High humidity in chiller

[thefoxandthe.243]

My double door drinks chiller seems to be showing high humidity, between 85-95%.
The drains are clear, but my door seals are split.
Where the seals are split, I'm getting condensation/water droplets forming on the part that the seals close against.
Is it likely to be just the door seals?


The fridge seems to work fine other than the high humidity.
I work away from home 7 days at a time, I was hoping to get the humidity level down so I can leave a carcass hanging while I'm away working and butcher once I return.

The door seals look to be around £70-80 per door, which I dont mind paying, if its likely that it will fix the problem.

Any help or suggestions greatly appreciated

 

[VSS]

This has been discussed on here in some detail from time to time over the years.
It seems to be a recurring issue.
Ideally you want humidity at about 75%
Mine is often in the high 90s, a lot of which is due to the ambient humidity of this area (maritime climate), but a few tweaks to the chiller have brought the average down to a slightly more respectable level (but still higher than ideal).
Do a search on here and you'll find some answers.
@75 is the man for this discussion I think.

 

[paulst]

Yes it will be door seals, you are getting warm saturated air from outside into the chiller and the moisture which cannot be held in the cool air is condensing on the cold surface.

 

[thefoxandthe.243]

This has been discussed on here in some detail from time to time over the years.
It seems to be a recurring issue.
Ideally you want humidity at about 75%
Mine is often in the high 90s, a lot of which is due to the ambient humidity of this area (maritime climate), but a few tweaks to the chiller have brought the average down to a slightly more respectable level (but still higher than ideal).
Do a search on here and you'll find some answers.
@75 is the man for this discussion I think.

I just remember seeing SIKADOG (God rest his soul) comment on a thread with humidity similar to mine, and he said it should be between 25 and 35 % I'm sure

 

[VSS]

I just remember seeing SIKADOG (God rest his soul) comment on a thread with humidity similar to mine, and he said it should be between 25 and 35 % I'm sure

Yes, I remember that too. He was incorrect.
For hanging carcasses it should be around 75%

 

[thefoxandthe.243]

Yes, I remember that too. He was incorrect.
For hanging carcasses it should be around 75%

So if I can get it to around 75% that should be good? Would I be able to hang a carcass for 7-8 days? As long as the temperature is low enough?

 

[VSS]

So if I can get it to around 75% that should be good? Would I be able to hang a carcass for 7-8 days? As long as the temperature is low enough?

I hang mine for a week, no problem.
Humidity fluctuates, but usually averages around 80%. If the weather conditions are good it'll average in the mid 70s. High points are often well up in the 90s.
Temperature is between 1.5 and 3.5°C

This is about the best I can get, in dry weather. Very happy with that:

 

[thefoxandthe.243]

Thanks mate.
I'll order new door seals, and hopefully that should bring it down to that sort of figure

 

[75]

My double door drinks chiller seems to be showing high humidity, between 85-95%.
The drains are clear, but my door seals are split.
Where the seals are split, I'm getting condensation/water droplets forming on the part that the seals close against.
Is it likely to be just the door seals?


The fridge seems to work fine other than the high humidity.
I work away from home 7 days at a time, I was hoping to get the humidity level down so I can leave a carcass hanging while I'm away working and butcher once I return.

The door seals look to be around £70-80 per door, which I dont mind paying, if its likely that it will fix the problem.

Any help or suggestions greatly appreciated

Has your humidity historically been lower and suddenly jumped up or have you just started monitoring it?

As per @paulst comment above, likely the door seals are allowing warmer, moister air in from outside BUT if might just be your chiller will always run at this humidity (pending the question above!). You could always tape / silicon the splits and see if that helps before forking out for new seals. I think any ingress of moisture (and there will be some) will be minor compared to the moisture coming out of the carcass. Outside temp will also have an impact. I'm done more research on monobloc units but the more chilling cycles, the more moisture will be stripped. If ambient is 2C then the chiller won't kick in so it'll not strip moisture...

I never believed that figure of 25-35% and I think there is little understanding of humidity in chillers. Certainly little hard evidence - lots of "it shouldn't do that" type of comments but not backed up by any evidence. I've done a fair bit of research myself into it (caveat! I am am not a refrigeration engineer!) and my view is that getting it below 75% is hard without adding a dehumidifier. You have a large lump of meat in there which contains a lot of moisture. Moisture moves across a humidity gradient so if the air in the chiller contains less moisture than the meat (which is will be during the chilling cycles) then moisture will keep being drawn out of the carcass and into the air in the chiller. So you will never get that low (nor do you want to!). Dry agers run at around 80% and humidity in your house is 50-60% so 25% is going to dry stuff out terribly.

 

[thefoxandthe.243]

Has your humidity historically been lower and suddenly jumped up or have you just started monitoring it?

