1 frost free fridge....Check
1 humidifier W/fan.......Check
1 humidifier control...Soon
1 hygrometer...check
Loads of electric boxes, plugs and wire.....check
1 temp controller.....check
(http://i868.photobucket.com/albums/ab242/nepas1/jc.jpg)
Prob get this made after we get back from NOLA
Very cool Rick.
When you going to NOLA Rick? ;)
Quote from: KyNola on March 22, 2011, 06:54:16 AM
When you going to NOLA Rick? ;)
;D
Heading out on 4/21. Going to do a 2 day stay in Fayetteville NC to visit sons and get CT and other goodies then heading south.
Can't wait to see what you come up with!
Along this same line, I am trying to assemble the parts for a dry cure cabinet. I am excited to get into this phase of charcuterie.
My question is accuracy of the equipment. I am nervous about controlling temperature and humidity as all that I have read says temp/RH make or break the dry-cure process.
So to that end, I currently have an Accurite wireless temp/RH, a LaCrosse temp/RH, and an analog 'refrigerator' thermometer & an analog RH meter (calibrated to a lab standard; reads low by 3.5% at 70°F). I am using this in a frost-free Kenmore refrigerator just to get a "feel" for temp and humidity control.
I am plotting the readings up to three times daily. I then compare the Accurite to the LaCrosse (A/L) and the Accurite to the analog equipment (A/A).
What I am finding is that I get pretty good agreement between instruments with the temperatures. The highest difference (A/L) in reading is +8.1%; averages around -0.2%. The highest difference (A/A) in reading is -8.8%; averages around -5.5%
Humidity readings seem to much less consistent however. The highest difference (A/L) reading is -22.7%; average is -0.5%. he highest difference (A/A) reading is -33.3%; average is +7.5%.
So now I come to the questions. I will be using a Green Air Products THC-1 to control humidity in the chamber. It has a dial that allows you to set either humidify (floor) or dehumidify (ceiling) levels. It's stated accuracy is 7%.
Question 1) How tightly does temperature and humidity need to be controlled? If it says hold at 50°F & 60%RH, what swings are acceptable?
Question 2) Which is more critical higher or lower temps? Higher or lower RH?
Question 3) Do I need to use any of these other devices to 'read' the humidity or is the THC-1 sufficient? I would like to use the Accurite wireless as a way of monitoring the inside of the cabinet without opening it.
Quote from: porterdriver on April 06, 2011, 06:55:18 AM
My question is accuracy of the equipment. I am nervous about controlling temperature and humidity as all that I have read says temp/RH make or break the dry-cure process.
As someone who has gone down this road... it is easy at the beginning to overly obsess about the accuracy of the equipment and start thinking like you need gear that comes with calibration certificates or it's no good.... but in all reality you just need to remember that in the areas of the world where charcuterie is still produced in traditional ways... the drying happens in the open air and is therefore subject to normal variations! They control the temperature and humidity by knowing what time of year the right conditions occur and make their products then. When trying to recreate the conditions artificially yourself, yes... for sure you need to watch your temperature and humidity and try to match as closely as possible with the equipment you have, but don't worry too much about swings... without spending 1000's of $$$ you won't be able to control them too tightly and in reality as long as you're close you'll still produce a very high quality end result. In my experience, the temperature is fairly straightforward to control.... but RH is still my nemesis.... I can only reliably get about +/-5% at around 65
oC... that's a 10% range.... but it works fine for me...
Oh sure, just like you to come by and ruin a perfectly good OCD rant with logic and calm!!!!!!
XPat, thanks though for the reassurance. This whole process is so new to me, I'm still second-guessing myself at every turn.
Here is what i have. Going to get started in May building it up.
Fridge in the garage.
Cool mist ultrasonic humidifier.
(http://i868.photobucket.com/albums/ab242/nepas1/new/DSC00479.jpg)
Wired temp/humi with probe.
(http://i868.photobucket.com/albums/ab242/nepas1/new/DSC00480.jpg)
Humidity controller (white) and Johnson control temp controller.
(http://i868.photobucket.com/albums/ab242/nepas1/new/DSC00481.jpg)
All my other items not shown.
Reptile heater for the fermenting. Avail at just about any larger pets mart places.
new 12/2 cords
weaterproof boxes and plugs.
and stocked up on Peeps. :D
Quote from: OU812 on April 06, 2011, 03:19:27 PM
and stocked up on Peeps. :D
Oh crap
My secret is out.
What type of reptile heater are you using for this? The electric stick-on heating pad or the ceramic heat bulb?
Quote from: DisplacedCoonass on April 06, 2011, 03:55:16 PM
What type of reptile heater are you using for this? The electric stick-on heating pad or the ceramic heat bulb?
The enclosed ceramic heat lamp. You will need a ceramic light socket for this.
I purchased the TW-USB-2-LCD from thermoworks, it is a temp/hum logger. Set it up and place it in your cabinet and it will log the readings every 1,5,30 min whichever you select and then you download the data and it grahps it for you. It works every well and you get a great picture of what is happening with the temps and humidity.
Heres a link http://www.thermoworks.com/products/logger/usb_loggers.html (http://www.thermoworks.com/products/logger/usb_loggers.html)
Heres a graph of my temps and humidity from my data logger
(http://www.interiorhobbies.com/mmIH/Images/smoker/temphum.jpg)
Quote from: mikeradio on April 07, 2011, 08:38:24 AM
Heres a graph of my temps and humidity from my data logger
(http://www.interiorhobbies.com/mmIH/Images/smoker/temphum.jpg)
Are you controlling the humidity via a humidifier and / or extraction fan with humidity controller? Or just letting the humidity lie where it may as the temperature swings up and down?
