OT: Best Freezer Temperature.

So, YES and NO allowed you to confirm/reject what *it* thought you should encounter in the matrix?

Understood. I had to design a product that performed similar functions for tracking blood assays "in test".

Ah, clever! So, you know what's likely to BECOME "spoiled", as well! Presumably, you can then take some steps to avoid that eventuality?

The rules for commercial establishments are actually much more complex. I've just been citing consumer recommendations.

When I'm done cooking the sauce (12-16 hours), I open the sauce pot and use a laddle to drag the *hotter* sauce up from the bottom (where it has been in contact with the burner). After a few minutes, the sauce is no longer boiling (gentle/slow boil) and I can laddle it into 3C containers.

These get placed into broiler pans (I guess that's what they are called... about 12"Wx18"Lx3"D. *Then* surround them with water and ice cubes. (I learned early on that you don't put the water in the pan BEFORE the containers! It's hard to keep ice cubes from floating under the containers as you are inserting them. And, REALLY HARD not to end up with too much wwater in the pan and find yourself dealing with an overflow...)

I place the covers loosely on each container -- enough to allow most of the heat out yet still presenting a surface on which condensation can form (which I can then "shake off" to further thicken the sauce). The ice cubes tend to need to be replaced pretty quickly (siphon off the water and add more ice). But, usually in half an hour or so, things are cooled -- room temperature -- enough to move into the refrigerator where they can cool the remaining ~40 degrees.

You just have to make sure there's nothing else in that area or immediately above.

Then, clean off the undersides of the covers (again), seal them and move them into the freezer chest.

Lasagna is a lot harder -- a fair amount of mass but the "periphery" is pretty far from much of the internal mass. And, you're starting at a lot higher temperature (350 instead of ~212). At least the sauce could be cooled in small containers so more surface is exposed to the cool water/ice!

Cheesecake is hardest -- same form factor as the lasagna and rapid cooling causes it to "collapse". So, a very elaborate "schedule" to get it down to a suitable temperature for the refrigerator before things can stat growing in that rich "medium".

[watch the wraps]

Phil might be interested in this:

It claims lettuce (and many other veggies) should be stored at 32F.

This tries to address some of the causes/consequences of improper food storage:

This (these) indicates discarding "any perishable food (such as meat, poultry,

(Yet, they each claim it's OK to keep your refrigerator set *at* 40F?? See the problem here? The food will last days/weeks at 40 -- but only HOURS "above 40"?? WTF?? How many refrigerators have temperature loggers inside?)

This gives a general summary of the issues related to refrigeration:

We had a neighbor (young kid) who lost the ability to walk as a result of food poisoning (some "prepared food" from local supermarket). Suddenly, all the previous admonitions (old wives tales) about food handling became very real in a very sad way. We've since become almost compulsive about how we deal with foodstuffs, here. Food is (relatively) inexpensive in that context!

(Interestingly, I've been told trichinosis is no longer as dreaded a problem as I was led to believe growing up -- though chicken/salmonella is worse?)

Well, it's the right temperature for iceberg anyway. :)

--
umop apisdn

We don't buy "head lettuce" but, rather, "salad mixes" (iceberg, romaine, spinach). Aside from that, we store onion, avocado, carrots, jicama, peppers, cukes, scallions and various other "fruit" in the frig.

The only thing that really doesn't seem to like the temperature is bananas (but I like bananas cold so I've just learned to eat them quickly!). I don't know if it causes them to *ripen* too fast or if the cold is actually *damaging* them...

Depends how long you want things to keep for.

-19C is a fair compromise ~ 0F

--
Regards, 
Martin Brown

i mean, being nade of ice. :)

It damages them. fresh fruit is alive. Bananas are tropical fruit.

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umop apisdn

No, but "spoiled" depends on what you decide you want to look for - some markers will survive longer than others - but it helps keep you from relying on something you shouldn't.

Clifford Heath.

Yes, my point was the results are indistinguishable -- leave them "out (of the refrigerator)" and they look the same (after a while) as putting them *in* the refrigerator. Same sorts of brown spots on the flesh (bruises).

