Hello H/A!
Some weeks ago I lost power to the freezer over a few days. As you can imagine, it was not very fun. All the meat was thrown away of course, I carefully tried some of the bread I stored there and luckily it was alright and all that had gone bad was the meat, fish and some ice cream. Since the door was closed the whole time I guess the thing stayed cool enough for at least a day.
Now I've defrosted it and scrubbed the thing very carefully four times. I've used plenty of fat solvents, and several types of strong cleaning detergent. I've been very thorough and have cleaned all the surfaces including the rubber seals around the door and the door itself.
It's all a bunch of plastic boxes and most of the meat was in one box so it was fairly easy to go through them all and clean them.
The first smell was very very bad but it became extremely lessened after the second scrubbing.
There's still a little bit of bad odor left when you open the door for the first time in a while, and it seems to get absorbed a little bit by microwave dinners packages (which are stored in paper boxes). So I want to try to get this little annoying lingering smell that is left out of the freezer.
I read online that ground coffee if placed openly in the freezer can work for this and that it can have a lasting effect, so I left a bag in there now. Will check in a bit and see if it helps.
I just wondered if anyone's had this problem and have any other ideas?
Edit: Note it's
not a frost-free freezer so it doesn't have a filter or drain or anything like that.
Posts
I'm guessing the idea is that the baking soda absorbs the smell?
Any idea how long I should typically leave it in there?
It's hard for anything to absorb smells if it's not present, right?
Thanks a bunch, and special thanks for responding so quickly!!
It really doesn't matter if anything was in there. The walls of most freezers are either made of plastic or are metal coated in a vinyl paint. Plastics (and vinyls) are, despite being largely waterproof, fairly porous and will absorb smells. Once the stink gets in, you're just not going to get it out. An old fridge, even one that's been empty for years and standing open, will still have a weird sort of smell to it if you shut the door and then open it up again a few days later. Molecules of stink get into the plastics and then outgas very, very slowly.
At least it's negligible now and very faint.
After I cleaned the whole thing again yesterday it's even less than before. Figure if I clean it ten times I might get it all out. But it'll do, four's the charm.
While I couldn't find any baking soda boxes for this specific purpose I left a small plastic bag (widely opened) with like four teaspoons of baking soda in it inside the freezer just over the night. When I opened the door this morning there was no smell left! I took the bag out during work today and after coming back home, still doesn't smell anything!
I'm gonna leave a can in there from now on, problem very solved!
THANK YOU!
GIS is evil
Bread in the Freezer? Mom is that you?
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Might as well update that all is still good. Can't believe how well baking soda works.
I've always felt freezing bread is going to cause it to lose flavor. My mother did it all the time and it drove me crazy.. with things like dinner rolls i suppose its okay but your going to get crystalization of any moisture in the bread when you freeze and thaw it out.