There they are: 38 newly processed chickens, freezing solid in the chest freezer (39 minus the one we took to roast fresh). It’s the last stop before the table on what was a pretty fine meat bird run.

Like everything else on the tiny farm (and in life in general!), when you get down to freezing chickens, there are the details. What I noticed this year is the amount time it takes to actually freeze chickens solid. This wasn’t quite as apparent last year, when we started with under 20 processed birds. Here, checking out the new freezer’s manual, I loosely followed the advice against freezing too much at once. I put in half, around 20 chickens, for a few hours, then added the rest. I’ve also been rotating them—they freeze faster when they’re exposed—but after a day, they’re not all rock hard.

I have it in mind that the faster you freeze stuff, the better it is when you thaw it out: firmer, not mushy. Something about smaller ice crystals doing less cellular damage. Sounds plausible to me!

Luckily, the chickens came heavily pre-chilled from the processing house. Processing your own in any sort of quantity, I imagine you need a fair bit of refrigerator space to cool them down, or a walk-in cooler, or lots of chest freezers. Another thing to look into for…the future!

Of course, the whole freezing thing is another puzzle. It’s quick and easy, and works really well...