If your power goes out, you'll be glad you have a chest freezer. It'll hold the cold longer because when you open the door on an upright the cold air 'falls out'. I've had both and have found that if you put any amount of stuff in there, you're digging around either way. We separate out our meat (just got a half of beef and 2 deers worth of venison) by type into cardboard boxes and write what's inside in big black sharpie. Put the most used on top (hamburger, chops, etc) I keep the non-meat to itself on the side in the baskets. I like our giant (40 year old) chest freezer and we'll be replacing it with 2 smaller ones in our new house.

We are buying a 7cf chest freezer for our 1/4 cow. I would go with chest instead of upright. My daughter was nursing her baby and pumping and freezing for later. She learned that breast milk is good in an upright freezer for 6 months and in a deep freezer for 1 year. I'm not sure why, but to me, that says that a chest freezer is better for storage.

I wouldn't buy one of these again if you gave it to me.

Picture a base cabinet turned on its side with the opening on the top.
If you can't find something in a base cabinet, you're not going to find it at the bottom of a chest freezer.

If you go thru your food on a regular basis, which with a family you will, a reach-in is a better choice. You can label and actually find your stuff quickly, closing the door again.

If you don't go thru things on a regular basis, a chest freezer holds freeze better because it's packed in on top of each other. No air. However, rotation of things is much slower simply because you can't see it. What you don't see, you don't use.

CEFreeman: it's probably just a preference as to what is easy to use vs. what isn't. I do disagree that what is on bottom doesn't get used... IF you have some organization when you put it in. Yes, if there are gobs of meat packages tossed in... then I agree with you. However, if you box it up and label it, then what you want is relatively easy to find and one has only to move a couple boxes to get at whatever is down there. I'll say having a light over it helps, though. I don't think it's no air that is the factor but rather that cold air falls so the cold air stays settled in there when you open the lid, as opposed to the upright that the air 'falls out' of. (did I just end that sentence with a preposition? Darn grammar thread has me paranoid now). I'd rather have either than none, but it's an organized chest freezer for me, even with the digging.

Another vote for chest freezers, with manual defrost. Mine has bins that lift off, where I keep items that aren't in boxes (sacks of frozen roasted tomatoes, soup, and such). Meat goes in the bottom.
Manual defrost keeps food in better condition longer than frost free.
Mine is in the basement. I've had to defrost about every 5 years.

Think through whether or not you want to be bent at the waist lifting entire boxes full of meat up from the depths of the chest freezer. You can probably mock this up: Set a box that has some weight in it on a few books on the floor in front of a dining room chair, assuming the back of the chair is the approximate height of the side of the freezer. Now, walk around behind the chair. Reach over the back of the chair, across the seat of the chair, and then try lifting the box up. Is this comfortable for you?

Personally, I'd much rather have an upright freezer. It doesn't matter to me one iota if the chest freezer is more efficient, etc, because I'm less likely to reach all the way down into it or to put up with negotiating those boxes just to get what I want. I'd be more likely to think, "Oh, for heaven's sakes let's just eat ________ tonight, it's easy to get at." If it's in an upright, I'm more likely to use it. I need to work around my own laziness, I suppose.

I think you'll find strong support on both sides of the freezer debate, so it's more about trying to find out with what style of freezer *you will be most comfortable.

The clock is ticking on our freezer purchase, too. We have 2 steers worth of meat aging at the butcher right now. We don't have room for them in our upright freezer and need to get another one asap.

A chest freezer is great if you're storing a body. Or lots of body parts. And never need to open it up to get them out but maybe once a week or so.

If you are someone who buys and bulk and then divides it to freeze, and then "shops" in the freezer every day for the meals that you cook, you'll bless the day that you chose an upright freezer instead of a chest.

Agreed on the manual defrost, too. You have SACKS of frozen roasted tomatoes? Lucky.

I have the drawer freezer in the fridge and I have a 2nd fridge in the garage with a small freezer, so everyday stuff and small things such as containers of soup can be accessible, while big things go in the new freezer. I am blown away that a girl from the Bronx would have 1/4 of a cow and a bunch of venison. Stuff happens.

We always bought a side or hind quarter at a time. We had 2 chest freezers, about 14cuft each. We organized so that finding things was not difficult at all. Nor was moving things around as long as the boxes aren't that large.

Mark your packages with the dates so you know how old things are getting.

7cuft isn't that large to me. I have a 5cuft and it is tiny.

I truly hated my chest freezer. I'm not organized enough to be allowed to have one, so after 10 years of digging for stuff at the bottom with my whole upper body IN the freezer, and having to lift large boxes of heavy stuff from an impractical position, I gave the beast away. I love my energy inefficient upright!

