Q&A #3 - Should I have a FAN or any kind of AIRFLOW in my curing chamber?
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- Опубліковано 19 жов 2024
- In today’s Q&A I am going to look at a question that arises many many times on meat forums and platforms. That question is:
“Should I have a fan in my curing chamber - and how much airflow should I have”
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Exactly what I needed to hear with regard to my curing chamber. Thank you!
Good video Gil! Something not focussed on enough and good explanations here. Thanks for creating
I have a freezer that I am going to be using as a curing chamber. 1. There is a fan in the freezer should I just disconnect it? 2. What about trimming the fan blades to make them move less air? 3. How would I make something to disperse the air more evenly?
Sorry I am only replaying now...for some reason I did not get a notification when you send this. Best option would be to remove it completely. Any kind of prolonged air movement can create case hardening in a confined space like this. To disperse the air you would need to create a fairing that will move the air clear of the meat...but in a confined space like this, even if it is not directly onto the meat you will find there will still be air movement, which is not ideal.
Well this solves the question of if I need a fan or not thank you for that. My issue is. I need to empty my dehumidifier and fill my humidifier every 3 days. It seems like they're battling each other.
You've mentioned a few times that there are forums you visit to share information on curing meat. I don't have any social media accounts and don't use facebook. Could you point us to some private discussion forums on curing that are not social media based? I''m not aware of a good ones in the English language. The only credible online resources that I can find are in Italian or French, and in one case Spanish. Thank you.
Unfortunately, most are on Facebook or Reddit. I have found this one (not social media based) helpful in the past: en.wedlinydomowe.pl/
I have a 14 cubic meter walk-in curing room. The refrigeration unit has a fan on it to distribute the cool air. Were there no fan, the temperature would be vastly different from place to place in the chamber.... sufficient humidity of 75 - 80% prevents hard casing. ... some airflow is required at times to homogenise temperature & humididy.
You are talking about a very large space. If you are required to move the air around as you suggest, all I have stated is that you need to ensure that you do not have much airflow over the meat. Check around 4:44 where I explain what to do to check if there is too much airflow.
If you have a dehumidifier in your fridge, the dehumidifier fan will move the air in your chamber...so exactly what you said, an extra fan in your chamber is not necessary
Hi! Thanks for all your videos. My commercial fridge (cyclic) has a whole size evaporation plate in the back wall. Wouldn't it be generating ice if I disconnect the fan that blows air over it?
Thanks for your comment! I appreciate that people are watching :). Yes, the evaporator plate will freeze up, especially in a commercial fridge. It is best to use a frost free fridge...but like you, I am also stuck with an older type fridge. Try and disconnect the fan to see what happens. It may increase the humidity. But if you need to run the fan then just make sure it does not blow over the meat.
@@curesmithnet Thanks for your help, I really appreciate it. Tomorrow I'll try disconnecting the fan because it blows a lot of air. Today I tried blocking the airflow with a plastic lid, but it's so strong that still reaches the meat. Fridge is big (500 lts capacity). I'll let you how it goes. Thank you so much!
Anytime...yeah keep me posted
Personally I’ve put a small fan on the same outlet as the humidifier in my self made chamber. In fact if you put 3 probes in your fridge, one at the bottom, one in the middle and one in the top part, you will see that the humidity is far from homogeneous with your type of humidifier (vaporizing cold water makes an "heavy" cloud that will stay at the bottom of the chamber).
Doing so, my fan allows humidity to reach the top of my meats only when I’m injecting humidity.
Thanks for your info. I must say, I do not have a problem as suggested in your comment. I measure humidity at the top, middle and bottom of my chamber regularly and my readings are pretty much identical. I would understand if the curing chamber is much larger, but in a single-door refrigerator, or even a double-door refrigerator it is no problem. I honestly believe that fans inside the chamber, even if it is only slight, cause too much airflow in the chamber and becomes a major problem with case hardening. But as they say in the classics - if it ain't broke, don't fix it...and if it works for you without the case hardening, then there is no reason to change what you are doing. When I have my commercial curing room I had to add humidity too, and I did this with a commercial humidifier that worked on the principle of a water wheel with a fan inside the unit so it could not disturb the airflow on the outside. The wheel had material that when turning through water pulled little droplets into it, and a fan would blow over it, without distributing any water.
hi Gilbert , how do you do pleased for your hard work , this is a very interesting topic that less people are talking about , the temperature and humidity became easy to control through the modern controllers , i am building my first curing chamber so i bought a pc fan to replace the fridge fan , also i bought a fan controller to control it's speed , so what do yo suggest for the air speed over the meat , i was aiming to 0.5-1 m/s , is that good , also i'd like to regenerate the fridge air by adding another fan to the side and control it by a timer , do you think that it should take the bad air 4 times for each day , lastly the forum are not working , any update ???
Hi Khalid, Not sure if you watched the video...but my recommendation is that there is absolutely no fan at all. Please re-watch the video as I clearly explain why there should be no airflow over the meat whatsoever. Also, just by opening the door of the chamber once a day will remove any stale air and replace - there is no need for a fan to do this.
@@curesmithnet yes i watched it all , but there should be a fan to give the cold temperature to the air , if not the fridge evaporator will collect ice , so replacing the powerful fan with a smaller one is a good option i think,please correct me if i am wrong
@@khalidmufleh I have an older fridge with evaporator plate and have no fan. But as stated in the video, if your fridge requires the fan to operate then you need to make sure the fan is redirected in such a way that there is no airflow over the meat. Any airflow over the meat could result in case hardening. You are able to do this by creating a fairing that redirects the airflow…having the fan is certainly not ideal
The reason ancient peoples were so good a dry curing meats, was that they used good, quality fans… 😶
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