I'm curious how many of you Northerners use your seasonal "Walk-in Cooler"

[A HERETIC I AM]

I lived in Michigan through the 1990's and when I had a place that had a porch or patio that was screened, I would often use it as an auxiliary walk-in freezer/cooler....

You know....for beer or whatever. Even meats and other frozen items if it stays cold enough.

I have good friends that live south of Cleveland and they would store items that they didn't have to worry about if they froze, out on their non-heated, walled in porch.


So......do any of you make use of the cold weather in this regard?

In my travels I have had the occasion to be in motels in areas where snowmobilers frequent. I always found it amusing that outside each door would be the case of beer in the snow! And it wouldn't get touched, because everyone else was doing the same thing!

Stay warm, Northern DU'ers, and Happy Holidays from balmy Jacksonville, Florida

[applegrove]

1. Growing up the garage was not heated. It was right off the kitchen side door. We stored

vegetables and whisky sours out there.

[A HERETIC I AM]

2. There you go! n/t

[applegrove]

6. My cousin used to make ice candles too. You take a 2 litre platic coke bottle. Fill it with

water. Let it start to freeze outside. Then you pour out the water not frozen in the centre. Peel off the plastic bottle. Put in a tea light candle. Set it outside in the snow around the pathway to your front door. There you have it a safe and pretty place for candles.

You can also boil real maple syrup and pour it on the snow outside. Makes yummy maple taffy.

[A HERETIC I AM]

10. My parents were from Connecticut....(edited)

and it seems to me that we did that maple Syrup thing on a visit to grandmas way back when.

The Ice candles sounds cool!

I lived in the DC area when I was young and we used to make snow lanterns. Roll up a big snowball like the base of a snowman.

Flatten the top, then make a ring of smaller snowballs and then pile them on top of one another to make a lattice-like shade, about 6 or 7 snowballs high. Put a candle in the middle and voila!

Basically this idea;

[Warpy]

3. My granny kept her canned stuff out on an unheated porch. There wasn't anyplace to put it

in her Victorian kitchen with its free standing stove, free standing sink, Hoosier cabinet for the flour sifter, and small breakfast table. That and three chairs was it for kitchen furniture, dishes and silver were stored in the dining room. She did have a fridge, but that was a relatively late arrival. It's likely milk and eggs were always stored on the back porch along with everything else including leftovers, of which there were few. I don't know how she did it, but she was a great cook in that lousy kitchen.

[A HERETIC I AM]

18. The technology our great grandparents utilized is fascinating and foreign to many of us these days.

If you didn't or couldn't can it, cure it, or keep it cool, you had better have another way of preserving, or you were going to be out of food by spring.

[grasswire]

49. I think about my grandmother in winter

.....homesteading on the Saskatchewan prairie in the early 1900s. How did she provide for the horrible winter for hubby and four children? All the "Little House" stories are the experiences she lived through. Prairie fire, drought, blizzards, etc.

Brrrr!

[Jackpine Radical]

52. A bunch of my family moved to Sask. from South Dakota in about 1910-11.

I'm descended from the other branch, the wimps who came to northern WI from SD.

My Great-Grandfather at age 65 was the oldest person to file for a homestead in Sask. at that time. They ended up pretty far north, on a little place called Brightsand Lake, where many of them still remain. Just a few years ago I made contact with one of my cousins up there online & have filled in many fascinating parts of my family story. I have many of the same stories of the family in SD that they do, e.g. how they built towns across the prairie as the Northern Pacific railroad advanced at the turn of the century.

[grasswire]

62. a book that really gave me the flavor of Saskatchewan..

....right in that early 1900s era is "Wolf Willow" by the great great American writer Wallace Stegner. He lived farther south in SK than your family did/does. But I suspect the details of life are the same. My family went from Connecticut during the Revolutionary War to Ontario, then about 1900 to Saskatchewan. Then in the 1920s, back to the U.S., to the Pacific Northwest.

I'll have to check out Brightsand Lake on wiki. My family's homestead was outside a town called Ceylon, which is still there. Their other little town was Lang, which is nearly gone or gone.

Have you gone up there to visit?

