Built a dry-curing chamber....

[Habanero Smoker]

I built a dry cure cabinet, and originally was going to use an upright freezer, but went with a freezerless refrigerator. If your concern is whether one is better at controlling the cabinet temperature than the other, it doesn't matter if it is a refrigerator or freezer. Once you use a temperature control device to regulate the temperature, it will control the temperature at what you set if for; that is excluding any ambient temperature problems.

[SamuelG]

Expat,
I found some cheap / used / small (door-style) freezers on Craigslist.  Any reason you can think of why a freezer wouldn't work for this type of setup?

I also did a little research after reading your posts and found that it may be difficult to reproduce prosciutto in a setup like this (from the sausage maker's version of this dry cure chamber).  I know you're just getting started with this chamber so you may not know yet but do you think it's worth a try? I just want to know ahead of time what I can / can't do with a setup like this.

Thanks

Take my comments with a grain of salt since my experience is very limited.  :-)

I started with a freezer but had extremely high hummidity.  The shelfs themselves were part of the cooling unit. 

In the photo you can see the high RH.  Thats even after I placed a whole pound of salt . 

This is what I'm using and it has been working great.



Wine cooler with salt tray.  RH 70-75 with a temp of 60F.

Hope this helped.

SamuelG

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[mjdeez]

Thanks guys. I'm kind of on the fence as to whether I want to build a curing chamber now (and risk another half finished project lying around) or wait a while.  I should probably do some more research on the subject, but for $20 for a freezer 5 minutes away I probably shouldn't pass it up.  The thing is it's a bit short at 55" tall (2' wide, 2' deep).  Not sure if this will be tall enough to have a humidifier + hang meat.

How do you store your fermented sausages after the period in the curing chamber? Do you keep a separate storing chamber or just keep them in the cellar?

[Habanero Smoker]

I wrap my in plastic and store them in the refrigerator, because my house is way too warm in the summer, and the humidity is way too low in the winter.

The ideal conditions are an ambient temperature between 50°F - 60°F, and a relative humidity of around 75%. An unheated cellar will give you the ideal temperature, you may have to regulate the humidity.

[goldo]

Hello.
Thank you for sharing your work.

There is something i don't understand : why do you use an electronic humidity controler for the humidifier and a mechanical one for the dehumidifying fan... ?

I don't understand why you did not use in both case an electronic model.

And an other question : If outside had more humidity than inside of the fridge, could the extraction fan succeed to lower the humidity ? will it succeed to extract humidity toward outside despite the fact that there is more humidity outside ?