You can use grocery bags instead of cardboard boxes to put like things together. Just mark on the outside what is in it. If you have access to a farmer's market, you can freeze corn, strawberries, peppers (sweet and hot). Some things like various beans are better prepped (cooked, then bagged) I think.

Chest freezers rock!
I was a bit nervous also - but I use milk crates (lots of ventilation holes) to organize.
When we lost power for a couple days - we didn't lose anything except the frost pulled away from the sidewalls making it easy to pull the sheets of frost out.

Food doesn't get frosty and keeps so much longer.

Every once in a while, I pull things out and use a windshield scraper to scrape off the frost - It was easier when we had more frequent power failures but after complaining to local kilowatt company - they improved our neighborhood.

Dating things is helpful

Had both. Have a crest right now and its great. Use boxes to separate. DH says chest freezers are more energy efficent, can't confirm that. We tend to fill it up this time of year with venison or turkeys I buy on sale, etc. and then keep using stuff until it gets low in the spring. They I transfer what left to my refridgerator freezer and shut off the chest until next fall.

Have had both - like the upright better than the chest. I HATED the chest freezer - I am only 5'3" and reaching over and into the chest freezer was horrible. I find it much easier to find things in the upright.

As others have mentioned, do a manual defrost - things do tend to keep better.

Also, I use a FoodSaver to put things into the freezer if they are likely to be there for a while which greatly reduces chances of freezerburn...things that will be used more quickly, I don't worry about the FoodSaver as much because it can be a bit of a pain.

Absolutely be certain to mark (this sounds like a no-brainer, but I know of a certain someone who didn't do that for several "mystery meats") and date things that you put in the freezer.

That reminds me, I'm about due to defrost and rearrange the freezer - I just put in some veggies and I'm finding the freezer a bit too full - probably some stuff that is toward the back that needs to be used up.

If you can swing it, a fridge/freezer combo in the kitchen with a chest freezer in the basement (if you have a basement?) is the way to go. Love my chest freezer, but for storing baked goods and meat from monthly runs to Costco. Deedles is right, chest freezers stay frozen longer in a power outage (Irene, Sandy - thanks for putting it to the test). Not sure I would want one in my kitchen though. Our is functional but not pretty - but it came with the house, so we're happy to have it.

I worked in a restaurant that had a huge chest freezer. To get some stuff out of the bottom, i had to HANG on the edge with my stomach, and lift my feet off of the floor, grab the stuff, and rock back up. Praying all the while nobody had a grudge against me, and tilted me over the edge and closed the lid.

No chest freezers for me......

Nancy

We have a large chest freezer for bulk meat from local farms, too. I have to say it is annoying, but I'm really not as organized as I should be. We've also taken to using large plastic bags to sort, which is probably not the way to go. However, food does stay colder, longer..so although I'm always tempted to sell it and get an upright, I know I won't.

You couldn't give me a chest freezer, or any manual defrost freezer, free, or even with a $500 bonus. You want to hang over that thing and look for something? Only Amazon.com can be that organized, and it's not even about organization, you still have to dig for something, and move boxes or crates. No way. An upright is probably less than $200 more than a chest.

Manual? Huh? I was so glad to stop bringing pots of boiling water down to the basement to defrost that thing. I felt like I entered the 20th century when I got a frost free.

Our power goes out and I've only once had to toss the contents. Once. Our power went out today, in fact.

A chest freezer is hard work. Don't do it, sixty.

We just recently received our old upright freezer back from my Dad's widow when we moved her into town. I promptly filled it with 1/2 an organic pig and 1/6 of a free-range, organic highland cow. I've had chest freezers many years ago and would never, ever, ever go back to one. I simply wouldn't use what was inside because it was a major PITA to get anything out. Plus, they take up so much square footage. I'm surprised no one had mentioned that yet. And don't tell me you can use the valuable yet wasted air space above a chest freezer for a shelf, storage, or the like. You can't. Not if you want the freezer door to stay open and not shut on you while your entire upper body is inside as you dig for the picnic ham. Don't ask. :)

We have a chest freezer, a small one. We recently filled it with a 1/4 of a cow and it is a pain to look for something in particular. It would be much easier to plan meals using the "dinner is whatever I pull out" method instead of trying to find what you are looking for. I usually con dh into grabbing what we need. We did try to organize it when we loaded it but after digging it doesn't stay that way and your fingers get numb very quickly trying to locate the right pack!

The cloth bags are a good idea. I am going to try that.

Shelf: we do actually have a shelf above it that is just higher than the height of it with the door open. It's not the best set up but it holds our 8 pack of paper towels, extra ketchup (you cannot run out of ketchup in my house, there would be melt downs from kids and hubby), extra salad dressings, bbq sauce, cereal and the like. I can reach it okay since the freezer is small (24x36 I think) but I am 5'7".

