How to Tell if Food is Still Good in your Freezer
You planned well, but you didn’t have the ability to get a whole house solar backup. Or didn’t have a chance to make a battery backup for just the fridge in a power outage. It happens. All that stuff is expensive. Keeping a freezer running off grid is a pretty big deal. But how can you tell if you lost power while you are gone?
What if you lost power while you were at work, and the power came back on? How long has the freezer been “not frozen?” Is the food still good?
Just using a thermometer in the freezer is nice, but they measure air temp. Not “food” temp. Is your food still OK?
Well, it turns out there’s a really cool, simple way to figure this out. The Freezer Meter (gotta admit, pretty good name)
The Freezer Meter - lets you know what went on in your freezer!
The Freezer Meter is a ridiculously simple (why didn’t I think of that) idea that is basically a test tube with ice in it, and a non-floating red ball in it, that falls down slowly as the ice melts. Did it fall all the way to the bottom? Everything melted. Still close to the top? You should be good!
Here’s a few pictures of the one I put in my freezer
As you can see, it is pretty simple. You fill it up to the line, let it freeze solid in the freezer, THEN add the red ball (that’s why the line is there, to make sure there’s room), and use the velcro strap to put it upright in the freezer some place. I paid like 12 bucks for it, but you can check the price on Amazon here:
OK, so what about the “penny on the ice” trick?
I have always heard that the other way to do this is take a paper cup, fill it with water, freeze it, and then sit a penny on top of the ice and put it in the freezer. If the penny is at the bottom, the ice melted. Done. For almost zero dollars!
Well, it turns out that doesn’t work. Firstly, it is a complete pain to have an upright cup in the freezer. A man has to stuff ice cream somewhere, and that is taking up space! Secondly, the ice FLOATS, so it is possible the penny will float on a little iceberg for a while , thus not really being a good indicator. You can read about it HERE on LifeHacker. But basically, the penny trick sucks.
Are there more fancy ways to tell what is going on in your freezer?
YES. I actually use these things called “SensorPush” sensors.
A pair of SensorPush temperature (and humidity) sensors. The one on the left is more basic, and the HTP.xw one is more fancy with more features.
You can read about how I use them a bit on the page about how I made a battery backup for my fridge HERE. That has pictures of how they work, etc. Check it out!