Making the most out of the fridge

Hi Oz Doc , I have not used ours in that way only all freezer or all fridge , but I have often thought about lining the area you want for fridge with a few layers of cardboard to keep the cooling coils away from the food ,may need to set a thermometer in the middle somehow to check the temp .Kogan has some for sale at $5 now ,would be interested to hear others on this subject ,and I will try it next time I use mine .

Funny that you've posted this, Doc. We are camped at Granite Gorge, near Mareeba, and I've just taken some steak and snags out for tea tonight.

Have a 40L Engel, and I've had it set on just over "1" for this trip. Put 4 pieces of rib fillet and 6 snags on the bottom of the fridge on Tues arvo, and removed them today (Sat) about 1pm. The steaks are still frozen and the snags are frozen, but not solid. Due to me travelling alone this trip, and the fridge wasn't packed by Herself, I also froze a couple of carrots. :-(

A couple of 1L UHT milk packs on the bottom didn't get frozen.

From previous comments on this subject on EO, it is best to place the frozen items at the bottom, then cover them with a piece of cardboard or foam, and put the fresh stuff above.

Bob

oz doc

When we travel for any length of time (over three or four days) we use our 40L Engel exclusively as a freezer.

We also carry a six-pack cooler for butter, cheese, dips, etc. We keep the stuff in the six-pack cooler cool, but not frozen, by using a freezer block - the ones that fit neatly into the top of the six-pack cooler, and about 2cm thick.

We keep another freezer block in the Engel, and swap them over every day.

George_M

We run a 35 litre Waeco and like Bob Y we keep frozen stuff on the bottom. There is a temperature gradient from bottom to top and I would expect your Engle to be the same. The zone for 5 or 6 cm above the bottom will keep food frozen with the centre zone at 3 or 4 degrees and the top zone a bit warmer which suits stuff like butter and greens.

We do not place any insulation over the top of the frozen food as there is no cooling below (in the floor) and the cooling of this zone depends on the chilled air from above descending down to the frozen food.

It all works fine for us for a few weeks on long remote treks. Two fridges or a larger fridge would be nice but we have no space to spare.

Incidentally, the fridge evaporator (cooling plates) surround all four walls so the area nearest the compressor will be no cooler than any other wall.

We have a basket with a well fitted pad of foam insulation that sits just below it with the zip ties. The frozen goes on the bottom and is usually set at about -5or less.
The chilled go in the basket and as the styrene pad insulates the below from the top the top 1/3 of the chilling surround plates just manage to keep everything OK.
I've kept food this way for over 2 weeks.

For defrosting on the road , as well as chilling the throat oil, I have one of those 2 way Console Koolers , put the cans of the oil in and put the wanted defrosting stuff on top.

When we pull up she has well defrosted stuff and I have a can or 2 ( or more) of throat oil to assist in advising on how to cook it.

I'm usually told to "Pissorf"
so all's good .


P.s Made a mistake once and plugged it into "Heat"
Nearly burnt my hand and almost cried when the stubby had to be chucked. ( hot beer is NOT a fav of mine)


Ron

Maybe not the best answer for you but on long trips weeks or more, we have a 40 Lt as a fridge and mount a smaller 20 Lt as a freezer. That can do us for three weeks or more. for two people. But we also have three batteries under the bonnet. One for cranking and two for accessories such as fridges etc. A Redarc isolator lets us put all three together as one bank. Did three of us for the whole Canning. Nothing like an ice block at Poepells Corner in 40 degrees!!! Ahhh Roughing it.

Phil

Hi used to do all of the above now only use fridge as a fridge and vac pack all the food we previously were taking frozen except for ice cream of course this works extremely well vacuum packing equipment easily available and most butchers will vac pack for you if on extended trips I went from a 80 litre fridge / freezer to a 40 litre fridge by doing this best thing I have done
Cheers steve

We have been using our 40l Trailblaza as a fridge freezer for many years by placing a barrier board above the frozen items on the bottom.

I use tupperware type containers, which are about 60mm high and fit perfectly side by side in the available space. I can go single layer or 2 layers high and just adjust the temp slightly. When the content of the containers have been used the container is cleaned and goes back into the fridge where it came from.

Between the frozen and non frozen products above, I place a barrier board which sits on top of the containers. It is just a piece of varnished mdf with a couple of finger holes.

Lettuce/cucumber/tomato's and the like go into a plastic container and sit just under the lid of the fridge. This can be achieved by using packers under the salad container, an example is other non frozen food (cheese, ham or the like that don't mind it being a bit colder). Again they are in a plastic container.

All the containers are chosen to fit into the available area so they don't waste space.

Bottom stays rock hard, next layer just above freezing and the top layer I guess around 5C as it keeps very well.

You just have to adjust the fridge temp for the ambient temp outside, I have no problem doing this and might adjust my fridges thermostat between 3.5 and 4.5 on the dial. You would have to experiment with yours.

Hi all, thanks for the replies. Some fantastic ideas there. Might do a bit of experimenting with a basket up top and frozen down bottom and see how long things stay frozen and what temp number is best to run the fridge on. Cheers, doc.

I use a cheap white plastic chopping board trimmed to fit.

Put your frozen stuff in the bottom of the fridge, sit the chopping board on top then put your other food on top. This works really well.

Engel now have a 40 litre dual compartment fridge/freezer.