CubFanAlways

You come home from your trip. The handful of clocks are blinking, letting you know that the power has been off. But for how long? Five seconds? Five minutes? Five days? You can’t tell! What about the food in the freezer? Is it still good? Sure, it’s frozen now, but maybe it’s been thawed for the past few days.

There is an easy way to see just how long your freezer has been without power. Take a glass and pour about a ½ inch of water in it. Place it in the freezer. After the water is frozen, place a coin on top of the frozen water. Then just leave it in the freezer.

When you come home and you know the power has been off, take a look at the coin. It is still on top? Or is it at the bottom?

By the way, I think the idea behind having only a ½ inch of water is that you want to give the ice the chance to melt, should the opportunity present itself.

LSky

That's a good idea CubFan. It's something I've never thought about but I'd hate to have to make a decision to throw away a lot of food that may be good. I beleive, 'when in doubt, throw it out" Going to freeze that half inch of water now, and hope that I don't forget why it's there.

jules39

I do a similar thing....but I just put a couple of the big square ice cubes on a flat plate. If it still looks like an ice cube I am safe, if it is flat on the plate I am not!

thursdaysd

Great idea! Although I suppose you could also just ask your neighbors.

LoveItaly

Just make sure your freezer is properly shut too before leaving on a trip. We returned home to find once that was not the case and lost a freezer full of steaks, roasts, venison, lamb etc. Gads..what a horrible stink plus about $300.00 plus of lost meat.

Thanks for your household tip, Cub, that is an excellant idea as is yours jules.

jules39

We are in the process of eating our way through our freezer & fridge before we head away! We try to do that before going away since we had friends that had a similar situation to you LoveItaly.