I got my frost free freezer a couple of weeks ago, and a guy at work gave me a couple of really heavy duty relays that he didn't need anymore. I'm pretty excited to get started on this project.
Sorry I missed your question.
I am using this humidity controller http://www.sausagemaker.com/19013humiditycontroller.aspx (http://www.sausagemaker.com/19013humiditycontroller.aspx)
It has one plug for humidity which I have a ultrasonic cool mist humidifier and one plug for dehumidify
which I have a small dehumidifier plugged into. One thing I don't like is there is no differential, either the humidifier
is on or the dehumidifier is on, there is no time when both are off.
Everytime the compressor runs the humidity drops, then climbs back up after it turns off.
I have been using about 1 gal of water in 2 weeks in the humdifier and only dumping about
a quart out of the dehumidifier.
I am looking for a better controller if anyone has any suggestions.
(http://www.interiorhobbies.com/mmIH/Images/smoker/img_0204.jpg)
(http://www.interiorhobbies.com/mmIH/Images/smoker/img_0205.jpg)
Quote from: mikeradio on April 12, 2011, 12:35:03 PM
Sorry I missed your question.
I am using this humidity controller http://www.sausagemaker.com/19013humiditycontroller.aspx (http://www.sausagemaker.com/19013humiditycontroller.aspx)
It has one plug for humidity which I have a ultrasonic cool mist humidifier and one plug for dehumidify
which I have a small dehumidifier plugged into. One thing I don't like is there is no differential, either the humidifier
is on or the dehumidifier is on, there is no time when both are off.
Everytime the compressor runs the humidity drops, then climbs back up after it turns off.
I have been using about 1 gal of water in 2 weeks in the humdifier and only dumping about
a quart out of the dehumidifier.
I am looking for a better controller if anyone has any suggestions.
(http://www.interiorhobbies.com/mmIH/Images/smoker/img_0204.jpg)
(http://www.interiorhobbies.com/mmIH/Images/smoker/img_0205.jpg)
Thanks for getting back to me. I bought a perfect size frost free freezer also, and this was my worry as well... the compressor running forcing dry air into the chamber. I plan on building my own temperature and humidity controllers. It will take awhile so I don't plan to have results anytime soon. But your data is REALLY helpful because now i know what i'm up against.
For your setup, i see you have the dial set to around 65% humidity. It looks like the humidifier is turning on at 70% and off at 90% (maybe earlier, hard to tell). Much wider band than the advertised 7%, but this could be due to the distance between the humidifier and sensor / controller -- hard to say. It's unfortunate that you can't decrease the 7% band to something like 2%. Do you have a circulation fan to get the humidity uniform?
One thing that struck me about your humidity is how high the gain is... the slope is pretty steep in both directions. From what i can gather, the humidifier is on during the steep slope up, then dehumidifier turns on and the humidity levels off, then the humidity spikes down when the fridge kicks in. Another way to look at it: At least your humidifier is perfectly balancing out your fridge dehumidification .
I had a couple of half baked ideas for you but the more I think about them the more holes see. 1. Limit the gain of the humidifier with a 555 timer circuit + relay to lower the duty cycle -- would be stable but probably wouldn't buy you much more accuracy. 2. Add a 2nd humidifier to turn on only when the fridge is on. May be unstable and not necessarily better. At least now your average humidity is controllable. Also your dehumidifier isn't doing much so counteracting the fridge's dehumidification may not be a good idea.
Another note: Keep in mind your dehumidifier may be kicking out heat, increasing temp, kicking on fridge and dehumidifying via fridge. Maybe cut down on any heat you have in there (lower wattage bulb, unplug de-humidifier temporarily). This would reduce the turn-on cycles of the fridge, dehumidifying (via fridge) less frequently. Then you would have an occasional down spike but the humidity would mostly at the top end (which you could lower with the dial). This is a lot of speculation here, but I hope it helps you get it figured out.
Control theory aside, what kind of cheese is that?
Thanks mjdeez
The cheese is an English Cheddar call Lancashire, my first cheese I made, it has to age 6 to 8 weeks.
I don't want to steal this thread so I move to a new one. I will try unplugging the dehumidifier and plot the results
and post them in a new thread, that's a great idea. There is a fan that runs continues you can just see the
fan guard to the right of the cheese. The cold coils are in a chamber in the middle the bottom is open and draws the air
up through the coils and out. I also installed 300w of heat inside the chamber for the winter months because it
is in an unheated garage. I will post more pics and plots soon.
Mike
Well ya got all the ingredients, but I'll be on the road in May, maybe an adult beverage and some jerky will convince me to do it right away, I'll check it out when I bring that test item over
Quote from: mikeradio on April 12, 2011, 02:50:11 PM
Thanks mjdeez
The cheese is an English Cheddar call Lancashire, my first cheese I made, it has to age 6 to 8 weeks.
I don't want to steal this thread so I move to a new one. I will try unplugging the dehumidifier and plot the results
and post them in a new thread, that's a great idea. There is a fan that runs continues you can just see the
fan guard to the right of the cheese. The cold coils are in a chamber in the middle the bottom is open and draws the air
up through the coils and out. I also installed 300w of heat inside the chamber for the winter months because it
is in an unheated garage. I will post more pics and plots soon.
Mike
The cheese sounds good.
Try unplugging the heater too. If the ambient temperature is below your set point, use a much lower wattage instead. 50 to 100W. This is probably giving off much more heat than your dehumidifier, but you can check the specs on that dehumidifier. Its probably on a sticker or something.
I'll catch you in the new thread.