The meat’s in the fridge

Previously, I explained how we converted a chest freezer into an efficient refrigerator. After we made the conversion, my wonderful wife encouraged me to order another external thermostat so that we could convert our other chest freezer also for times that we might need it. One of those possible times would be at butchering time when we have more meat to preserve than we can do at one time. Keeping it refrigerated would allow more time.

We were going to leave the meat from our steer hanging in the garage to chill until we could work it up and can it. Originally, the forecasted temperatures were fine for doing so. But, the forecast has been changed. In fact, it changed a couple of times just yesterday. Today, they’re calling for 54 degrees with a low of 40 tonight. That’s not cool enough. Coupled with forecasted highs near 50 for the coming week, we couldn’t leave the meat hanging in the garage. It’s too warm.

So, I hooked up the external thermostat to our second chest freezer and made a refrigerator into which we could pack the whole steer. We moved it from the garage this morning. It got down to freezing last night, which allowed the meat to chill pretty well. Now, there shouldn’t be any problems with keeping it chilled properly.