So to answer your question, if I could do it over I would buy an upright. I know they say the food doesn't last as long but I believe we'd eat everything before we would get to that point anyhow.

Upright Freezer--and we put things in in those ubiquitous plastic boxes, so you pull out a box to "get stuff out of the back". Makes organization easy.

I'll ditto the Manual Defrost. The problem with Frost-Free is that in order to DO that, it warms up above freezing every so often. Thus, stuff doesn't last as long. Honestly, I only need to defrost mine when someone (child!) has managed to not get the door totally closed & while nothing melts, it all grows a nice coat of frost! Without that...once every couple of years? It's not exactly hard--get enough coolers to put items in, turn off freezer, leave door of freezer open for several hours, possibly with sheet pan below or open the "drain hole" & put a bucket under it, depending on what kind you have. Mop out with dishtowels a couple times. Pans of boiling water speed things up but aren't required.

Might want to invest in a freezer-alarm as well, just so you get a warning when someone messes up / thing breaks--before all your meat goes bad!

I haven't read the other responses (will do so later), but I want to chime in anyway. We bought a chest freezer a year ago in preparation for a deep sea fishing trip. I think it is great. It has layered storage areas, including variously sized plastic baskets for the upper layer. If you have wall space near it, I suggest a chart inside a plastic sleeve and on which you record what, where, and when you place items in the freezer, e.g., pork loin, front left, third layer, Nov. 3, 2012. We have no small children at home, but keeping the chest locked anyway is a good idea.

we always had a side of beef growing up and guess who got the assignment to "go downstairs and pick out".....the kids[we are tall with longish arms but I remember deep reaches and rummaging around-and yes everything was labelled]....I noticed that when they downsized to a smaller home, she picked an upright freezer. I would pick an upright.

Hate is not a strong enough word to use for my chest freezer. But I don't store lots of meats. I use my freezer because I cook in bulk and freeze meals. I recently replaced the chest freezer with an upright and love, love, love the convenience!

Interesting thread! Have to say, I have had both, and I love my chest freezer, and manual defrost for sure. Stuff keeps so well. I keep a couple of sharpies and a roll of freezer tape next to it in the garage. I defrost about every third year on a nice, hot summer day. For me, oddly shaped things -- like wrapped meats -- just fall out of an upright and hit me in the head. But then, I mortally hate side-by-side fridges, too. Good luck.

I think it depends upon how organized someone is, or how honest they are with themselves about their organizational skills that they utilize.

I just hate chest freezers. I'm too short, and altho organized in really every other element of my life, evidently not that. Really. Just ask me where the craziest piece of hardware or screw, jewelery, cleaning item, sewing notion, etc., is and I can tell you. AND I can tell you where the scissors and scotch tape are. How's THAT for organized?

Anyway, I hated digging around the bottom of one. After reading here, manual defrost makes sense, but I still go for reach-in. I have one and I love it. I know exactly what's there and right now, I'm trying to eat everything in it to empty it out and start restocking. No, I'm not eating everything at once. Plus, it's slow going because there isn't any chocolate in it. No brownies, no Reese's, no desserts. Boring.

But I happen to know that because I can see everything in it. Get it? See? Not climb up and hang over the edge search. See.

(Sometimes I think I'm so funny!)

"i had to HANG on the edge with my stomach, and lift my feet off of the floor, grab the stuff, and rock back up. Praying all the while nobody had a grudge against me, and tilted me over the edge and closed the lid."

that's my fear. there I'd be (at just 5') head down in the chest feezer, my feet in the air. with frozen brain. It isn't its best these days when it's warm.

We once had a small chest freezer for several years. The food on the bottom layer never saw the light of day, after it was put in there. Too far to reach, got covered up by upper layers (out of sight, out of mind), and bending over was hard on my bad back.
Just my experience. If I ever need one again, it will be an upright.

herbflavor-isn't that always the way! We grew up and moved out and all of a sudden my parents got a dishwasher and air conditioning. Hmmmmm!

Edit: sorry it was OT, I couldn't help myself!

This post was edited by Autumn.4 on Sun, Dec 16, 12 at 14:39

Oh wow, I just can't get over how many chest freezer lovers there are here.

You couldn't pay me enough to have another one, I hated it so much. Never having to manually defrost another freezer in my life is one of the best things about my new kitchen.

Ugh, emptying everything out of the freezer and then working to defrost that sucker as fast as possible totally sucked wind. I'm shuddering just thinking about that horrible task. I used the pots of boiling water and also a blow dryer with a spatula to try to pry off big chunks of ice as quickly as possible. And then hauling those chunks upstairs to the sink to wash them down. Truly one of the most awful jobs ever ... was never so happy as the day we got rid of that horrible old chest freezer.

