It's such a chore having to move the in-laws every time I want to get a steak.

Seriously. chest freezers turn in to an archive for me pretty easily. I am thinking about some sort of wire racks or shelving and then putting a lifting strap on them with pulleys mounted in the ceiling above them. I have seen similar units for big pit BBQing. Any other ideas? Eilene had some ideas, I need to back and re-read that section, I sort of quit reading when she said to name the critters in the freezer.

Milk crates?

EDIT: I think that my Wife bought some crates from THE CONTAINER STORE that fit the freezer better than actual milk crates or the flimsy ones that Wal-Mart sells.

My system works for me. My old freezer has little plastic channels clipped to the sides, which will hold vertical walls or panels in place. Thin plywood veneer makes good panels which divide the freezer into three compartments. Then I put nearly everything in smallish sturdy cardboard boxes, so they don’t get too heavy to lift and are easy to move around, plus two baskets. Cardboard holds up better than plastic tubs in the cold. The vertical divider/bulkheads don’t go all the way up, so I have the full length of the freezer if I want to stick in a rifle with a stuck bedding job, etc.

Panels sound good maybe medium density polyethylene? Milk crates sound good too but I like the idea of having all levels accessible but the crates would only be two tiers tall so not bad, also they would not get too heavy.

Sell it and get a cabinet style or two. The money spent is worth getting rid of the headache in my opinion

Ding!

I removed the dividing panels that came with the freezer because they took up too much room. Put everything in different colored cloth shopping bags. They hold a decent amount of weight. You still end up with stuff piled on top of other stuff but it is easier to move around. Colored bags to identify by type or date. Keep a paper taped to the wall with the info.

I used to use the cardboard boxes that a case of beer bottles come in. Stuff all things alike in different boxes, doves, ground, backstrap, etc. Finally dumped the chest and bought an upright. Now, the wife is able to find things in the freezer without assistance. Win/win.

I put all the meat in a big slider lock Ziploc bags.Usualy 8 steaks or GM per bag. I can see thru the bag to tell what is in it and they are easy to move. Newest elk goes on bottom. Different columns for steaks, ground, roasts , stew, chicken, ham corn, chili. I' still chewing on a bull elk I killed in 2018.
Smaller freezers (7 ft ) has incidentals that do not get lost.

Should have noted, Meat is packaged with each piece in freezer paper first.

I just use a bunch of this type of heavy canvas grocery tote bags with full length sewn on handles:

[Link

separate everything the way you like and put tags on the handles. Wouldn't have an upright.


Phil

Greyghost,

That's a nifty solution!

Have mentioned before that my wife and I have 15-cubic-foot freezers. two chest and one upright. We keep most stuff in the chest freezers, one in the room next to the kitchen for everyday use, and one in the basement to be filled during this year's gardening and hunting seasons. Both are non frost-free, and keep stuff a long time. We defrost and reorganize them once a year, usually in August. In those we use tall cardboard boxes to keep the categories separate.

The upright is for my wife's cookbook projects, whether gamebirds without many holes that will look good in a photo, or pieces of big game that's different than our usual collection of elk, deer, pronghorn and wild pigs. It only gets opened when Eileen needs something for a special project, so also keeps stuff very well.

I like the tote bag idea. The 16 cu. ft. chest freezer will be for long term storage. It is more efficient especially if not opened often.
The 17 upright for more immediate use and I removed the ice maker from the kitchen freezer so another 4-5 cu. ft, of space for more immediate use. I usually freeze an ample number of jugs for the ice chests and ideally to go two or three days with out power. Although I may get a generator just in case.

Anybody make a lazy susan or similar set up?

I'm cheap. I put like and similar dated items in Walmart bags. Instead of sorting through loose items, I just have 6 or 8 plastic bags to move around.

I have a couple 15 cubic foot chest freezers. Both have 3 hanging baskets that hook just inside the top edge and hang about 10 inches or so down. This leaves about 24 inches of vertical space below. I bent a few pieces of 12 gauge aluminum sheet metal with a vertical leg about 22 inches tall and a right anle leg around 10-12 inches. The depth was about an inch shy of front to back inside freezer depth. I sat the short leg on the freezer floor and put a few items on it to hold it in place, then repeated. The freezer now has four divided bins below the baskets. Cheap and it doesn't reduce the available space much.

x2 great ideal !

I've got something like this in a chest freezer - and I'll use a few cardboard boxes if the Fall season goes well.

Fish in one, ground in another, and roasts / steaks as needed to fill.

New meat on the bottom, and older meat on top.

Feed sacks work well too. The woven plastic type. You can write on them with a sharpie to identify the contents.

I use those reusable grocery bags

I use cardboard boxes. It works well but the tote bag idea sounds better

One reason we use cardboard boxes is we have a BUNCH of empty GUN GACK book boxes that with the top flaps opened and taped to stay there, a pretty tall, yet are not terribly wide. Several fit easily in a chest freezer, providing a handy "filing:" system.

This is my solution as well. Will never voluntarily buy another chest freezer if an upright is an option.

Just got a dozen of the tote bags. I think I am going to like this system in conjunction with milk or container store crates. Keep everything to two tiers maximum should work out well. I may still put in an overhead pulley as it is hard on old backs to lift in awkward positions, depends on how heavy the crates are.

I used to mark the vacuum sealed bags of meat as to species and year.

It was suggested that if I was ever inspected by F&W, it would be a whole lot less explaining to do if the bags were just marked with the year.

We are pretty much deer hunters with the very rarely drawn (now) antelope. I also don't really care and will mix WT and MD meat together (we almost exclusively grind and use the burger for hamburgers, meatballs, chili, spaghetti sauce, lasagna etc.). There is no appreciable difference in taste.

Not sure if removing deer from the bag label would make a difference, but it made sense when I heard it (I've forgotten).

We use sturdy cardboard boxes to organize the chest freezer.