[Jackpine Radical]

67. I haven't been up there yet.

The area they farmed in SD was around Oacoma, on the Missouri. There is still a place just south of Oacoma called Peterson Bottoms.
My great-grandfather was born in Denmark in the 1840's & emigrated with his brother and their wives, bringing my grandfather, who was then about 2 years old.

[al bupp]

4. Ah, yep

That's even what we call in our house here in s. VT.

[A HERETIC I AM]

11. LOL...I can dig it.

A thermal sieve, eh?

I've lived in one or two of those.

[cyberswede]

5. Absolutely

We have an extra refrigerator in the basement, but it's much closer to stick stuff on the porch (it's a screen porch with louvered glass windows), so I use it frequently in the winter.

When baking for x-mas, I put stuff out there so it cools faster.

And we store beer on the porch - but we have to be sure to set it on the bench, because it will freeze sometimes if left on the cement floor.

[A HERETIC I AM]

15. I dig it on the freezing beer.

I had friends that lived on Lake Gogebic, in the Western UP of MI. I learned that lesson the first time I went up there in the Winter. 15 minutes in their garage on the floor in 4 degree temps and I had slush!

[panader0]

7. You are very brave to leave your beer outside your motel room. And lucky. (That I wasn't there)

[A HERETIC I AM]

12. You would have had your choice of brands!

I'm sure it goes on all the time in any area frequented by outdoorsman. After all, why would you be at the local mom and pop motel in middle of nowhere UP of MI or Northern WI or similar locale in the dead of winter?

To have fun and get hammered!

[PeaceNikki]

59. And dumb. That shit will asspolde.

[MattBaggins]

8. My cellar stays pretty darn cool

but the most I ever have down there is some horseradish packed in barely damp sand.

Can't put things out back or the neighborhood cats would be all over my back deck and I only drink beer when I go out to eat.

Just don't really have anything to store out there.

As a kid we had a whole section of the cellar designed to be a root cellar and kept taters, apples and a few other such items in it.

[A HERETIC I AM]

14. Damned cats!

I had the same problem with the house I mentioned below. That and squirrels and assorted other urban wildlife!

[polly7]

9. I'm freezing a lot of my leftovers outside in mine right now

until we can finish off the ice cream and empty out my freezer enough to fit them in. The turkey and ham I kept frozen beforehand in the trunk of my car. Everywhere's a freezer here, the trick is finding a place the critters won't find it.

[A HERETIC I AM]

13. Exactly.

I lived in one house in Dearborn that had no outside screened enclosures at all. Only thing I felt safe leaving outside was beer.

[LumosMaxima]

16. I keep pop out in the garage most of the winter.

I can keep it out there until it gets below 20F & then I don't have to wait for it to cool in the fridge.

[A HERETIC I AM]

20. Yup. Gotta be careful stuff you want to drink doesn't freeze solid. n/t

[awoke_in_2003]

39. Pop?...

Now I know you are a true northerner (I am a Buckeye)

[awoke_in_2003]

43. Can Fanta still be found? nt

[LumosMaxima]

44. I'm not sure.

We still have Faygo, though. I didn't realize it was a regional brand until I lived in another part of the country and no one had heard of it. Vernor's ginger ale, too.

[awoke_in_2003]

46. No, Faygo was what I meant...

A case of CRS on my part.

[hollysmom]

17. I have an unheated mud room, that is my cold storage in the winter, not so much in the summer.

I had a turn of the century apartment - the 1900, not 2000 century when I first got out of college. there was a hole in the wall with a door to put things outside to keep them cool.

[A HERETIC I AM]

19. LOL...

Someone was thinking ahead, eh?

[awoke_in_2003]

40. Was it for milk deliveries?...

I remember a hole in the wall with an outside and inside door. The milkman place your milk in it so he didn't disturb you during his early morning deliveries.

[hollysmom]

58. this was on the 4th floor, he would have had to fly. n/t

[awoke_in_2003]

64. ah, guess that is out. nt

[Historic NY]

21. Have an unfinished bomb shelter which we used to store bushels of apples...

and other produce. I use my attached garage to keep beer, wine, juice, Gatorade and soda. Kept my turkey there while it was brining.

