Well for me, there is a few things that I can do, for most of my milk products, I would need to start culturing then into yogurt, cheese's and clabber, as I would not be able to store them as fresh sweet milk for any length of time without my fridge, even cooling the milk properly would be a issue if you are without power, I am unsure how much time and effort, I would put into hauling out the cold well water need to help cool it.

Second, for some things I would be able to put it down into the bottom of my unused water cistern (that I use as a kind of small root cellar, I have done testing on this over the years and it will work well for a good number of things, not so good on others.

but the biggest thing, I would do is feed out most of what was in my fridge currently into the farm critters, salt any meat and put it in cellar to keep the water temps down to the point that it would hold it till it could be used and I would then move over to only cooking enough for that meal or two, I do can some things in bigger jars (quarts) but most things are done to the size needed for our family, so most things are done in pints, so that we can make things that make three meals, one for each and one for the dh's take to work lunch, it would not take much to bring that down to one single meal per, and not have leftover's to worry about.

Two things: I normally fill up the voids in my freezers with half filled water containers. It keeps the appliances more efficient, helps stay cool if power goes off and, as a side bonus, it's stored water! Then, there is the generator. I wouldn't mind starting it for an hour every few hours to cool the fridges/freezers. And, to be a good neighbour, I'd offer the same to those around to prevent food spoilage.

I keep enough fuel on hand to run the generator for about 2 hours twice a day for 30 days. This is enough to keep the 2 fridges and freezer cold enough as well as recharge batteries and run the well pump to refill containers. After the 30 day mark, I won't be too worried about the fridges and freezer anyways. Of course, a solar setup is in the plans, just not right now, and would only supply bare essential power.

Sometimes, I think I am really low tec in my thinking.. hmmm, the generator would be used for the freezers.

Actually, for the freezer, you really only have to run it every 2 - 3 days for a few hours until it shuts itself off.
Keep it full, with ice in pop bottles if you have to, and cover it with spare blankets, which will be plentiful in summer.
Of course in winter...no issues at all, just use your climate!

Two things: I normally fill up the voids in my freezers with half filled water containers. It keeps the appliances more efficient, helps stay cool if power goes off and, as a side bonus, it's stored water! Then, there is the generator. I wouldn't mind starting it for an hour every few hours to cool the fridges/freezers. And, to be a good neighbour, I'd offer the same to those around to prevent food spoilage.

I do this too. I fill all my empty juice containers and put them in the freezer to fill it up - when I need space I take them out and leave them to thaw and then dump the water on my plants and refill (you don't have to but water frozen multiple times tastes really weird). I would use the genny a few hours a day to keep the freezers frozen and put the frozen water bottles in the fridge to keep it cool.

All the really perishable stuff would go out to the animals if I couldn't keep it cool enough - today would certainly be a challenge!!!

Whelp if it happened right now We would try to consume as much as possible before it went bad. We don't have the resources to get an alternative. We do have a trailer with a propane fridge though so that would help. Winter we would not have an issue BUT we do get chinooks here which can bring our temps up to +10C in a few hours. That may give us some problems. Also with Propane, it will only last you so much before that runs out too in a TEOTWAWKI situation. Solar powered fridge?

Whelp if it happened right now We would try to consume as much as possible before it went bad. We don't have the resources to get an alternative. We do have a trailer with a propane fridge though so that would help. Winter we would not have an issue BUT we do get chinooks here which can bring our temps up to +10C in a few hours. That may give us some problems. Also with Propane, it will only last you so much before that runs out too in a TEOTWAWKI situation. Solar powered fridge?

Depending on your fridge, you may be able to get away with an inverter hooked up to your car battery.
The inverter would need to be at least 800watts, and you would have to idle the car when you do it, but if the fridge is new and energy efficient enough, it is possible.

I lived 6 months no frig or freezer. No money to replace the frig and gave up the freezer when hubby & I split.

A few things that I did for longer term no frig:
-had small packages of things like ketchup, mayo, salad dressing - you can still make meals and not worry about keeping a jar cool after opening
-make smaller meals so no leftovers
-used small container soya milk & almond milk
-used the freezer part of the frig at work to freeze water & ice packs for my home cooler

If the power went out now:
I really have nothing in the frig worth worrying about. At the 3 day mark I would start canning what I could on the bbq the stuff from the freezer.

Just checked because of this post and now I need to restock my small packages of condiments. I can't find them in the house 🙁

We have changed our eating habits to the point where we eat very little meat, a bit of HORMONE FREE hamburger (lasagna, chilli & hubby adds it to mac & tomatoes) chicken breasts/turkey so mostly our fridge/freezer holds vegetables/bags of frozen fruit/bread...we would just eat those, juice them (manual food processor)...we have changed over to mostly canned or shelf stable items & fruits & veg.

For the short term power outage (no electricity for fridge/freezers) we have a generator and several 5-gallon gans of stored gasoline. When the power is out, we run the generator every evening for a couple of hours as it gets dark. That way we can watch the news, have a light, etc. We power the fridge at the same time. The freezer is in the cellar so we power it every second evening.

