How To Crab From A Kayak Video

I'm with Craig on this. Crab "butter"...isn't. Crack 'em, rinse 'em, ice 'em for the trip.

(I highly endorse having a stand-alone freezer if you have the space)

Buying an upright freezer may currently not be an option.

I have a 20 cubic foot upright freezer in my garage which is full of frozen fish, game meat, and produce.  I went out to get some fish for dinner last night, and was disturbed to discover that the temperature of the freezer was about 33 degrees, and the fish in the top of the freezer were defrosting.  The freezer has mostly stopped working.  It's a good thing I discovered the problem when I did, or I could have lost a lot of fish and meat. I was able to cram everything from the upright freezer into the freezer in the fridge in our kitchen and an ARB 80 quart 12 volt/120 volt portable freezer. I've scheduled a maintenance call for two days from now.  I decided to figure out what my options are if my upright freezer can't be repaired.  I checked the upright freezer ratings in Consumer Reports, and many of the freezers had a note that said they were no longer being manufactured.  So I started calling around town to find out what freezers are available locally, and was told that nobody has any upright freezers, because for some reason manufacturers have stopped producing them, and they may not start up again until the end of the summer.  Oops.  So I really hope that my freezer can be repaired.

This is so alarming that I had to check it out.

I checked HD and found that all their uprights are out of stock. There is a 7cf chest unit available. Local Lowes had one upright and two chest models.

Once I finish occupying the new mancave, I had thought I might add a small fridge/freezer or chest freezer down there. My barn has its own electric service (separate account) and I never use enough juice to cover the minimum charge from PGE, so may as well get some benefit from what I'm already paying.

In fact, I have a tuna trip booked in a few weeks. If we bring home even a single tuna I am probably out of freezer space since Mrs. P has filled it up with Trader Joe's fare and flour/yeast/etc. that she has hoarded.

with all that great food in the freezer, consider getting a freezer alarm that monitors the temperature and emits an audible alarm when temp's rise above the desired level.

After the issues my parents went through with upright freezers when I was growning up, I chose from the beginning to go with a NON frost free chest freezer for several reasons.

1 - Non frost free greatly reduces the dreaded freezer burn caused by the frost free nature of how that works.

2 - Seems to be much cheaper in cost than there upright cousins.

3 - You don't loose valuable cold air when you open the lid to get stuff out each time. Which also eliminates the door being vacuumed shut when you close it and need to get back in it real quick. 


Con's
1 - You have to be mindful of where you put things, as you can easily bury something on the bottom and forget it was there.

2. Space to put said chest freezer.  They do have a good sized foot print.

3. Gotta remove the frost every now and then.  I usually wait till it's 30 F or colder outside and empty the contents of the freezer onto tables in my garage.  Chip the ice and snow from the walls and sweep it out real quick.  Then take inventory and sort the food as I put it all back in the freezer.  It's a good time to toss the old old old stuff, and move the newer stuff to the bottom.