[A HERETIC I AM]

24. There you go.

It took me a little to get used to the idea that I could bring a frozen chicken or whatever home from the grocery store on January 3rd, for instance and just leave it on the porch till late February if I wanted!

[JimDandy]

22. Yup, especially for holiday food. n/t

[A HERETIC I AM]

26. That's exactly what got me thinking and then putting up this thread.

"I wonder if others did the same crazy crap I used to do!"

[JimDandy]

34. Not crazy - economical.

Easier to do if you have a single family home or an apt with a private balcony on the second floor or higher.

One year we put the carcasses of two turkeys in coolers on the patio, so we could make turkey barley soup the day after thanksgiving (no room in the fridges). Those who ridiculed us at first for doing that, sure enjoyed the soup over the next few days!

[BainsBane]

23. I often keep beverages on the back porch

but I have to watch the temperature because if it's too cold they freeze solid. It's a sealed porch with windows so it's warmer than outside. If it weren't, I couldn't keep liquids there at all.

[A HERETIC I AM]

28. It seems to me....

That if there is snow outside, and you packed your beverages in a cooler with snow, they won't freeze.

At least not until it gets "wicked cold" like below zero. Snow being a pretty good insulator and all that.

[BainsBane]

30. Maybe, but there is no snow on my porch

and since I'm on the second floor, I'm not going down to get any.

[A HERETIC I AM]

31. LOL...got ya~! n/t

[spanone]

25. my mother in law uses her back porch as a walk-in all winter....

indiana....

[A HERETIC I AM]

27. Yeah...makes perfect sense.

I think it's fantastic and fun, in a way.

"Honey, grab me a cold one off the patio, willya?"

LOL

[spanone]

29. she'll keep food out there too!

soft drinks

[napi21]

32. Believe it or not, I now use our garage for a refrigerator and I live in Ga!

I grew up in Pa. and many times we would use the back porch as a spare freezer, but we moved in 1987. You have to be careful that the temp doesn't go up during the day, but we use the garage for a lot of things during the holidays because there's just not enough room in the fridge.

[A HERETIC I AM]

33. Yup.

It has gotten pretty chilly here in Jax a few times so far, but, typical of Florida, it doesn't last long.

It's a balmy 54 outside right now. Gotta watch the temps where you are, no doubt.

[TroglodyteScholar]

35. It's often too cold here to put beer out there for long

Have considered using the fire escape for some frozen food (that isn't under pressure) but never actually tried it.

[A HERETIC I AM]

36. Well, if you're ever pressed for space in your freezer....

You have extra shelf space on your fire escape!

At least for a couple months, anyway.

[TroglodyteScholar]

37. I think it could work

Frozen veggies and such stored under something to keep them out of direct sun maybe

[A HERETIC I AM]

38. Yup.

Apparently a very common practice, going by the responses to this thread!

If you have a small ice chest, you can place the goods in that. You just don't need to add any ice.

[Sognefjord]

41. We do the same as many above.

I don't drive my vintage Town Car in the winter so we store Christmas goodies and even turkeys on it (properly packaged of course) but never beer or wine since we have been getting a lot of subzero days lately here in Iowa.

[WorseBeforeBetter]

45. Too funny. Neighbors and I were just talking about this the other day...

native New York, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. We were bitching about how Raleigh winters are too warm for storing food/beverages on our screened porches!

[hfojvt]

47. I make ice when I can

put out a milk jug 90% full of water and let it freeze overnight. Bring it in when I let the dogs out and put it in my refrigerator. As a single guy, much of my big refrigerator is just empty space, which I fill with jugs of water (or ice). Keeps the cold inside when you open the door. Those jugs of water, unlike the empty space will not flow out of the door every time you open it, and as the ice melts, it will cool the refrigerator, making it run a little bit less.

Being way south in Kansas, there are not too many days in an average winter when I can make ice.

[ConcernedCanuk]

48. All the time!

.
.
.

Front door:



Side door:



Back door:



Gotta drink my way outside!



CC

[A HERETIC I AM]

63. LOL! "How do you get out?"

"Why, the second floor windows, naturally."