For an extended grid-down situation we have several ideas. Many items in the fridge don't actually need to be refrigerated but we do like them cool. Ketchup, mustard, mollasses, BBQ sauce will all be kept in the cellar. We have an old stone well close by in which we will hang things like milk, water jug, cream. For the items in the freezer, I have some 5-gallon food grade pails and 100lbs of fisheries salt. The salt is available at feed stores for about $11.00.

The biggest fly in the ointment is the fact that I have never salted anything. I plan to change that this fall. I am told that to salt meat, you put enough salt in the pail (barrel/whatever) to float a potato. I would be interested in hearing from anyone who has done this. I do have a neighbour that I was going to ask about this as well. His family didn't get electricity until the mid 1980s when he was in his early 20s. Aside from fresh, wild meat their staple diet was salt beef in a wooden barrel. They kept a gaff hook by the barrel and whatever was hooked first was what they had for supper.

Hello Lee

There are three basic ways to salt preserve meat, dry salt, wet salt and salt in the meat itself (cured mixed meats)

I would recommend staring with small pieces of meat, by that I mean a small roast, remember to work with different meats, they all cure slightly different, depending on the cut, the fat content and if its bone in or bone out, will all effect how long it will take to fully cure them.

So lets back up for a second, the reason we want to use salt to preserve is worth noting, we want it to do a couple things, one it is to create a habitat that spoiler microbes can't survive in, and second (and just as importantly) it need to drawn the water content out of the meat itself.

Because of this, we can use weights on our meats to check for doneness, once you have lost a certain percentage of weight, the odds are very high that you will have a correct curing time on certain things.

So lets look at a dry cure, wood box or crock is what was used tradionally but, the thing to remember with a dry salt cure is that you need to create space or a place for the juices that are being pulled out a place to run, and or you need use enough salt, that there will be still be enough left after the melting out.. for your first start with a dry salt, a nice steak is a good start, weight your meat before, salt on the bottom thick, steak and then cover with salt and put it in the fridge, take it out each day, check your weights, feel the meat itself, when it reaches the dry, firm and hard stage, you really, really need to learn how to feel your meat.

Wet cure is just that, mix water with salt for your cure, now most folks will never add enough salt to a regular wet cure to float a egg or a small potato, but the difference is that most folks today are wet curing in their fridge, smaller portions and with a lot more controls, which means that you can afford to use less salt in your brines, but I have in fact done what you are talking about, (but only once and then I started refining my process and will talk in a bit about why), I cured just over sixty pounds of pork and another 30 of lamb, I used a plastic barrel, with a cut to fit plastic top with a very very well scrubbed heavy rock to hold the lid under the brine, and to keep all meat pieces in and under the brine, the brine was made with hot water, and was thick enough with salt to float a egg once it was fully cool, and first let me tell ya, that takes a lot!!!!!! more salt then you think to do that.. what seems like a lot of salt in storage becoming not a lot once you start salting meat, using salt for cleaning for cooking, salt for hides and you will want a lot more in your storage.

I did this as pure salt, which meant that the meat came out a brown-grey (not the pretty pinks hues that a proper curing salt will do) but it was safe to eat, it was then dry air hanged and cured, it was then carefully wrapped in cloth, some of it was cheese cloth and some was butter linin and some was cotton and some was linin, I wanted to see if any of it was a issue, the answer is simple, you can wash and use your cloth, cloths and use them for years where the cheese cloth is much more fragile, some of these pieces where kept in hanging storage for upward of six months before use, with something being used each month as tests.

I have since cured, dried and hung whole lamb legs and held them for a full year to just to do it, and it worked out just fine..

Now, here is the second thing I want to bring up to you, I assure you, that whatever was hooked out of that salt barrel, was not what momma made for supper that night, we are all very use to cooking with fresh meat, be it fresh or fresh from frozen, salted meat is a whole different ball game.. you will need to relearn how to cook with it, you will need to re-learn almost all of your recipes to work with and around salted meat.

No one, and I do mean no one(in our culture used to the taste of fresh meat) is going to want to sit down and eat a "typical north American" piece of salted meat, it would burn your mouth from the salt.. Salted meat that is pulled and or dry cured, typically is soaked a couple time with changes of water, often then simmered to remove even more salt to soften it back up, and then its typically cut into small pieces and used as part of something, not the meat side as we think of it..

In a way this makes perfect sense, unless it was a fresh meat feast, meat would have been a small portion of the main meals and when working with heavy salted meat, you will find yourself drawn to do this..

For what its worth, when its possible without hardship at certain times of the year, (heat of the summer) keep your livestock on the claw, hoof and paw, and butcher out for fresh meat, if you are going to do early fall butchering, time it to go with your fall canning and plan to ideally be able to can for a good number of years if at all possible, in later winter, plan to use the natural winter temps to butcher and then freeze it, take the time to freeze out buckets or cubes of ice etc and add them to your meat/freezer shed so that if you get a sudden heat snap for three days or so on those three to four times a winter, you are prepared for it, learn to dry a lot of your lean meats, cure only those that are fatty..

When you get to the point of doing it, please come back and let us know how it goes and we can compare notes 🙂

We have a basin in our shed for cooling milk cans in well water. Other than that I am doing without I guess .

that's a good set up Syn, I wish I could have a way to do that on the farm, but its just not set up that way for us at this time.