Like many hunters, my deer camp is a long distance from home. In my case, the deer grow larger in the northern portion of the state, so that’s where my cabin and camp are.
Because it’s a 3 1/2 hour drive, I can’t check on our place very frequently during the off season, so it will go for months without attention.
If the power has been out, I can usually tell by the blinking alarm clock. That’s easy.
The real mystery is HOW LONG was the power off? Was it just a few seconds? Could it have been a day? Two days? A week? Even longer?
When power is restored, the food in the fridge and freezer will chill and freeze again, but they also could be completely spoiled.
Something as simple as a jar of spoiled mayonnaise could ruin your weekend. And cooking a pack of refrozen spoiled venison, chicken or hot dogs could send you and a lot of other people to the hospital.
My solution is a simple one.
I fill a small plastic cup with water and freeze it. Once frozen, I put a quarter on top of the ice.
Each trip to camp, one of the first things I do is to check to see if the quarter has sunk at all in the cup.
Even if the quarter has submerged just a little bit, this means the power was off long enough for the food to thaw in the refrigerator portion of the unit and spoil.
Since frozen items in the freezer can take up to a week to thaw, they are good for much longer. However, that’s up to you to decide it if spoiled after a brief outage.
If the quarter has sunk a suspiciously deep distance in the cup, you should clean out the entire freezer, as well.
This tip has helped me in my remote deer camp for years, but it will work for duck camps, fishing camps, vacation cabins and even the deep freezer you have in the garage.
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