As per @paulst comment above, likely the door seals are allowing warmer, moister air in from outside BUT if might just be your chiller will always run at this humidity (pending the question above!). You could always tape / silicon the splits and see if that helps before forking out for new seals. I think any ingress of moisture (and there will be some) will be minor compared to the moisture coming out of the carcass. Outside temp will also have an impact. I'm done more research on monobloc units but the more chilling cycles, the more moisture will be stripped. If ambient is 2C then the chiller won't kick in so it'll not strip moisture...

I never believed that figure of 25-35% and I think there is little understanding of humidity in chillers. Certainly little hard evidence - lots of "it shouldn't do that" type of comments but not backed up by any evidence. I've done a fair bit of research myself into it (caveat! I am am not a refrigeration engineer!) and my view is that getting it below 75% is hard without adding a dehumidifier. You have a large lump of meat in there which contains a lot of moisture. Moisture moves across a humidity gradient so if the air in the chiller contains less moisture than the meat (which is will be during the chilling cycles) then moisture will keep being drawn out of the carcass and into the air in the chiller. So you will never get that low (nor do you want to!). Dry agers run at around 80% and humidity in your house is 50-60% so 25% is going to dry stuff out terribly.

I'm only just getting set up at the minute mate, its a chiller/fridge that I bought at auction. So I'm only able to see what its doing now, I put a govee wifi thermometer in it to monitor temperature as I work away from home.
In the past, Ive just butchered carcasses straight away, but they are sticky and not easy to work with.

Thanks

 

[VSS]

.
In the past, Ive just butchered carcasses straight away, but they are sticky and not easy to work with.

They meat will be slimy and floppy to handle if your humidity is too high.
If the humidity is too low, it will be a total pita trying to remove membranes while butchering.
It certainly pays to get it right.

 

[75]

I'm only just getting set up at the minute mate, its a chiller/fridge that I bought at auction. So I'm only able to see what its doing now, I put a govee wifi thermometer in it to monitor temperature as I work away from home.
In the past, Ive just butchered carcasses straight away, but they are sticky and not easy to work with.

Thanks

You may find that's "just how it is". Worth running it empty and taping around the door seals to figure out your baseline before forking out for new door seals. So many variable including ambient temps / humidity, number of carcasses in there, condition of carcass (i.e warm or wet when put in there).

I'm not familiar with how drinks chillers work but basically moisture will condense somewhere during the chilling cycles (possible a plate across the back??) and you need to find a way to allow that moisture out off the chiller before it evaporates back into the air around the carcass. You may find if you have a fan in there that the moisture is just evaporating back into the chiller before it gets time to drip off and out the drain. Remember these things are built to keep cans and bottles cold with little thought for humidity control so don't spend too long chasing something that isn't achievable. I speak from experience of going down the humidity rabbit-hole!!

My thoughts with regards to sticky and not easy to work with... A carcass will take 2-3 days to "set" (regardless of humidity) so even chilling them for a few days will make it easier to butcher. I think it was meateater podcast where they went into the science of hanging venison and the idea was to get past rigor mortis (when everything is tough and tight - starts a few hours after death and can last 12-48hrs), and then to allow the proteins to breakdown in the muscles and meat to tenderise. 5-7 days was the optimum with limited advantage after that point. Venison doesn't age in the same way beef does (we don't generally have "aged" lamb or pork either).

However, as VSS says, pulling a bit more moisture out of the meat helps and makes things easier to cut and nicer presentation. That said, remember that the carcass is surrounded in skin / membranes that are waterproof and designed to keep fluids in the right places (and rain out) so, for example, the migration of moisture out of deep muscle on a large beast will be slow and exposed surfaces will dry out much faster. On a small scale set up like lots of us have, you'll probably see more impact from the carcass setting at 48-72hrs than the incremental gains from dehydration after that (over, say, days 3-7). IMHO of course!

 

[wytonpjs]

To add to @75 's post, I've attached some pictures taken of the cooling arrangement from an old Pepsi Chiller I used a while ago taken when I first acquired it - it must have been used down a coal mine! Because I wanted to run the chiller at 2 degrees the condenser was either freezing up or producing so much water that it would run down into the body of the chiller and drip. It was a challenge to get the temps right.

I've also attached pictures of an "old" DEFRA chiller I've been playing with for a while. In use, water would pool at the bottom of the chiller giving far too much humidity. Taking the back skin off to reveal the condenser, there's over a metre from the bottom of the unit to the collecting tray at the base which then flows into a standard evaporative tray through which the high temp return passes. The last picture shows my recent mods to channel the drips into a closer gutter and then direct to the bottom gutter drain. In test runs last week no more puddling of water in the bottom of the chiller.

 

[highland stalker]

I hang mine for a week, no problem.
Humidity fluctuates, but usually averages around 80%. If the weather conditions are good it'll average in the mid 70s. High points are often well up in the 90s.
Temperature is between 1.5 and 3.5°C

This is about the best I can get, in dry weather. Very happy with that:
View attachment 430398

What are you using to track the data?

 

[VSS]

What are you using to track the data?

Govee