Temps for frozen food
Submitted: Tuesday, Mar 29, 2005 at 10:08
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Austravel
Hi,
I've got a 60 litre engel fridge freezer combi. Does anyone know what temp you should maintain the freezer at for safe storage?? Never really thought about it at
home, just toss the meat in the freezer and let it do it's thing. I'm wondering if the meat etc is only for consumption in that fortnight could you have it just below freezing therefore lowering the current draw?
Thanks
Reply By: Austravel - Wednesday, Mar 30, 2005 at 08:46
Wednesday, Mar 30, 2005 at 08:46
Thanks for the info. A mates father tells us stories about how meat was kept when he was a
cook for shearer's, not sure it would go down to
well these days.
Looks like if I want long term storage under -15 degrees, if I want to keep it for a week or two then under -5 degrees should be fine. I guess if it's pork, chicken or seafood etc then it would need to be closer to the -15 degrees. Is this the generall concensus??
AnswerID:
104284
Follow Up By: Drew - Karratha - Wednesday, Mar 30, 2005 at 10:42
Wednesday, Mar 30, 2005 at 10:42
I have just bought a 60l Combi Box, and was wondering exactly the same thing!! I have found that to get the freezer to -15, the Engel is constantly running, and will flatten a battery overnight. Over the
Easter weekend I had it set to just under '3' on the dial which gave -5 - -8 in the freezer section. All of the frozen chicken, sausages, chops etc that we didnt eat over
easter (girlfriend did the shopping) were
rock hard at this temp, and I would imagine they would last a lot longer than any camping trip usually goes for. Even at this setting I still worry about the current draw from the battery, and need to run a generator daly to re-charge the battery. I havent had it long enough to work out exactly how long I need to charge the battery - but would be interested to hear how you go with yours.
Drew
FollowupID:
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Follow Up By: Austravel - Wednesday, Mar 30, 2005 at 11:26
Wednesday, Mar 30, 2005 at 11:26
Same unit as ours. We used it over
Easter as
well ran it between 2 and 3 which was around -4 to -6 with outside temps ranging up to 34 degrees. We have one battery in the camper (on back of ute) and one aux battery under bonnet connected together. Both charged before we left and fridge run all night before. Set up by 1pm on the Friday and used two 75 watt panels until Monday morning. Saturday had no cloud cover, next day about 1/3 cloud cover. Ran lights and shower pump as
well and batteries were still
well over 12 volts before the run
home. I know you need to let the batteries settle etc but based on this weekend I think we could sit for a week (at least) if we had clear skies and moved the panels a few times a day. Next trip will try running the fridge at max and see how
well the panels can keep the batteries charged.
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