Virtuous Me

[ethandron]

I just defrosted my big upright freezer, took me all of less than an hour. Why oh why don't I do it more often.
Don't know how you do yours, but I used a couple of bowls of warm water, a hair dryer and a meat tenderiser. There are now lots of icebergs in the sink.

[murraymints]

buy a self defosting feezer ! lots easier

[ethandron]

The small one under the fridge is a self defrosting one, this big one is a hundred years old, way before they invented selfies.

[ummmm]

Much wasted food?

[Bathsheba2]

That's exactly what I do with my old freezer...bowls of hot water, hairdryer, and plenty of towels!
Isn't it satisfying if you leave it for a bit, and then hear a massive clunk as a chunk of ice drops down? ;)

Baths
x x x

[ethandron]

No wasted food at all, I put what I could in some cool bags, the rest was left in the shelves and stacked on top of each other. Everything went back in undefrosted, the freezer is on fast freeze for it bit too, to get it freezing quickly.
That's what I use the meat tenderiser thing for Baths, a few sharp whacks and it all comes crashing down, great!

[Dee-M-See]

I use the steam attachment on my wallpaper stripper
gets the job done in minutes

[EcclesCake]

Very virtuous to have held on to scrag end of lamb that's been in there since 1963, with the promise 'I must get round to doing something with that.....'

[pastafreak]

I've been meaning/needing to do mine for awhile. Then door was left ajar a week ago...and I can only get 1 of the 3 drawers open. Will have to bite the bullet...soon!

[ethandron]

Eccles, have you been sneaking inside my house and peeking inside my freezer?? I didn't think anyone had noticed that scrag end...
Pasta, do it...NOW!

[atalanta]

I go at my chest freezer hammer-and-tongs, with bowls of hot water and that thingy which I use for getting frost off the car windscreen. I go mad, furiously hacking at the ice, and get it all off in about ten/fifteen minutes. The freezer hardly has time to warm up, so I wipe it dry, turn it back on, and pile back into it all the ice-packs and icecubes, while I clean and sterilise all the baskets. When that's all done, the freezer is cold enough to put the food back. ( I get the food stocks as low as possible, and transfer stuff to another freezer) Whole job done in under an hour and it's not a particularly small freezer. Such a relief to get it over with, after all that frenzied effort !

[diddlydo]

I put boiling water in saucepans (because metal conducts the heat more rapidly than bowls) shut the door, leave for 20 minutes and most of the ice falls off. The freezer is always much bigger by the time I've finished!