You can read this information (for all vials) any time you have access to the matrix, right? (or, does that require you to expose everything to "ambient") So, why not arrange to move the precious samples to a less "busy" location -- where they won't be pulled out as often?

Or, do the folks doing this work have no sense of "value" for one sample over another?

Don't know, I go by how soft is the ice cream. At 0, seems pretty squishy AND things don't seem to last over a year in there. At the lowest setting I could get on our fridge's freezer, -6, the ice cream is fairly hard, but still can serve it. AND steaks have lasted over 2 years and were as good as the day purchased. Fish sticks [double wrapped of course] have lasted three years. No freezer burn and tasted like they did when on sale from Van de Kamp's. [Let me rephrase that, no 'deterioration' in taste. That's why it took 3 years to build up the courage to try again.]

Den mandag den 24. november 2014 01.25.36 UTC+1 skrev DecadentLinuxUserNume roUno:

umeroUno:

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sure, because the labels on stuff you buy in a supermarket is not meant for the consumers to read, it is so the staff knows how to display it..

-Lasse

A 'trick' we use...buy the bananas like you like them, or almost ripe enough. Eat down, enjoying their 'perfection'. Now you have ?? left and by tomorrow they will be yucky. Instead take the left over ones that are great, but you're too full to eat and stick them in the vegetable storage area of your fridge. They'll turn the ugliest looking, but the 'meat' pretty much stops at where they were when you put them in there, at least you can gain 3-4 days doing that.

Have you ever tasted tree ripened bananas? I swear they're a different fruit. Incredibly delicious. As a comparison, pineapples you get at the store vs pineapples while in Hawaii. They're incredibly delicious. Now take that difference times ten and you have some idea of what a tree ripened banana tastes like compared to the 'green' things we get.

We set our fridge BELOW recommended settings based upon experience at storing stuff. Freezer is at max capability, -6, and the fridge is at 38. BUT the fridge has two drawers called 'vegetable' section that is slightly isolated thereby a little above freezing. and a 'deli tray' which if not careful is so cold eggs will freeze in it if pushed to the back of the tray and lettuce or celery stalks, get, well, ruined after being covered in ice crystals. The upside of this deli tray is that deli meats keep waaay past their dates AND cheese sealed has kept over six months, but not difficult to prepare like if they were frozen.

PS: you can REALLY extend the refrigeration expiration dates of fresh vegetables and fruits by BLEACHING them before you store them.

Rinse grapes, they'll last over two weeks. Strawberries, which usually turn into gray sweaters the next day, last over two weeks, etc. Plus, bleach does the ONE thing no other rinse can do, it chemically 'kills' most residues on the product. Rinse an apple, store in a ziploc, you'll see the differeence. Why store in a ziploc? Because the bleach usually strips the wax spray they put on the apple and if YOU don't seal it, they dry out, ...just like in the 'old' days. I also found that the grapes no longer taste like kerosene had been poured on them, but now actually taste like grapes. A tip: buy ripe grapes with a 'green' stalk, not a dry twig. Rinse in bleach, put out on the counter protected and all the sugars from the stem go into the grapes, making them about twice as seet as when you firt bough them. If you eat them, they just gett better and better. If you don't eat them because you accidentally picked a batch that will NEVER sweeten, let them keep going and you end up with the BEST raisins for cooking you'll ever find.

yep, the manual enclosed with our new fridge [circa 2012] recommends setting the temp to 0 and 40, the distribution inside is fairly decent compared to older models.

Don't know about your reference of "standard food service" sounds like an impressive reference though.

Again, the manual enclosed with our 'new' fridge [circa 2012] listed 0 and

40 as recommended. However, we set lower to -6 and 38, because -6 is the furthest down the freezer section will go! And below 38 just starts to freeze a few things too much.

On Mon, 24 Nov 2014 07:57:18 -0700, RobertMacy Gave us:

AGAIN? Again, I'd trust the FOOD SERVICE INDUSTRY, NOT some lame Mfgr who wants you to buy their crap and has someone who doesn't even know our language doing the manuals.

