Whenever you open the door of the freezer in your mini-fridge, there’s a small amount of warm air outside the fridge that enters it. The air entering it is not a problem, but when it meets the cold air inside the fridge, it becomes water or sometimes even condenses. That’s called frost, It not only reduces the available space in the freezer but also could reduce the efficiency of the freezer.

There are many types of small fridges that come with automatic defrost. If your mini-refrigerator has the automatic defrost technology, great. But if you don’t have. It’s important to remove the frost to make space and allow the freezer to work efficiently. In this article, I’ll explain about defrosting, add steps to defrost a mini-fridge, and how often should you do it.

What is Defrosting?

Defrosting is removing accumulated frost in the freezer. When there’s too much frost in the freezer of your mini-fridge or any refrigerator, the efficiency and the available space in the freezer reduces. Besides, if you are planning to go out on a trip or a vacation, or any case where your mini-fridge will be turned off for a longer period, you would want to defrost it first else by the time you return, there’ll be water all over your place. That’s why it’s important to defrost a mini-fridge. In the next section, I’ll be guiding you with the steps to perfectly defrost your mini-refrigerator.

Now that you know about what is defrosting, you surely must be looking forward to defrosting the freezer of your mini-fridge. So let’s begin with the steps you’ll need to follow! But before you begin, there are a few requirements, make sure you have them ready:

1. 2-4 Towels
2. Tray (Not necessary)
3. Cleaning supplies which are non-abrasive
4. Odorless cloth or rags or Sponge.

5 Steps to Defrost Your Mini Fridge [Easy Steps]

1. Remove all the food-items from your mini-fridge. Consume them, if you can’t consume, don’t throw it, please donate it to the needy (if the food is in good conditions.)
2. Unplug the mini-fridge, keep a towel/tray on the floor and place the mini-fridge on the towel or tray to absorb water. (The floor placement is to save the furniture from water damage.)
3. Keep 1 towel inside the appliance. (Not necessary, but can be useful as moisture accumulates.)
4. Leave the fridge-door open overnight.
5. The next morning, wipe up excess moisture (if any) with a rag/sponge/odorless cloth and remove the absorbed water from the tray and towel.
6. The mini-fridge is now defrosted.

Don’t put back items just after the above steps, make sure that mini-fridge is COMPLETELY free from the moisture to avoid bacterial growth.

This also might be a good time to clean the shelves, racks, or drawers of your mini-fridge. Make sure that you use a non-abrasive cleaning agent. I generally prefer using hot water baking soda mixture. However, you can find a few cleaners in the nearby Target stores, Amazon, Walmart, etc.

How Often Should You Defrost a Mini-Fridge?

This is something a lot of people who came to get their mini-fridges repaired asked me when I worked. My answer to them was quite simple, “There’s no fixed time to, the moment you feel that the freezer isn’t working as it used to or feel that the frost is taking so much space is the right time.”

I also conducted various tests on mini-refrigerators from different brands and learned that enough amount of frost gets accumulated in 2 months if you open it for 12-13 times in a day. That’s why I recommend everyone to defrost their mini-fridge at least once in 2-3 months.