www.sausagemaking.org

Hi all... my first post...

Looking for recommendations for an effective compact/mini dehumidifier for my curing chamber (old fridge, not frost-free) (currently curing pancetta and guanciale, soon to move on to fermented sausages).

I've been researching this but many of the links to sellers I find are out of date, or not in the UK.

Also, most of the 'bad' reviews I read on Amazon might not be relevant to the curing chamber application, so it would be useful to hear from others with curing chamber experience.

Best wishes
Steven

(Devon, UK)

Welcome Steve.

Dehumidifiers tend to be too large to use in old fridges. I tried one and it was less than successful - it made things worse, not better. Also, the small ones tend to be 'Peltier type' which are said not to be effective below 15°C.

Many people solve this problem by using a small tubular heater to cause the fridge to 'cycle on' which generally reduces the humidity.

Hope this helps.

Phil

Thanks Phil,

This is really useful information!

Thinking about what you said, I realise that - since I don't yet have a heater wired up to the heating output of my STC-1000 temp. controller - the fridge temperature is down to 7/8/9oC in recent weeks. Therefore, the RH is up (owing to the cooler temperatures) AND the fridge is never cycling on (set for cooling at >12oC).

Also done some reading about dehumidifier technology now, and see that refrigerant type de-hum's also typically struggle at <18oC.

The next question, then, is much the same as the first one but replace 'dehumidifier' with 'small tubular heater'.

Thanks
Steven

I got mine from a supplier on Amazon - search amazon for Tubular Heater 1ft and there's loads around the £12 - £14 mark.

Hope this helps.

Phil

Thanks Phil... found and bought one.

Steven

A "food-safe" (see note below) silica gel (desiccant) pillow placed over a small PC fan that's connected to a humidity controller.
Very simple and inexpensive.
I use this set-up in three cured-meat curing chambers/cheese caves.
The smallest being ~2.5 cubic feet, and the largest ~7.5 cubic feet.

More info here.....
http://www.perfect-cheese.com/high-humidity

I can provide pics of the components of my set-up if this is something you're interested in. Again...it's very simple.

Important note: Note all common silica gel is appropriate for this application. Some silica gel contains added cobalt chloride (color indicator) which is classified as a category 2 carcinogen.

Phil's suggestion of the heater tube has worked very well.

The RH now sits between 62% and 72% - typically it's around 65%. This is with a small number of fairly dry products in the fridge.

Martin... thanks for the tip on the gel-fan set-up. Pic's of yours would be good.

Fig 2d on the perfect cheese link says that the monitoring was done for 3 days... but the figure only covers about 12 hours. Am I missing something?

How often do you need to dry your silica bag pillow and how long does it take to dry?