[Phentex]

50. I just did this in Atlanta...

we had a cooler on the screen porch for the bigger overflow stuff like iced tea.

[etherealtruth]

51. Much of Christmas brunch was kept frozen, by virtue of a 'portable" chiller

... my car

[Jackpine Radical]

53. A couple deer carcasses hung up to freeze--

Well, not this year. I haven't hunted for several years now, but that's pretty standard around here. And of course if it's a farmer down on his luck & stretching the larder with a little out-of-season "woods cow," it's hanging in the barn out of sight of any busybody wardens.

[Tom Rinaldo]

54. Any screened in "cooler area" where I live would be broken into by bears

Well maybe not for beer, but they would for food. I live in the Catskills in New York. I've thought of using my garage as a spare freezer when there's a good sale at the market, but I fear the periodic thaws we get here. We did leave a bottle of white wine out on the porch though.

[Freddie]

55. Grandma always stored holiday leftovers in the unheated garage

Once when I was a kid I got sick after Xmas from leftover turkey when "God's refrigerator" wasn't cold enough. I only store soda, beer or juice outside when the fridge is overflowing.

[laundry_queen]

56. Last year when I was living with my parents

for Christmas I made a ton of cookies, squares and other goodies. There was no room in their freezer (my mom puts everything in her freezer so it was full before I started baking) so I put a large cooler out on the deck and put all the Christmas treats in it, where they stayed frozen until we needed it. We also kept the Christmas turkey outside, in the barbeque, frozen solid until we were ready for it to thaw.

[pipi_k]

57. It's one of the better

things about living in the Frozen Tundra (the hilltowns of Western Mass)...ha ha

Snow cuts down on the amount of yard dust the dogs bring in

And the cold gives us lots of options for storing stuff that's supposed to stay cold/frozen.

Last week, though, it got up to near 60 here, and my usual cold spots weren't as cold as they would have been otherwise, so that was sort of a pain in the neck. But it's now a nice, frigid 27 degrees.

Mr Pipi's office used to be a glassed-in sunporch off the master bedroom which can be temperature controlled by opening or closing the sliding glass door to the bedroom. It's not unusual to see fruit and cookies and such piled up around his printer out there.

I have an unheated barn/garage, but the risk of critter predation is too great. Mice...raccoons...bears...squirrels...

There's a chest freezer, and I store dog kibble in large metal trash cans lined with plastic bags, but that's about it.

[SidDithers]

60. All the Christmas dinner leftovers...

the turkey, stuffing, carrots and turnip, red cabbage, mashed potatoes, gravy. Everything, went into the garage after dinner. All the way outside would have been too cold, and stuff would have frozen. But the garage was a temperature partway between the fridge and the freezer.

Sid

[Blue_In_AK]

61. We use our deck all the time as a cooler.

We've got a big pot of soup out there right now. It probably froze overnight, but it's easy enough to heat up. We put beer out there sometimes, but can't leave it out too long.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

65. Walk-in cooler is not working so well today

40 degrees in S.E. Michigan. There are still piles of snow from shoveling, so I have somewhere to shove the beer bottles to get them nice and cold.

Cheers.

[Jenoch]

66. I loved winter as a kid, but as an adult, the only good thing about cold

weather is using the attached garage as more refrigeration. Our garage door is right off the kitchen, so it is quite convenient.

I live in the Twin Cities, it is 41° right now, tomorrow's high temperature will be about 35°. Sunday afternoon the forecast is for -5° and the low Monday morning at -15°. Even with an attached garage, I think that's too cold for the garage to be a refrigerator

[whistler162]

68. Had some of the extra holiday food

etc. in it this past week. Of course it was a little warm early on so had to put the stuff in a cooler with a ice jug(milk jug with frozen water) in it. Do it every year when my younger brother comes home for Christmas.

[Chan790]

69. To a limited degree.

Due to sunlight and temperature swings, it's not really viable and it's hard to imagine too many places being more suitable than on top of a mountain in rural New England.

The average morning (pre-10am) high this week has been 19'F. The midday high though has been on the wrong side of 30. So, it's only suitable for soda. Too much of a swing for beer or food.