What do you have in your refrigerator that most people do not?
Steak that was in the process of cooking. Let me explain…About 5 years ago, I got into modernist cooking, in particular low-temperature cooking (sometimes known as sous-vide). For those who aren’t familiar, this is a type of cooking where food is vacuum-bagged, and immersed in water held at a very accurate temperature for a comparatively long time, which allows the food to cook to an exact doneness (great for fish, steak and eggs) and without overcooking or losing too much juiciness.However, this was 5 years ago, there weren’t any low-cost consumer-grade immersion circulators on the market like there are now (you can get one now for $100–200, back then the only ones on the market were commercial/prosumer ones upwards of $1k).So I decided to build one, and document the process in a blog (peltierfridge). All I needed was vessel that could hold water at a very precise temperature, big enough to hold the thing I needed to cook, and modify it with a new control system to allow accurate temperature control. I settled on a mini-fridge - the kind of cheap plastic fridges that are popular with students for keeping cool a few sodas, milk, or beer.The thing about these fridges is that they’re based around a thermoelectric module rather than a conventional compressor, and so could be switched between cooling and heating duty, meaning these fridge could run as a hot-box. In fact, because of thermodynamics, these fridges work better as a heater than as an actual fridge.So I drilled a hole for a temperature probe, sealed up all the internal seams with silicone sealant, wired in a microcontroller, and an opto-isolated transistor that could switch the TEC. For good measure I added an LCD display to show the temperatures (because why not).The final thing looked like this.It even had a little USB port over which I could set the target temperature, log data, and tune the PID gains via a graphical interface (interface built on Qt, and communicating over raw-HID via the ROM-based HID functions in the Cortex-M3 micro).Results for fridge-cooked steak were pretty good (note: meat has to be seared in an additional step):So yeah, I cook meat in my fridge. I’m not sure many other people have 6 litres of hot water and a bag of cooking meat in their fridge.(These days I have an Anova circulator that’s faster and easier to clean, so I don’t use the fridge any more)
Why is my new refrigerator not cooling?
To get a cold fridge you need all of these prior steps to happen:1. The refrigerator has power. If the lights come on, your fridge has power. 2. The cold control is requesting cooling. (For most refrigerators) if the fan in the freezer is running, the cold control is "on." Be aware, some machines turn off the evaporator fan (that's the one in the freezer) when the freezer door is open. Push in the door switch manually if you're not sure.3. The compressor is running. You may be able to tell by listening, but to be sure, you need to pull out the refrigerator, remove the back panel and put your hand on it. The compressor is the small black bowling ball - looking object back there. 4. There's an adequate amount of "freon" in the tubing. (Yes, it's probably R-134a. But everyone still calls it "freon.") If all the steps above are true, the freezer should be cold regardless of anything else. 5. The evaporator fan must be running. Without it, your fridge will not cool. 6. The evaporator coils and air channels between the fridge and the freezer must be free of ice/frost.7. The damper door (adjusts airflow between the freezer and the fridge) must be open. Not every fridge has a damper door. Some are user-adjustable. Some are automatic. If you can feel a small amount of cold air blowing into the fridge through the duct at the top, the damper door is open. 8. The light in the fridge must go out when the fridge door is shut. The cooling system cannot keep up with the heat generated by the light bulb. That's it. Figure out which step is *not* happening and resolve it. In most cases (assuming the freezer is cold) there is frost behind the wall in the freezer. Thoroughly defrost the freezer and the fridge should work again for a few days. Figure out why it's not defrosting by itself, and you've got a permanent fix.
DO YOU KNOW ABOUT REFRIGERATORS?
does it matter if you have a refrig. in the garage....mine does not seem to be freezing...refrig. is okay but the upper freezer does not seem to keep things frozen in the door rack...does it matter that the temperature in missouri has been around 10-20 degrees.like i said the lower refrig seems to be fine...this is only a 1 year old fridgeadare......thanks
Should Hypnotiq be stored in the refrigerator?
I know that Alize should be stored in the refrigerator after it's opened because it contains real fruit juices. It says this right on the bottle. Hypnotiq does not say this on the bottle but it also contains real fruit juices. Should it be stored in the fridge as well? If not, will it go bad or just not be as good or what?
Does a refrigerator need a water line ?
No you do not need a water line. The water line is only for making Ice or dispensing water. It will be fine to put into the garage. You would have to live in a pretty cold place for your fridge to turn into a freezer. Your fridge may not run much in the winter but should not cause food to freeze. I have bottled water in mine in the garage during the winter and never have had it freeze. I live in Iowa where it gets pretty cold.
Do refrigerators plug into a standard outlet?
I'm thinking of putting a refrigerator into a room in the house (not kitchen). Is there any problem with this? I want to put in a normal-size refrigerator, but I have never seen what connects to it... like water, power, etc. I assume there are kinds that don't need water and can plug into a standard outlet. Is that true? Just wanted to see if folks already know before I go to Best Buy. Also, any better recommendations for places to go for buying a refrigerator? Thanks, Steve