This is probably a stupid question but what would be a good way to store large amounts of meat? Like, as in what to put meat in or wrap it with?

Honestly, you guys should see the freezer I made my bf Eric ( and about 4 other guys ) drag into my house! Since we're going to be portioning whole hogs and raising rabbits I wanted a large one-but this is nuts..haha. I sent him and my brother to look at it and maybe pick it up for me and didn't see it myself as I was at work. I might have just went home without if I saw it and how heavy it is buuut...we have the monstrosity in the back room ready to be filled. It's older than I am but runs like new. For 50 bucks you can't beat it, really.

About 4 people can fit in there comfortably! Ahem..

Anyway, we've been buying good quality ziploc freezer bags to portion the chicken necks and not break and leak easily but those could get expensive in large amounts. If we're going to have lots of heavy meat chunks and bones from hogs we have to have some way. Tinfoil maybe? We do have a couple big sealable plastic bins that Eric custom fit in the bottom half of our fridge to thaw meat.

How do you guys do it?

I use sealable plastic bins I got at Canadian Tire (I don't know what the American equivalent would be....Walmart meets Home Depot?).

....Just went to look. Rubbermaid Cleverlatches. I have them in a couple of different sizes, keeping in mind how much I want to thaw at once.

Edit: You could also wash the Ziploc bags....I do that - partially cause I'm cheap, mostly b/c I don't feel so wasteful then - anyways - though I'm not sure for meat purposes how good that would be (vs. nuts and beans and stuff). Probably fine as long as you got in the corners and stuff, especially if you kept them specifically for the dogs.

Vacuum sealers are nice, but it too can get expensive buying bags.

Wal-Mart brand ziplock bags are quite a bit cheaper than name brand.

I don't think tinfoil would work well. Freezer paper and masking tape will work well.

It is more time consuming to wrap with freezer paper, but would definitely be way cheaper. It would probably save space, too.

Personally, I think it is kinda fun using freezer paper.Sometimes you have to get creative to figure out how to wrap some of the odd shaped items. I'm simple that way.

From an energy conservation perspective, and because your freezer is so big, you're going to want to fill any unused space with bottles of water that will eventually turn to ice. 2-Liter soda bottles are good for this. The less unused space (i.e. air) you have in your freezer, the more quickly things will freeze and the more energy efficient it will be.

I don't know if this works for "regular" meat items in the freezer, but I've stored fresh caught/cleaned fish in my refrigerator in a container with water for a few days before. Does this work in the freezer - as in putting meat in a rubbermaid container but filling it with water to keep the air away from the meat??

I freeze my meats (Chicken necks, backs, thighs, organs) in plastic bags containing about 2 days feeding, I have four big dogs. When I take them out to thaw, I then transfer them into plastic containers, cheap ones that you get from Walmart. These fit well in my refrigerator.

My ground meats (turkey, beef, chicken tenders, breasts)I wrap in wax paper (tightly) ,then place saran wrap around the wax paper.I then put into large freezer bags. I buy the bags, saran wrap and wax paper from Sams Club because I can get a large amount for not much money.

I have a vacumn sealer but that would be time consuming and expensive. Foil I think would tear and be an all around pain, IMO.I have never froze rabbit, I never had the opportunity to buy one. I couldn't raise them because they would end up becoming pets.

I use Ziploc bags that I buy in bulk at Costco and the jumbo size holds about 3 days worth of meat and RMBs.

 Quote: Jennifer Mullen

Edit: You could also wash the Ziploc bags....I do that - partially cause I'm cheap, mostly b/c I don't feel so wasteful then - anyways - though I'm not sure for meat purposes how good that would be (vs. nuts and beans and stuff). Probably fine as long as you got in the corners and stuff, especially if you kept them specifically for the dogs.

I do this too - wash and reuse ziplocks - for the same reasons, though I'm only freezing single meal portions for one large dog, and I don't feed bones larger than chicken and rabbit, so it's not difficult to get things to fit. When I see an obvious puncture (that leads to bloody puddles as the contents thaw), the bag get tossed. If I had a larger freezer and could store larger chunks that were still attached to the bone, I'd probably go the freezer paper inside largest freezer bag possible route. Good thing dogs aren't as fussy about freezer burn as people.

~Natalya

I buy zip-lok bags in bulk from this place:

http://www.gtzip.com/ziplock/plain2mil.html

You can pick the sizes that work best for what you're doing, and buy them in cases of 1000. I find they're less than half the price of grocery store bags.

I make up individual meals for each of my dogs (it's easier for me to do all the work up front, and then just grab meals from the freezer, thaw in the bowl and serve.) These bags have helped my routine a lot. I use small bags for Corgi meals, larger bags for big-dog meals.

How many dogs are you feeding at once, Heather? I use actual garbage bags...some really big, and some just kitchen sized. But, I'm feeding 4 big dogs at once, so I go through about 10lbs in one feeding. For smaller stuff I just use ziplock and reuse them several times. If stuff in big bags gets too frozen together, I let someone take it out back and work on it for a while, then I take it back and refreeze it, or just hit it w/a heavy mallot to break it up. They really don't care how bad their food looks when they get it, and they couldn't care less about freezer burn.