AC freezer consumes 700 watts per day in the summer and 550 watts in the winter based on recent kill a watt readings I took. So 256 kWHr per year. I don't particularly like the 12 volt freezers as my experience has been they are shorter lived then their now as efficient AC cousins at four times the cost. If you don't have an inverter that is a factor. Others on site have different experiences. I believe the value and energy savings long term is worth the embodied energy expenditure. Either way awesome work with all the preserving!

someone wrote somewhere how they have a little 400 watt solar set up and it runs a late model chest freezer with no problems at all. and they dont have grid power and food stays frozen till you take it out to thaw. I'm no expert but that sounds pretty good if thats something you could set up

I would very much appreciate input into how to live without refrigeration. I've been off grid for a year and without the ability to keep food cool. During warmer weather I just don't have milk or fresh meat unless I'm going to consume it almost immediately. A couple of times I got frozen meat and used it the next day. But I'd really like a better system. I enclosed my typical, cheap ice chest in an extra 3 or 4 inches of styrofoam (recycled, of course) and it improved efficiency by about 100 percent but I would still like to do better. TIA to anyone who can give me great pointers.

Freezing is probably the least time-intensive food preparation method. So if you have time to can, dehydrate, or whatever your harvest then good on you! don't get a freezer. But if you have electricity, and you are short on time--maybe you do a worky job like I do, or maybe you are busy establishing your homestead, or just doing a lot of other things. Freezing food can seriously save you time. Some people are time rich and others are time poor. Decide which you are.

I have a fairly unusual living situation including living alone off grid currently, and wanting to be able to leave without worrying about the freezer, and having already put the work into building a nice passive dehydrator and pantry, and having limited space for a freezer.  I think for most people with a normal sort of house and who can afford one, a freezer probably makes a lot of sense.  I wouldn't suggest anyone who already has one should stop using it.  I throw things in the dehydrator and then seal them in jars similar to how others put things into freezer bags and put them in the freezer - it's not much more work to do.  If I only had one of those electric dehydrators with the little trays where the food has to be sliced very thin to fit, it could be a lot more tedious to dry large quantities of food.  I would need a very large freezer to accommodate the amount of food I can dry and put in jars in a season.  Even with all that I still might get a freezer one day, particularly if I live with more people who want it more than I do.

Philip McGarvey wrote:I have a fairly unusual living situation including living alone off grid currently, and wanting to be able to leave without worrying about the freezer, and having already put the work into building a nice passive dehydrator and pantry, and having limited space for a freezer.  I think for most people with a normal sort of house and who can afford one, a freezer probably makes a lot of sense.  I wouldn't suggest anyone who already has one should stop using it.  I throw things in the dehydrator and then seal them in jars similar to how others put things into freezer bags and put them in the freezer - it's not much more work to do.  If I only had one of those electric dehydrators with the little trays where the food has to be sliced very thin to fit, it could be a lot more tedious to dry large quantities of food.  I would need a very large freezer to accommodate the amount of food I can dry and put in jars in a season.  Even with all that I still might get a freezer one day, particularly if I live with more people who want it more than I do.

Philip, I love this post of yours. I love the freedom that flows through it, a gentle wind.

(Meanwhile, I'm contemplating how to accommodate a quarter of a cow that I somehow committed to. Wonderful chow though. Another freezer perhaps?)