Ideal temp for freezer?

[gfretwell]

When you are right you're right.

[Mark Lloyd]

[snip]

And you can eat it without getting a headache.

[snip]

[Mark Lloyd]

[snip]

My grandmother often made homemade ice cream (which requires a lot of ice). She never bought ice, but froze water in old milk jugs in otherwise unused freezer space.

[Mark Lloyd]

[snip]

That's what I thought. I never even considered "square feet".

[gfretwell]

Going into hurricane season it is common to stuff your freezer with half liter water bottles. It is ice and when it thaws out it is drinking water.

[gregz]

I put a temp logger on a couple fridges with freezers. Refrigerator held better than freezer. Temp was up in 20s after defrost cycle, set on 0 F. If it was set at 10, could be a problem.

Greg

[Wayne Boatwright]

On Sat 29 Apr 2017 12:38:19a, gregz told us...

IF the OP is looking for a way to save money by operating a freezer at temperatures above 0? F., then they would best investigate the food safety guidelines and consider the negative effect of raising the temperature above 0? F. You would be sacrificing the quality of your frozen food, perhaps even losing it, if stored above recommended temperatures.

The vast majority of refrigerator/freezers were ideally designed for the refrigerator secctin to maintain a temperature of 38-40? F., and the freezer section to maintain a temperature of 0? F.

Self-defrosting refrigerator/freezers rarely if ever can maintain constant temperatures in either section because the defrost cycle itself raises the temperature when it's running. Deliberately setting the temperature at higher than recommened settings is just asking for trouble.

In an ideal situation, a standalone freezer that does _not_ have a self-defrost cycle can usually be adjusted to maintain a temprature as low as -10 to -20? F. The values are even more stable when the unit is a chest freezer than an upright freezer. The lowest possible temperature that you can maintain will maintain all frozen foods for a much longer period of time.

[gfretwell]

I keep a thermometer with a probe in my side by side fridge freezers and it is amazing how much swing there is in air. If you put some mass in there you can get an average temp (bottle of water). To maintain an average of 0F it will swing 10 degrees either way but

+10F should still be cold enough to keep your stuff reliably frozen assuming it might actually be worse with the door open. Theoretically +31 would do.

[Frank]

I recall about the same in USA for freezer chest. For frost free refrigerator freezer section, closer to freezing point of water because of frost free cycling.

[David B.]

The fridge I have on my narrowboat has a small freezer section within it. I think you are probably correct when suggesting that the operating temperature of THAT freezer section is probably just a little under 0 degrees Celsius (32F). Frozen food isn't stored there for very long!

[Thomas]

Op here. I moved it to 10f still waiting for a bill. What sucks is it is time to turn on the ac. Ill still get a feel if the bill is extreme and will post back when i get the bill. Thanks to all who responded.

[Thomas]

Op here. So i got the bill. Using ac and the freezer it went up 5 bucks. Im happy with that.

[ItsJoanNotJoann]

Not bad for an older appliance for 30 days usage.