Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game Hunters Freezer

I know a lot of folks say to use up your meat within a year but I always like to have a seasons worth in storage. That way if I got injured and had to sit out a season we would be good.

We have three freezers for meat. One in the house that is mostly year old that we pull from daily. Two freezers in the shop that are a mix of overflow that wouldn’t fit in the inside freezer, packaged steaks from last year and unground meat frozen in big blocks. I typically don’t make burger till the year we plan to eat it. That way I am adding fresh fat. Works for us.






Gotta get the slaves to clean the shop again this week. Almost time to restock the shelves.

Had deer loin and burgers today on the grill. Kids were over. Cleaned out the deer blinds today also Oct. opening day here. Oh yes two freezers.

About 2/3’s full of Bison, and its only a 7 cubic footer. Hopefully I’ll get a good muley in October.

Mine is right on schedule to be near empty by time I head out for my first hunt of the season. Should be a blacktail in there by Nov 1. After that,, a few NE whitetails should have her pretty well full.. that Will be plenty for me and the wife.

You guys got me thinking I need a second freezer.

Love the upright freezer, got one myself. I like to group similar cuts into cardboard boxes to label and stack on the shelves. Makes digging through wrapped packages quicker and easier.

Yeah, we have 3 chest freezers, + freezers on both fridges !

It's empty.

About 4 months ago it died. Lost a whole bunch of Hot Italian sausage, burger, back straps, roasts, and a bunch of boneless that I was going to get ground. Probably about 60 to 80 pounds. The cleanup wasn't too bad. I wheeled the whole freezer, with the meat in it, outside. Almost everything was vacuum packed, other than the burger in plastic tubes and the boneless in zip lock freezer bags. The freezer bags leaked a little. Picked up a used freezer for free from one of my guys that his brother gave to him, but he didn't need it. I cleaned it out and put a new light bulb in it and it's like new running sub zero. I just need to kill some meat now.

We have 2 freezers. One is just for meat. It’s an upright, doesn’t seem huge, but it will hold a large cow elk and 4 deer pretty easily. Got enough meat to last into hunting season.
I get a smile every time I pull out a package with my kids initials signifying there deer from last fall. And my son, just turned 11, drew a pretty good cow tag this fall. I’m beyond excited for that hunt.


Medriver,
Awesome setup you have.

StoneCutter I hate to hear that. I’ve been there myself. It’s a kick in the gut for sure.


Judd, you have a really sweet setup sir!

Stonecutter, I lost one when breaker tripped years ago and it was in outbuilding. Thought I was slick and wired the LED floods in to the circuit so I’d notice lights go out. Moved them inside during Relo and contractor unplugged one to plug in a tool. I didn’t notice until it smelled. Moved to PA and GFI outlets went out in garage while traveling. I noticed when I got home. My wife saw the light come on the outlet but didn’t realize the freezer was on that circuit.

Got real slick when I replaced fridge and moved old one out to replace lost freezer. I put a circuit alarm on it. Last week my daughter went into freezer for popsicles and meat shifted. She thought she restacked but after leaving garage it fell and opened door🙄

I need a new chest freezer or three. I have to find the Bluetooth device around the house. My wife used for a greenhouse. They are 2”x2” and connect to phone app to alert if temp changes. I highly recommend one for freezers. $75 iirc.

I’m going to get a new upright this fall I think. We have 3 kitchens so plenty of regular freezers and only kill 3 deer and a bear most seasons along with whatever trout don’t recover to C+R. Usually 30 lbs of trout or so. My brother moved in and eats everything faster than I can butcher and process.

Same thing happened here a few months back. Lost a similar amount of antelope, mule deer and elk. Enough to pizz a guy off...

We put a Alarm on our freezers, that goes off if the compressor goes down or temperature changes, couldn't afford a big meat loss again. Rio7

We have an upright full of last year's caribou, this year's sockeye for just the two of us. It will do.

Good thing too- 2022 was a total bust.

mid-August: 1300 miles rt driving, 5 days hunting , no caribou sighted. .

mid Sept: 1400 mile rt road, 400 mile rt river trip for moose twarted by a bent prop shaft (gravel bar), 3 miles after launching. Not my equipment, navigation or boat driving, so I'm golden...


Fall back to home, regroup for 1 1/2 days for a trip to the remote cabin back to Interior, and maybe a moose during last 5 days of season. Also a 1300 mile, 100 mile boat rt expedition (When I came to the fork in the road at Fox, I took it, per Berra. Dejavu all over again...).

35 miles down river my outboard started acting up, just 15 miles from the cabin. Camped overnight, headed back to Manley Hot Springs, motor ran perfectly. Refueled and headed out again. Made it 5 miles down the slough before it quit altogether - no idea what or how many of a half dozen things it could be. Fuggin 4-strokes!

Remnants of a typhoon hitting Alaska worked to our advantage, blowing us slowly back to the launch, sometimes with the aid of a tarp held up by my wife and I as a sail, sometimes by rowing in the wind shadow behind bends. I prefered the "drift"....

In Alaska, the fun never ends! We are retard, with no particular time schedule, so as a friend (he of the bent prop shaft) puts it, "Lucky people problems".

I'm just going to consider 2022 as "Conserving hunting ammo"......

Elk, Halibut and Cod, just enough room left for a Whitetail :o)

Working this weekend on pressure canning last years deer and quail. Using some of the recipe's from CF members.

Combination bear, and whitetail hunt 2nd week of December in eastern NC. Wife, myself, and our son (30 yo). Potential for a lot of meat.

Also plenty of whitetail hunting before and after the combination hunt.

I have two 22 cubic foot uprights. One is older non-frost-free and the other is newer, frost-free. I try to keep the paper-wrapped meat in the non-frost free and the vacuum-sealed in the frost free. Killed a cow elk on Friday and had to de-frost the older one today to receive her meat. I have general deer and deer B Montana tags in October and fear I may have to donate that meat to a local maker of fine salami as these two will be about stuffed by then.

Wishing a fruitful season to all,
Rex

Congrats on your elk.