Should I be Concerned? Fridge Temps Brining

[eschmid2]

Hi Everyone,

I got a new mini fridge specifically for storing my meats while dry and wet brining, I currently have some ribeye's dry brining for today's cook and some pork belly's wet brining for next weekend bacon cook. It is also set at the coldest temp ready. This is a Magic Chef 4.4 Cu Fu freezerless design and has very high ratings

My fridge is all set up correctly per instructions, level, and brand new. There are times when its warmer than others so I decided to take the Fireboard and monitor the temps overnight and very interesting findings that this has a wide temperature band in which the cooling cycle starts and stops as you can see below in the graph.

SO MY QUESTION: Should I worry if the temps go above 40 for an hour or so as long as the average temperature stays below a max of 38 F ?? I also see the average is creeping up over time so I need to decide to pull the meat into the main refrigerator or let this ride ...

I'm just not sure I have a real issue or not and would appreciate feedback! If this is an issue has anyone ever adjusted their control board to modify the fridges cooling cycle? Nothing on the internet about how to do that if its even possible

Thanks for any advise in advance!

[ComfortablyNumb]

I'm thinking it is just how it cycles, kicks on at 42 and shuts off at 32 I don't think the meat is going to warm up. You could get an external thermostat, I use those to turn freezers into refrigerators. You plug the freezer into the thermostat, the thermostat into the wall, and run a probe into the box. Then you set the desired temp on the thermostat and the freezer on high. The thermostat will turn the unit on and off.

[eschmid2]

Wow, never thought of that using an external thermostat, good idea if I cant get things dialed in. thanks very much

[Jerod Broussard]

2 hours is the max over 40, and best not to exceed 46, before you dip back down below 40. And that is with potentially funky chicken.

[eschmid2]

Good feedback I thought there must be a time range for the 40 degree max temp guideline Thanks!

[HouseHomey]

Sounds like you’ll be ok. Try probing the meat product overnight and see how that goes.

[mountainsmoker]

I concur small appliances are notorious for bouncing temps. The more food the better. Check a piece of food.

[fzxdoc]

It's hard to imagine that the meat surface temp would heat up into the unsafe zone in an hour, but one never knows. As others have suggested, probe the meat. Or use an IR thermometer to check the meat's surface temp.

Stupid question: Is the fridge temp set on the coldest setting?

Kathryn

[eschmid2]

Hi there, great idea from folks to probe the meat , I can easily do that on the dry brining ribeye's so will give that a go. And yep, good question, it is on the coldest setting.

[Troutman]

Did someone mention The Funky Chicken ????

[Polarbear777]

Ha. That was where my brain went also.

[Red Man]

I wouldn’t be happy if that was my fridge. I do commercial and industrial refrigeration work (don’t work on appliances though). The meat might not enter the danger zone with those temps, but to me a 10 degree temp swing is not acceptable. I prefer a 3 degree temp swing, 5 degrees max. Cheap mechanical thermostats are notoriously inaccurate, much like cheap thermometers. I’d return it for a new one, yours probably has a bad stat.

[jfmorris]

I have several refrigerators, full sIze and Danby 4.4 cubic foot freezerless models, used for fermenting and serving beer. To accurately monitor, I would put your probe in a water bottle or between a foam coozie and the bottle, so that you are monitoring something with some thermal mass - not the air temp inside the fridge.

I use cheap STC-1000 temp controllers to maintain my fridges within 0.3C of my set point, but you can’t go by air temp - go by temp of something in the fridge, and insulate the sensor from the air.

[eschmid2]

I never knew that I was measuring fridge temps incorrectly by measuring the air ... thanks so much for letting me know that! I am intrigued by the idea of the STC controller - do you have a link for any instructions online specifically for a mini fridge?

[jfmorris]

Something else I will add this morning... in my testing, those 4.4 cu foot mini fridges tend to exhibit a vertical temperature gradient of at least 10F from top to bottom, at least the two in my garage do. I was measuring the temperature of beer kegs and beer lines, and found that the kegs (and beer lines) were 10 degrees warmer at the top of the fridge than they were at the bottom of the fridge. This was leading to excessive foaming when serving the first pint of beer, as the warm beer lines that were coiled up on top of the keg were warmer than the cold beer that was being drawn up from the bottom of the keg. Therefore, the first pint served would be half foam, with the next pint being a perfect pour, as the cold beer had now cooled the lines down. CO2 was coming out of suspension due to the temperature difference.

My solution was to install a small computer style fan that I hung from the top of the fridge using zip ties and those adhesive mounts they make for securing zip ties to something. Having the fan circulate the air in the mini fridge evened out the temperatures from top to bottom nicely.

You don't have this issue with a full size fridge, as there is a fan that circulates cold air from the freezer compartment to the refrigerator compartment, when the compressor is on, which helps even out the temperatures. I also noticed the issue was most prevalent in summer versus winter, due to the mini fridges being out in a hot garage in Alabama.

[eschmid2]

Again, thanks very much for this feedback, I was thinking the same thing as I can sense some difference between bottom and top shelfs ... I am going to add a fan also to my fridge that makes a lot of sense. Appreciate all of your feedback and knowledge sharing!

[eschmid2]

All,

Thank-you for all of your feedback, this has been very educational ! In following jfmorris feedback I placed the temperature probe in a small glass of water and ran the profile overnight - very different, see below (temps are ranging from about 33 F to 37 F using the proper technique

I also ordered an IR temperature reader, been wanting one anyways for checking grill grate temps and I also ordered a small fan to put in the fridge. I am contemplating the digital controller to replace mechanical also but that's after the fan and checking temperatures properly for some time.

I am always impressed by the knowledge and feedback of folks in our forum, so thank-you all very very much! I will keep some updates in case anyone else has these same questions and can learn from all the feedback

[jfmorris]

Glad you got better results in the glass of water - that is more like what the meat will be seeing, fluctuation wise.

The STC-1000 temp controllers are all over eBay, for as low as $10ish. It just has a series of terminals on the back - it is very much a "DIY" controller, and is used by most of the home brewers I know, to control the fermentation of beer - you set the refrigerator to max cooling, plug it into the STC-1000, strap the temp sensor to the carboy or bucket of fermenting beer, let the temp sensor just go under the door seal, and the controller cycles the power to the fridge to maintain the temperature you have set.

Here is a website that is a good guide to using one:

https://www.nationalhomebrewclub.ie/...ginners-guide/

This is not in the US, so the plugs they show are different than ours, but the principal is the same, and is what I did. Basically I cut up an old extension cord, and connected things up in my case with wire nuts and electrical tape, and its been sitting on top of the fridge for years! I keep saying that I will put it all into a box, but never get around to it.

There are other similar controllers for sale on eBay that will switch from C to F for the temps - I've just gotten used to it, and know that most of my beer ferments at 20C (68F), or if serving beer, I set it to 4C (about 40F).

If you want a nice pre-built solution, Northern Brewer has one here that I came across recently:

https://www.northernbrewer.com/collections/fermentation-temperature-control/products/northern-brewer-dual-stage-temp-controller

[mountainsmoker]

Good information jfmorris excellent as always.

[fzxdoc]

jfmorris , you're a poster person for the kind of helpfulness and knowledge that are hallmarks of The Pit. I enjoyed reading your answers even though I don't run a small fridge except for wine and beer. It's always great to learn something new.

Thank you for being you.

Kathryn

[jfmorris]

Thanks Kathryn! And if you ever need to maintain your wine and beer at PRECISE temps, now you know how to do so!

Jim, Uber Geek in Huntsville, Alabama