When it comes to wrapping, I always double wrap, double wrap, double wrap! If I freeze a piece of chicken breast/single pork chop/steak I wrap in plastic wrap or foil, freeze on a flat surface (usually a metal pizza pan) then I put in a freezer zip bag or a Food Saver plastic freezer bag, stick in a paper label (food, date), and freeze getting as much air as possible out of the bag or use a Food Saver to vacuum pack the frozen food.

I have found that a slip of paper put in the bag with my writing facing out is better than using my usual masking tape label on the outside of the package which can fall off the package.

Some people use sturdy boxes or wire baskets to contain many smaller packages of frozen food.

One of the best ideas I heard was to put similar food on a single shelf of a large upright freezer: all meats on one shelf, all vegetables on another shelf, frozen casseroles on their own shelf, breads and baked goods on another shelf.
Even with just a few minutes browsing the "shelves" you can see what you are missing and plan to stock up the next trip to the store.

Between your frozen foods, your refrigerated foods, and your dry/canned goods in your pantry, you can POOF a meal easily and not resort to unnecessary trips to the store or worse, eating out unnecessarily.

Hope this helps.
Teresa

- Separate foods into small plastic baskets (mine are 12"x9"x6"). I keep poultry in one, fruit/veg. in another, breakfast meats, etc...

- Using a FoodSaver, I package (or repackage) food (in a single-layer) into FoodSaver bags. These bags line up in the baskets like a file. A quick flip through the "file" and I can see what I have or need.

If I need 1/4-cup of corn for a taco salad, I can flip through the file, pull out the bag of corn, open the bag, give it a whack to break up the corn, remove what I need, and vacuum-seal the bag shut again and replace in the basket.

- If I want soup, spaghetti sauce, or pre-cooked hamburger it's always on the top shelf. They are frozen in the same size portions. I quick-freeze soup/spaghetti sauce/hamburger in plastic containers that hold about 1-cup. When they are frozen, I pop them out of the plastic containers and stack the "bricks" of soup, etc., and vacuum-seal them in a FoodSaver bag. If I need one serving, or 4, I can take out the number of servings I need. Then vacuum seal the remainder in the bag again. This frees up the use of plastic containers in the freezer and vacuum-sealing prevents freezer burn.

Things I keep behind the baskets are not needed very often (extra bulk amounts of bakers' yeast, etc.). When I need them, I can remove the basket for easy access to these items.

- If you're not a naturally-organized person, just try a couple things at a time and see if they work for you. Consistancy is probably the key. I consistantly place certain things on certain shelves or in the same place in the door. Like-kinds together. All the boxes of butter are together and rotated (newest to the back, oldest pulled forward to the front).

Good luck...

-Grainlady

My freezer has 2 banks of three drawers and three shelves with the icemaker on the top shelf. There are two smaller draws on top of the 6 big ones

One drawer holds:
Pizza
Chicken stock
vegetables
fruit
breads
nuts
poultry
fish

I can open the draw and instantly see if we need anything there

The shelves hold things sorted by type like puff pastry, filo dough, baked goods all labeled. DD likes Lean cuisine meals so has a bunch stacked up as well

I double wrap everything I freeze - first with foil pressed tight against the product, then labeled then either use the Freshsaver (for items I plan on storing longer) or just with plastic wrap.

I NEVER put plastic under the foil of anything as I once tossed my foil covered package in the oven and opened it to find a yucky plastic mess.

In the doors: Butter (Lots of it usually at least 10 boxes), coffee, yeast, sausages, herbs and spices, ice packs

Grainlady, do you think you can open your freezer and snap some quick pics to share?

Great ideas! Here is what works for me and what I have taught others. One idea that cannot be overstressed is to wrap extremely well any food item you want to store for many months...double wrapping is only effective if the correct materials and techniques are used.

A magnetic strip holds "the inventory" list for each shelf's contents on the door of our upright freezer. When I add an unlisted item, I add to the inventory, and delete when all of an item is gone. My DH is "finding-challenged," LOL, so this saves time. He knows that baked goods are likely to be in 5# flour bags. Cinn rolls are almost always in coffee bean bags, etc. Each item is labeled. Like grainlady, I group similar items together in small baskets or bags.

Usually, the ready to eat foods are on the top shelf, since this is the warmest area and the bottom shelf is the coldest.

The chest freezer, downstairs, also has an inventory list. In the fall-winter, I remove the baskets, so I can cram in all the chickens, squash, onions, etc. In the bottom half, I store all the cartons of food (extremely well wrapped), in windbreaker fabric bags. The upper half has bagged food also. Liter and half gallon containers of distilled water fill any empty spaces. A long sheet of bubble wrap covers the contents. The inventory list is posted on the nearby bulletin board and is absolutely necessary to my sanity.

Sometimes, I note on my list just how many containers of an item I have left, especially if I have combined several items in one bag. For example, I'll note 2 half gallons of raspberries and 1 half gallon of peaches with 3 half gallons of blueberries...in one bag. (These half gallon containers have 1-2 cup portions of fruits.) This helps when I am making jam in Feb. If any fruit or veg is left from the previous year, when the next crop is freezer ready, the "older" crop is moved to the upright freezer for use.

Thanks for the suggestions. If you ever get a chance, I'd love to see a picture of what these amazing freezers look like. I'd take one of mine, but it would be much too embarrassing.

I keep an excel spreadsheet with an inventory of items and where in the beast they are hiding. Think elevator floors...

My bottom shelf(wire bin) is nothing but veggies.-Level 1
Beef and Pork are on level 2
fish and chicken are on level 3
Pre-cooked meals are on level 4
Breads, butter and small packs of gravies are in the door.

And every 3 months or so, I empty it out and do an updated inventory.

As for wrapping, I use the foodsaver vac bags on most of my items.

I hope this helps.

Thank you so much. One of my many new year's resolutions will be to use your suggestions to organize my messy freezer.