In message "limey" > wrote:
>
> "elaine" wrote >
> >
> > I am ashamed to admit, that I've lived in this house for over 25 years
> > and have not defrosted the freezer once. There is such a big block of
> > ice on all four corners. Elaine
>
> Well, those famous baskets that I was just bragging about get totally
> frozen in and cannot be loosened if we don't defrost occasionally, so
> we're forced into it. Elaine.
>
> Dora
>
You're embarrassing me now ;-) We have 3 freezers; a horizontal one and an
upright in the garage (part of the house) and a fridge-freezer in the
kitchen. I defrost both twice a year. The reason being that I return to
England twice a year and return with 20lb+ of favourite stuff unobtainable or
too expensive in Europe. On each return I have to freeze the food and
re-organise the shelves. It only takes a couple of hours each time and that's
well worth having a regular turnover of food.

The upright is easy. I remove the 4 solid baskets and cover them with
newspaper. Loose stuff from the 3 quick freezing shelves goes into plastic
boxes after sorting. I stick a bowlful of boiling water on the bottom shelf,
close the door and replace the bowl once.

The horizontal one is even easier to sort. It came with 4 wire baskets so I
bought another 8. Now I place 4 on the base. Four more sit on these and the
final 4 have brackets which let them hang from the lip of the freezer so air
can circulate. Now I just yank them out and stack them onto a workboard which
sits on the trailer. Each shelf came with a plastic tab so I've labelled them
A1, A2, A3, B1...so it's easy to pop them back into the right place each
time. I've even used the computer to generate a simple stock chart for each
freezer so I can keep an up to date log of the contents. It's fun but then I
do most of the cooking. Now that's not so orderly ;-)

Cheers

Don