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abbe_gw

Refreezing vegetables

abbe
16 years ago

Our deep freeze died and I have lots of green beans, black-eyed peas, and corn to deal with. When my husband found the problem, he immediately placed the vegetables in our over-the-fridge freezer. He said they were cold, but no ice crystals were present. Everything I've found says not to refreeze if ice crystals are absent. Does anyone know why or have experience with this? I sure hate to throw out a summer's worth of work without knowing for sure. Thanks!

Comments (2)

  • ksrogers
    16 years ago

    Here, my freezer failed, and set off the very quite alarm, and I discovered the problem when the vegetables were loose and wet inside the gallon bags. The top most items in the freezer were nearly completely thawed, and the items at the bottom to about the middle were stil quite firm, but showed signs of thawing as well. Because of this, my whole freezer had to be replaced. It was 6 am when I found the problem. Rushed out to Home Depot, who was about the only store open that early. Had them hold the last freezer (display model) in another store, rushed to that store, rented a truck, brought the freezer home, finally got it out of the truck by myself and moved it into my basement. It was set up, and I waited about 6 hours before putting stuff in it. I also moved as much thawed stuff to my upstairs freezer. I am not sure what will be the outcome, but do hope that the ten gallon sized bags of garden veggies will survive. The only way of knowing is to open one, and cook up some of the stuff. If it has a bad taste, it all gets tossed. For me, that also means five 2 pound bags of shrimp, about 50 pounds of meats for making sausages, many home made chicken and turkey pies, and about 30 pounds of filled pasta, and more. About the only items that can freeze, thaw, and refreeze are bird food suet cakes, and some pork fat As you can see, the loss of the freezer does have its issues. Because of the low volume freezer alarm, I bought a newer one with a louder alarm sound. I believe if I had heard the alarm the night before, the whole issue would never have gone as far as it did. When putting an alarm senser into the freezer, locate the sensor near the top shelf, so it will pick up the loss of cold faster than if its located at the bottom. Good luck with your stuff. I figure I could have lost over $600 worth of food.

  • morz8 - Washington Coast
    16 years ago

    psu.edu - Food Prep Safety:

    "Many vegetables are safe to refreeze. However, they lose much of their texture, flavor and appearance even if ice crystals are present in the package. You may want to cook the thawed vegetables and eat them right away or add to soup or stew later."

    You could have also cooked, then refrozen them.

    I'm sorry about your freezer, may of us have had that happen either due to 'equipment failure' or a door not completely closed at some point in our households. One of the worst cases I know - my sis, 8 1/2 months pregnant in August with an entire beef in hers. Luckily, she was helping with a 4-H group at the time and the girls, along with their moms, cooked that entire steer, making stews, meat loaves, spaghetti sauce, grilling steaks and burgers to reheat in the microwave later - then returned it to her repackaged and refrozen.