I have three chest freezers, all manual defrost. I defrost them one at a time in the summer before fall harvest, when I can easily fit everything in two of them.

Just took out 50lbs of frozen tomatoes to turn into sauce (didn't have time in the fall) to make room for some venison (hopefully!)

We were given an older chest freezer when we were first married. I always hated it and couldn't wait to get rid of it. I am also short and it was a real chore. We have an upright at our main home and I have loved having it for over 20 years. We bought a very small chest from Sam's to use at our mountain home. I don't like, it but we needed something small for the garage, to use as overflow when we have lots of holiday guests. We mainly use it for convenience foods (frozen waffles, bagel bites, pizzas, etc) for all of the young male adult appetites that seem to crash there for skiing. I would never, ever have one otherwise . I know that they are more efficient, stay colder , etc but I am all about the ease of everyday use.

I think it's all about what you value more. If you value ease of use and being able to use your freezer as "frozen pantry" where you get stuff daily, then an upright is good.

If you are looking for long term frozen food storage (6+ months) and value maximum preservation and energy efficiency ... Then a chest freezer is right for you.

Maybe you have a massive garden and you'd prefer 8 months of green bean storage over easy access on a Wednesday night after work.

Or, maybe you'd rather have a freezer that's so organized you can send your kid or husband out to get something and know they'd be back quickly, and you've said, "Heck, I can live with some freezer burn on bread I froze 6 months ago..." Then go upright.

I had a chest freezer and replaced it with an upright, but I'm not a huge gardener and have a meat CSA that delivers monthly.

Thank you for all your help. I just ordered a 16 cubic ft. upright freezer. After reading what my fellow GWs advise, I know I am too much of a disorganized slob to keep a chest freezer. In addition, a chest freezer would have to go in the basement, while I have just enough room for an upright in the garage, which is much easier access. We do have a generator so I don't have to worry about loss during an outage. Now I will never run out of ice cream.
Laura

Congrats on making a decision! Don't they just feel gooooood? :)

EngineerChic, My old reach-in freezer crapped out on my and I picked up a new one 2 years ago.

This 4th of July with the huge wind storm we had, I lost power for 3 days. I didn't open that thing out of fear.
After the power came on, I ran to it and opened the door.

Imagine my confusion when everything was still frozen! Not even soft! And I can tell you, when I freeze bread, and most everything for that matter, I forget I have it. I've definitely had bread in there for more than 6 months without any freezer burn. It's a self-defrost (of course) and so far, just fine!

So when I go "shopping" in my freezer, it's like a brand new experience. Imagine, "Oh! Look at that! Butter! and steaks! and Hotdogs with BUNS!! I love hotdogs! Who knew?

Anyway, everything's beautifully frozen and I can see thru the containers. (No frost.) I try to label and frequently succeed. But I have no bad words about this baby and it's work ethic. If I'd know, though, I'd have bought taller and skinnier. That's all!

Congrats on making a choice, Laura. Really, if we're honest with ourselves on how we are not how we want to be, we make the best choices for our situations.

Interesting thread! I've thought about getting an upright at times and getting some local beef. We did that when I was growing up and it was great. I tend to have things happen to me that belong in Laverne and Shirley episodes, so I can absolutely see me hanging half in a chest freezer with my feet just a few inches above ground, but with my center of gravity just too far in to be able to rock myself back out. And with my luck I'll wiggle myself into the freezer and have the door shut over me.

I already had a fight with our just too big for me snowblower. I put it in reverse to back up for the next row, misjudged the distance, and the snow bank hit me just below the knees. I ended up with my feet under the body of the machine (nowhere near the blades, just under the edge), my knees bent right at snow bank level, and the rest of me flat on my back across the snow bank. After the panic, then the laughter, it took me over 5 minutes to get out of that one in all my snow gear. I'm sure a chest freezer would get me in trouble!

So glad the OP has made a decision that works for her!

I also just have to say that I grew up with a huge 8 foot long chest freezer. My grandparents bought it for my parents. Our garage was detached and so you had to go clear out there to get a package of meat out. My mom would always notice that we came back. Years later, she admitted that she worried it was a real hazard for kids. I know, sometimes we overprotect our kids these days, but it is something to think about if you have young ones. The uprights tend to have shelves and would be nearly impossible to be trapped inside.

You won't get trapped in a modern chest freezer either. There is no longer a latch that must be opened from the outside. Any resistance placed to the underside of the lid (like if you stood up within the freezer) would open the freezer. Unless you had a deranged relative that wanted to *trap* you in the freezer and chose to sit on the lid. But, then, I'd say you have bigger issues.

The old freezers used to latch and that is where the dangers come in from old freezers and refrigerators.