Well about 3-4 weeks ago I lost about 100 pounds of game meat from my upright freezer :(
My brother brought over about 30 pounds of venison meat about 5-6 weeks ago that we were going to turn into sausage at some point. It was all in a large bag he had tied up. Well it had been sitting in my upright freezer without issue but then on a Thu evening I went and got some brats out that I grilled and I rearranged the meat bag and it was a bit of a tight fit.
Well I think a short time after the bag shifted and knocked open the door about 6 inches. I found out 2 days later and though some of the meat was cool and could have possibly been saved but I couldn't take the chance because everything was just too questionable over a couple of days sitting in the open freezer... in my garage, in TX in August :(
Well I threw out all that meat and it sucked. I learned the lesson that I should put some sort of latch on my upright freezer door. It was brought to my attention that there are adhesive child safety latches (Multi-Purpose Appliance Lock if you google it) that are used to keep fridge and freezer doors closed. They are inexpensive so I went with that route to avoid drilling or harming the freezer to install a latch.
Here it is! I just cleaned the surface with alcohol, aligned it up, pulled adhesive strips, and stuck on. So far after about an hour no issue. I'll report back if it fails but I'm sure the only failure would be the adhesive and I have Gorilla Glue that can solve that problem.
If you have a situation where an upright door is failing or may be popped open by an over stuffing situation, I highly recommend looking into something like this latch. For a few bucks it could be the difference between 100 pounds of sausage or an empty freezer and a lot of wasted time and money with a freezer full of rotten meat.
I hope this helps people out there that are trying to find cheap and simple ideas or for those who have yet to have a failure but want to guard against it!
My brother brought over about 30 pounds of venison meat about 5-6 weeks ago that we were going to turn into sausage at some point. It was all in a large bag he had tied up. Well it had been sitting in my upright freezer without issue but then on a Thu evening I went and got some brats out that I grilled and I rearranged the meat bag and it was a bit of a tight fit.
Well I think a short time after the bag shifted and knocked open the door about 6 inches. I found out 2 days later and though some of the meat was cool and could have possibly been saved but I couldn't take the chance because everything was just too questionable over a couple of days sitting in the open freezer... in my garage, in TX in August :(
Well I threw out all that meat and it sucked. I learned the lesson that I should put some sort of latch on my upright freezer door. It was brought to my attention that there are adhesive child safety latches (Multi-Purpose Appliance Lock if you google it) that are used to keep fridge and freezer doors closed. They are inexpensive so I went with that route to avoid drilling or harming the freezer to install a latch.
Here it is! I just cleaned the surface with alcohol, aligned it up, pulled adhesive strips, and stuck on. So far after about an hour no issue. I'll report back if it fails but I'm sure the only failure would be the adhesive and I have Gorilla Glue that can solve that problem.
If you have a situation where an upright door is failing or may be popped open by an over stuffing situation, I highly recommend looking into something like this latch. For a few bucks it could be the difference between 100 pounds of sausage or an empty freezer and a lot of wasted time and money with a freezer full of rotten meat.
I hope this helps people out there that are trying to find cheap and simple ideas or for those who have yet to have a failure but want to guard against it!
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