Hi,
please could you give me some advice? I'm beginner in curing, I'm on my second fridge and I still have the same problem: humidity is most of the time >90%. Most of the discussion I found are about opposite problem – about how to humidify fridge from being too dry.
My setup is:
* 180cm tall big fridge (first one had cooling element inside the chamber and I thoughts that's what is causing too much humidity as it got periodically frosty and then defrosted; my second fridge has the cooling element in the fridge wall)
* DHC-100+ humidistat (which looks identical to Willhi WH8040)
* ATC-800+ thermostat which controls the fridge (and could control heating but not needed at this time of the year)
* humidifier, heater, and also dehumidifier
* computer fan I can regulate
What I'm trying to dry cure:
* 2kg batch of pork sausages; hog casings
What I tried with what results:
My first fridge:
#1) I run dehumidifier in the fridge to keep humidity low (85 to 75%). The dehumidifer got triggered quite regularly – once/twice an hour. I tried this several times but drying time gets very rapid (40% weight loss in less than 10days) and sometimes casing harden up. My conclusion is that dehumidifier is too aggressive and this is a bad idea.
My second fridge:
#2) no dehumidifier; accept higher humidity; sausages gets quite “sticky” on the surface after a day and washing it off does not help as next day they are sticky again. My conclusion: this is bad too; stickiness is usually followed by mold; I thought that maybe my humidistat readings are wrong but if they really were then I would face casing hardening instead of stickiness
#3) dehumidify the fridge down to for example 50% RH each 6 hours. After dehumidification stops I can see humidity climb up pretty steeply – five to ten minutes and it will be back on close to 90%. That does not make any sense to me - where is the humidity coming from? the fridge is quite big and amount of sausages is quite small.
Please, any ideas??? I'm in need of some. Am I doing some beginners mistake?
Thanks,
-David
please could you give me some advice? I'm beginner in curing, I'm on my second fridge and I still have the same problem: humidity is most of the time >90%. Most of the discussion I found are about opposite problem – about how to humidify fridge from being too dry.
My setup is:
* 180cm tall big fridge (first one had cooling element inside the chamber and I thoughts that's what is causing too much humidity as it got periodically frosty and then defrosted; my second fridge has the cooling element in the fridge wall)
* DHC-100+ humidistat (which looks identical to Willhi WH8040)
* ATC-800+ thermostat which controls the fridge (and could control heating but not needed at this time of the year)
* humidifier, heater, and also dehumidifier
* computer fan I can regulate
What I'm trying to dry cure:
* 2kg batch of pork sausages; hog casings
What I tried with what results:
My first fridge:
#1) I run dehumidifier in the fridge to keep humidity low (85 to 75%). The dehumidifer got triggered quite regularly – once/twice an hour. I tried this several times but drying time gets very rapid (40% weight loss in less than 10days) and sometimes casing harden up. My conclusion is that dehumidifier is too aggressive and this is a bad idea.
My second fridge:
#2) no dehumidifier; accept higher humidity; sausages gets quite “sticky” on the surface after a day and washing it off does not help as next day they are sticky again. My conclusion: this is bad too; stickiness is usually followed by mold; I thought that maybe my humidistat readings are wrong but if they really were then I would face casing hardening instead of stickiness
#3) dehumidify the fridge down to for example 50% RH each 6 hours. After dehumidification stops I can see humidity climb up pretty steeply – five to ten minutes and it will be back on close to 90%. That does not make any sense to me - where is the humidity coming from? the fridge is quite big and amount of sausages is quite small.
Please, any ideas??? I'm in need of some. Am I doing some beginners mistake?
Thanks,
-David