freezer burn problems

[Crosshairy]

The electrical circuit that my freezer in the garage is hooked up to tripped off twice in the past 3-4 months. I finally bought a temperature alarm and have it set up to warn me if this occurs again. I also narrowed down the cause - I *THINK* it's happened whenever I've hooked up my portable compressor. It doesn't charge properly anymore, so I've quit plugging it in and just run it off of a cigarette lighter adapter.

Anyway...
Both times that the freezer tripped off, I experienced a partial thaw of the meat inside. Since that's happened, I've cooked one package of catfish (it was at the top of the freezer and saw the worst of the problems) and it was probably 50% ruined by freezer burn.

I cooked some ground meat recently, and smelled something odd about it so I started scraping meat off the outside of the tube as it thawed. I managed to avoid cooking anything freezer burned in that batch.

Then last night I cooked a package of steaks and had about 10-15% freezer burn in it. It wasn't noticeable enough in that package, so all the meat got cooked. My wife got a bite of it first off, and it ruined the meal for her (what a weenie!).

What would you guys do? I guess I could inspect each package and look for dark patches in the meat after they thaw and trim it off. I just hate that I might ruin an entire meal (I'm really concerned about ground meat that's harder to inspect).

I've never had such widespread freezer burn issues before.

 

[WMAn]

How is your meat packaged?

 

[TAFKAP]

Is the freezer on a GFCI circuit? Perhaps replacing the GFCI outlet with just a plain outlet would help your problems. I was told the load placed on the circuit by the compressor eventually wore out the mechanical switch in the GFCI.

 

[mike243]

TAFKAP the GFCI dosent know or care whats running,it detects voltage feeding to ground,on a frost free fridge or frezzer the fan motors will gather moisture & 1 day trip the GFCI,might be 1 day, month or years but it will happen,

 

[Crosshairy]

WMA - most of it is in grocery store-style styrene trays with plastic wrap on top (I.e. not vacuum-sealed).

TAFKAP - yes, it is. The circuit is basically every outlet in the garage. I normally avoid dabbling in electrician work at all costs, but I'll probably make an exception if this happens again. I'm hoping my temperature alarm will save the day in the future.

 

[WMAn]

I use one of those night-lights that glows blue to let me know that I have power to my freezer. We have an indoor cat, her food is in the garage, so at least once a day I verify that my freezer has power.

 

[Diehard Hunter]

If your freezer is a frost free model, that is a large part of your problem. Get a deep freeze that is not frost free. The constant freezing and thawing that keeps the frost from forming is also freezing and thawing your food, and will cause freezer burn. I have not have any freezer burnt food since I got rid of my frost free freezer.

 

[TrailWatcher]

If the freezer is plugged in at the GFI a non GFI plug can be added beside it easily just for the freezer with some basic electrical skills..

 

[mike243]

wrong trailwatcher,the only way that would work is if you left the ground off of the outlet,then you would have a shocking hazard!.any outlets on the same circut as the GFCI will be protected by it & will trip fyi

 

[TrailWatcher]

Nope not wrong what I'm saying is you could cut in another outlet beside the GFI and connect into the Line side of the GFI..you would be adding another outlet to the circuit but then you would have one outlet that is not on the GFI for just the freezer...

 

[mike243]

your correct,every thing down stream of outlet would only be protected not before it,i is slow this am lol

 

[Crosshairy]

Status update: my wife thawed out a tube of ground venison last night, and it appeared to be essentially 100% OK. I hope that's a sign of fewer problems down the road.

Regarding the GFCI wiring changes, I see what you guys are saying, but I keep coming back to the fact that, unless the GFCI is faulty, the trip is valid and caused by a problem.

It's a lot easier to eliminate the problem (which I hope I have by never using that faulty compressor again) than build a work-around...especially with my limited electrical skills! :)

There is also a circuit interruption alarm that you can buy for pretty cheap that's audible from inside the house that I've read about. I didn't buy that one because I was afraid that a problem with the refrigeration of the freezer might not get caught as long as it was pulling juice (this happened to me about 3 years ago, and I lost an entire freezer full of food when the freezer stopped working). So instead, I got this little temperature alarm.

I just hope that most of the rest of this meat is still edible.

 

[TAFKAP]

your correct,every thing down stream of outlet would only be protected not before it,i is slow this am lol

One solution I've heard is to run an extension cord up the wall to your garage door motor. Since outlets always come in pairs, most folks don't utilize the second one where their garage opener is plugged in......they don't run on the GFCI circuit. ;)

 

[TrailWatcher]

Plugging a freezer into a GFI is asking too toss a whole bunch of money....I bet if you read the freezer manual it tells you not too....