Deep freeze temps have been around and established for quite a few

level (recommendation)

I leave them "out" until the peels get "freckled" -- this is usually a reliable indication that the flesh is "about as ripe as it's gonna get" (beyond which point, all the mechanical bruises that the fruit has experienced start to really be evident as "brown spots" on the flesh -- which never taste good) This, IMO, is the ideal time to eat them -- they taste the most "banana-y".

I stick them in the refrigerator at this point and start eating them. But,

*one* banana a day seems to be my limit.

The peels turn a uniform brown when refrigerated. Very quickly!

And, the brown bruises on the flesh seem like they materialize very quickly once refrigerated (no doubt because I've kept the fruit out as long as possible and brought them to the edge of full ripeness).

Even just buying 3 or 4 bananas in a "bunch", I've now got to rush to eat the 2 or 3 remaining before the interiors turn to crud.

Yes! One of the stores in town switched brands (it seems like EVERYONE carries Dole or Chiquita). The "new" brand was *so* good that I actually sought out the produce manager to tell him, "These taste like BANANAS!" (the Dole/Chiquita products are bland and tasteless by comparison).

Unfortunately, the difference was attributed to "late harvesting"... the fruit had been allowed to ripen on the tree (banana trees are interesting looking -- and the leaves are INCREDIBLE). As a result, there was a lot of spoilage *in* the supermarket (no shelf life, left).

So, it was only a matter of a couple of weeks before they could see those losses and move back to the crappy Dole/Chiquita stuff.

I read (somewhere) that much of the genetic diversity has gone out of the banana -- i.e., they (what we consider a "banana") are effectively "all the same plant".

The same is true of most produce.

We have a few orange trees and a lemon and a lime (there is a much lower limit on how many limes/lemons you can realistically consume! At ~400/tree, that limit is something less than one tree!! :< ). Lemons and limes use that extreme tartness when ripened on the tree (let a lime start to turn YELLOW and it will be sugar sweet).

[Our first experiment with Modified Meyer lemons, this year. The fruit is almost *round* -- instead of the football shape characteristic of other lemons. And, VERY large... more than 4oz of juice in each!]

Starting in a week or so, SWMBO will pick an orange daily until March or so (only the Navels). Then, we'll fill one of the vegetable bins and juice the balance before the next season's blossoms appear.

[Sugar content is proportional to how long they stay on the tree in WARM weather. The last fruit that we'll pick will be *sticky*/tacky on the outside.]

One year we lost all of the fruit due to a late freeze. That year, she BOUGHT oranges. Her first words were: "Oh, these are SO disappointing!"

And, the blood oranges (Sanguinelli, in our case) are actually shocking to see -- red rind and red flesh! (The juice looks like Hawaiian Punch) Not "pink" like "pink grapefruit" or Cara Cara Navels. Doesn't have that "orange-" taste.

Fresh apples (esp Macoun's) right off the tree are like sugar and water. Ditto for strawberries off the vine. And, the flesh has a different texture. "Mature"/complex instead of "homogenous".

Most people never have access (or bother "harvesting") fresh fruit and, instead, get the artificially ripened crud from grocers. (visit an orchard and see how they "ripen" the early harvest :-/ )

Don't forget to juice the oranges INSIDE the kitchen! The rind spews a spritz that is an incredibly effective insecticide, even kills spiders. with a residue of about a year. Do the juicing in the kitchen and you'll NEVER see ants around the kitchen.

Of course you've seen how much flame that spritz can cause if spewed over an open flame.

Ditto. Raid has a new product just for scorpions. IT WORKS!! I bought a 'blue light', pair of Seizers [look just like medical hemostats], and a can of Raid Scorpion Killer. Light spray and they're dead in around 10 seconds to a minute, but are DEAD. I spray, grab with the seizers, carry off to a trash bucket, and spray one one more time. Spider in the ceiling/wall joint? light mist and 'clunk' falls dead off its perch.

open flame is a euphemism for a burning match? Maximum I've ever gotten was spray of flames around 18 inches.