271–280 of 384 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
'Teach a man to eat fish and he will be cold for one day...' no, wait... But seriously, why not eat BBQ fish every day?
Opening the freezer would have substantially decreased the frozen time, with each opening. Specifically as OP seemed to specify an upright freezer. Chest freezer would have had less of an impact, but still noticeable.
A simple way to detect power failure induced thawing in a freezer is to store a paper cup about half full of frozen water in the freezer. By keeping a coin on top of the ice it’s easy to see with a quick glance if the temperature has risen for an extended period of time (possibly due to a temporary power failure or the door not being fully closed).
I keep a bag of ice cubes in the freezer for this purpose. If it’s a single cube the freezer went out.
I bought and filled a chest freezer in pandemic preparations. Cost of the chest freezer: CAD 1,000 Cost to completely fill the freezer with good food: CAD 2,700 Given that, during a pandemic or a winter storm in Canada, a power failure can be a prolonged event... Cost of a good gas powered generator to keep the freezer viable beyond a day: CAD 1,000. This article seems to validate the generator purchase.
If society and food supply chains had actually broken down due to a massive pandemic (imagine ebola with a 30% fatality rate tearing through a population of 350+ million in the USA and Canada) you would have been much better served by a stockpile of rice, beans, canned food, multivitamins and other true disaster supplies.
A lot of people panic buying early on weren't really thinking things through. They were stocking up months of canned food and rice but many weren't stocking up on fuel, they were buying a few gallons of bottle water rather than big containers to fill with water, and I assume many weren't stocking up on ammo--which may be controversial but if we're positing societal collapse...
A simple way to detect power failure induced thawing in a freezer is to store a paper cup about half full of frozen water in the freezer. By keeping a coin on top of the ice it’s easy to see with a quick glance if the temperature has risen for an extended period of time (possibly due to a temporary power failure or the door not being fully closed).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
How do you safely handle dry ice? I'm legitimately asking, I know retailers sell it with big warning labels but I wouldn't know how to transport it, move it, and similar.
Wear gloves, keep it in a paper bag or cardboard box, etc
Earlier quoted context omitted.
As an additional benefit, since any fridge or freezer generates waste heat on its 'warm' side (the room itself), the additional heat from the freezer will rise from the basement into the rest of the house. As compared to if you had a freezer on the 3rd floor of a tall/narrow town house, all that the heat would do is rise towards the ceiling and attic. I would not advocate for moving a fridge to the basement just beca…
This is only a benefit during cold seasons or in colder regions of the world.
A simple way to detect power failure induced thawing in a freezer is to store a paper cup about half full of frozen water in the freezer. By keeping a coin on top of the ice it’s easy to see with a quick glance if the temperature has risen for an extended period of time (possibly due to a temporary power failure or the door not being fully closed).
It is possible for the Ice to partially melt and the coin to not sink, the ice would need to COMPLETELY melt before this test would work, given the nature of ice it is possible for food to raise to an unsafe temperature while the ice is still melting This "trick" should not be used in place of proper temperature monitoring
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I used gas for 20 years, then induction for 10. Induction wins everywhere (reproducibility of heat, speed to heat, ease of cleaning...) The only thing I miss a tiny bit from gas is the ability to tilt a pan to have oil gather in a puddle to deep fry something small. Other than that everytime I use gas I long for induction.
I had induction for nearly a decade and am now back on gas. I miss the ease of cleaning that induction offers, and the efficiency for things like boiling water. [1] But if you use woks or other vessels that do not entirely touch the stovetop surface, gas is better. I made fried rice the other day on my gas stove, and it was a completely different experience than induction. The sides of the wok just heat up so much mo…
[1] https://www.bosch-home.co.uk/product-list/PRA326B70E [2] https://www.bosch-home.co.uk/product-list/PXY675DE3E
I was just looking at getting a NG generator installed for my parents on the east coast, after watching these recent storms come through. I'd dawdled on this for years, because it was just infrequent enough. Anyway, I also looked at battery backup systems (Tesla, Enphase, etc). Unfortunately, it seems they haven't reached cost competitiveness with the plain old gas generator yet. Not a lot of power density (time), an…
An inverter that runs off the 12V battery in your car is very cheap. Get one, and an extension cord, and you have an emergency power source to cool down your freezer every few days.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If their stove and oven are electric, and they don't have, or don't have fuel for, a propane or charcoal grill, then a hurricane could really knock out their ability to cook things.
Then again, hurricanes provide a lot of readily available wood debris.
Best advice is during hurricane season keep freezer and refrigerator stock to a minimum to keep your losses low. Stock up on non-perishables, but not overstock.
If you absolutely must have cold stuff while the power is out, either get a generator or look into 12V gear.