05/20/2026
Monday afternoon after processing, Joshua got a text alert from our main freezer that temperatures climbed above normal, 10°F instead of 0°F.
That immediately told him one of the refrigeration units had gone down.
Rather than gamble with product temperatures the next morning, he monitored it closely and then made the call to keep that freezer shut and put the rest of the meat for the week into our second freezer.
Thankfully, all of our coolers and freezers are built with redundant systems for exactly this reason. With the one unit running, the freezer was able to hold a temperature, but it is now all hands on deck to get the second unit repaired ASAP.

This morning was spent tracking down the leak in the refrigeration line (pictured here). Joshua and Syd have been sweating in new lines. Next they will pull the system under vacuum, recharge it with refrigerant, and get the second unit in the big freezer back online, to ensure the ability to hold a stable temp of 0°, even with eight beef worth of cuts being put into it in a processing day. 
This is also why every cooler and freezer in our facility is monitored 24/7 through an online system that sends us text and email alerts the second something changes.
Maintaining, monitoring, and optimizing our own refrigeration has been one of the biggest learning curves in building this facility, but doing so correctly is also one of the most important parts of our operation.
Because at the end of the day, nothing else matters much if carcasses are not chilled properly, beef is not dry aging under the right conditions, or cuts are not getting deep frozen quickly.
A lot happens behind the scenes in a processing facility that customers never see, refrigeration maintenance being a prime example.
