Due to the actions of a complete imbecile (not me) our chest freezer has been without power for 23 hours. It's half full and hasn't been opened since.
Guidance suggests that the contents would remain frozen for around 24 hours, subject to certain factors . It is situated quite close to a radiator which would have been on for at least an hour, this morning. Can't see that helping matters.
Anyone got any actual experience of this situation? Personally, I wouldn't trust the safety of anything that came out of there now. Feeling rather deflated since discovering this an hour, or so, ago...
House contents insurance?
Remember my mum claiming when power to the garage died and everything in the chest freezer defrosted..... Freezer was full of M&S stuff (she used to work for them and used her discount card a lot as well as buying up everything that was about to go past its sell by date for peanuts).
Insurance wanted pics of everything. The total was nigh on two grand!
How big is the freezer?
If it's just a regular circa 100L? And only half full I'd just start cooking and eating the contents, as if you'd taken them out and put them in the fridge to defrost the previous day.
Looks like you don't get much choice of what to eat for the next few meals!
I wouldn’t be bothered provided the food hasn’t obviously defrosted.
This.
I'm of the opinion that defrosting and re-freezing only affects the texture of food.
Mrs BigJohn seems to think the salmonella fairy pounces.
I think reality lies somewhere between these two viewpoints. I also think it'll take longer than 23 hours to defrost a freezer full of food.
What BigJohn said. I'm not a food scientist but the growth of bacteria will still be very low if the food in the freezer hasn't fully thawed - if the stuff in the middle is still frozen, the stuff on the outside will be just above freezing, but not enough to spoil. Thawing and refreezing will probably hurt the texture, but just use it for stews and and casseroles and it'll be fine.
+1 it'll be fine.
If its got a decent amount of food in there it should have stayed frozen. Check stuff near the top to see if it has refrozen, peas/bread slices all stuck together are good indicators as they defrost quickly. If you'd left a leg of lamb on the side it would take ages to defrost so all that heavy dense stuff will act as ice packs for the more delicate stuff.
it'll be fine . The only thing that I might not trust would be ice cream as if it gets defrosted and refrozen it can become a bit poisonous
Wouldn't even register as a a problem to me!
Depends on the food - I might be a little wary of chicken, seafood, etc but chances are everything will be fine if the door has been kept closed during the power outage.
48 hours if full & 24 hours if half full is the guidance so should be fine.
We've had a joint of beef out on the garage worktop all day defrosting and it barely seems any different to when it came out the freezer this morning.
Another in the don't worry about it camp.