 

[hankll]

OK,I had a similar freezer burn with about 15 good Rib Eye steaks... Thinking I was about to throw way a $100 worth of good steak, I looked online, and actually found a remedy to resurrect the meat. My wife who is also in the "weenie" class, can detect anything not quite right......
The remedy is to take the frozen meat, unwrap it and place it on a a generous glob of Cool Whip on a tray. or container, deep enough to allow the meat to be covered as in, encased all over, with the Cool Whip. Allow the meat to thaw normally in open air. I grilled my Rib Eye's straight from the Cool Whip, to the Grill. I only added pepper to the steaks. I left the Cool Whip on the meat right onto the grill. I grilled them to my range of doneness, and took them off. My senses told me there was no freezer burn flavor......and my wife, also sensed no freezer burn flavor. One word about this, is to be sure that you use Cool Whip or anything that is non-dairy, as in some other store brand of the same thing. I can't say it would be desirable on Fish, or chicken, but red meat, it did work.

 

[TAFKAP]

Huh...that borders on the crazy right there.

 

[hankll]

Crazy enough that I tried it....what did I have to lose is the way I figured it.

 

[TAFKAP]

I can't say that I blame you one bit.

 

[mike243]

the evap fan motor is a open air design,it can & will let air/moisture thru it but its not broken when it trips a gfi,the idea of the gfi is folks using power tools that are not double insulated & have a ground on the cord that are being used outdoors.A fridge is made the same,it can & will trip it at some point ,a chest freezer would probably not trip 1 as none of the electrical parts are in the moist interior

 

[TrailWatcher]

Mike this is what I found on another site talking about Appliances and GFCIs
Amana - Amana appliances require a properly grounded and polarized outlet. Amana does not recommend the use of ground fault interrupter outlets (GFI) with our appliances. The use of this type of outlet may not allow the appliance to operate properly. Some appliance components could create enough resistance to trip the GFI outlet during normal use.
Frigidaire ~ Electrolux - Thank you for contacting Electrolux Home Products. We do not recommend the use of GFI outlets as they can go bad and cause loss of power to an appliance.
General Electric - No, we do not recommend GFI outlets with our appliances. GFCI or GFI (Ground fault circuit interrupt) GFI wall plugs check for any current or voltage that may "leak" to the ground. Most appliances have some current leakage to ground, especially electronic gas ranges. The spark igniter on a gas range will cause the GFCI to trip. It is recommended that you NOT plug an electric spark igniter gas range or ANY other major appliance into a GFI wall outlet. This includes: Refrigerators/Freezers, Microwaves/Advantiums, Dishwashers/Disposals, Electric Ranges/Wall Ovens, Gas Ranges (Electric Ignition), Washers, Dryers, Water Softeners, Filtration Systems with Electronic Monitors.


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[mike243]

I work on fridges full time & another thing that folks need to know is alot of the new appliances need to have a grounded outlet,my home was built in 64 I think & the original outlets had no ground,computers are the reason & most of the makers recommend a surge protector & most wont work without a ground being present.Folks know to protect their computers but never give a thought to the fridge.

 

[TrailWatcher]

Yep.... Sorry to steal the post but I have seen this to many times with appliances in garages...and people losing everything in them.. Your outlet for your fridge in the house is a or should be a dedicated plug and as Mike said a whole house surge protector with todays electronics in Appliances is a great idea...

 

[mike243]

1 other tidbit of info,alot of fridges operate on fresh food temps,36-42,if you put a fridge in a garage that gets into that temp range it wont run & the freezer will thaw food out,been on a lot of calls that this happens & its a collect call all day long as factory warranty wont pay for customer instruct most of the time.

 

[FULLDRAWXX75]

The elec. issue has been addressed, a couple of things to do to prevent freezer burn.........vacuum seal (it removes the air pockets around the food) Get the food frozen quickly (single layer the food at first in packages, not stacked. The middle packages in a pile take alot longer to freeze) Once frozen(stack or place all packages in a heavy brown paper grocery bag and fold the end closed)The brown paper adds a barrier layer to direct contact with the freezer and an insulation layer to prevent the thaw action of the freezer. I place all my venison, chicken, pork, and garden veggies in brown bags once vacuum sealed and frozen. Never had I had a frost/freezer burn issue since using this method.

FDXX75

 

[Crosshairy]

One solution I've heard is to run an extension cord up the wall to your garage door motor. Since outlets always come in pairs, most folks don't utilize the second one where their garage opener is plugged in......they don't run on the GFCI circuit. ;)

Not a bad idea!

Funny you should bring it up too, because my garage door stopped working with a big BANG last night. The spring busted :(

I'll be looking into doing something like that for the added peace of mind.

 

[TAFKAP]

yikes! Not a good day. Have you called anyone yet?

 

[Crosshairy]

Yeah, I called the number on the bottom of the G-door opener last night. Surprisingly, a guy answered the phone on a Sunday evening at 5:30! American Door Company, or something like that.

He showed up at 9:00 this morning. My wife already paid him and the work is done. I had no idea how much to expect for that type of thing, but it wasn't horribly expensive.

 

[TAFKAP]

I wouldn't imagine anything less than $100 just to show up. GLad it worked out.

 

[Crosshairy]

Yeah, a single spring replacement was 160, upgrade to 2 springs for 210.

 

[BigAl]

I wouldn't recommend an extension cord on a freezer. I've known two people that had fires caused by that method (probably used an undersized cord).