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Warm and Fussy
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Instead of preserving food by cooling it, the anti-fridge keeps it at about 80 degrees C. It is basically a giant slow cooker the size and shape of a fridge.
I wonder how much electricity it would use, and what a chilli-con-carne that had been left in the anti-fridge would taste like after a couple
of months?
you can build a smokehouse from an old fridge
http://www.endtimes...com/smokehouse.html
[xandram, Jul 01 2008]
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These are called steam tables. Like at buffets. Not exactly your idea, I know, but they make sealed containers that fit into steam tables.... food usually dries out no matter what you do though |
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Spoilage of foodstuffs, which is what I presume you are wanting to prevent, happens mainly by chemical means and biological action. The difference between storing something for consumption and storing something for production is vast. This is because humans are , well, fussy. You can store things at high temp. for production without effecting the end product, but you may be surprised to find that the input/energy cost of keeping something warm are outweighed by the input/energy cost of drying, and covering, and just sitting. |
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Biological spoilage happens within a certain temperature range. |
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"Chemical" spoilage (at any temperature, unless we approach 0 Kelvin) can take the form of a reaction, or desication, to be blunt. In the interests of brevity I have included desication as chemical spoilage. |
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You plan to eliminate biological action by maintenance of temp. > 60 C. Interestingly, even your 80 C does not preclude some organisms from "feasting", just most, and certainly the most dangerous. |
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In your system, you are going to have to add water to the system to maintain relative humidity to control dessication. The graph of relative humidity is not linear, so the hotter (by x) you want ,the more water (by x^n: 1<n<2) you need to add. This would also have to be controlled. Too wet and hot = slush, too dry and hot = brick. And given that temp recordings are mean recordings, whereas there would be a specific amount of water available, this seems unlikely. |
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A few spoilage reactions are not just functions of bacterial action, as mentioned previously. Most of these reactions are endothermic. At higher temps (certainly at 80 C) these reactions have more energy to occur more frequently. Therefore, more spoilage. Because of this, oxygen (at the very least) needs to be completely removed from your environment. You would like to remove moisture as well, but that changes your product (those goddam fussy humans), think jerky/biltong/kapenta, or rice/maize/potato starch. |
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So to conclude:
Fuck brevity.
Dessication sucks.
Cooking is an endothermic reaction and changes the constituent elements/molecules. It is *power* (energy over time) dependent. Low energy over long time equals high energy over short time. The trick with cooking is the balance between a charcoal brick and raw flesh.
Microbes are not the only enemy!
After three months you would have used enough electricity to buy, cold store and cook, eat under lights, your meal. After three months in an anti-fridge, your food would taste like (at least) 20-min over-cooked whatever. |
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I was assuming that you would only store stuff that was already pre-cooked, ie sterilised, and covered or in jars, i.e not in contact with the air. Though that might not prevent some of these endothermic reactions you mention. |
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Interesting anno, got any idea what I would have google to learn about the endothermic effects you talk of? |
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And wouldn't you ever reach a state of equilibrum? |
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//Interesting anno, got any idea what I would have google to learn about the endothermic effects you talk of?// Google: "Molecular Gastronomy", "Heston Blumenthal", "low temperature cooking". Will post some links if you want, but it is better that you search for yourself. |
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//And wouldn't you ever reach a state of equilibrum?// Yes, everything eventually reaches an equilibrium so the food won't ever be a charcoal brickette, but after 24 hrs - three months it will be "overcooked". |
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I mentioned elimination of oxygen and water earlier, not knowing what you wanted to store. Pre-cooked foods and preserved foods might fair a little better than others but you still have to worry that the proteins will denature. |
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/20-min over-cooked whatever./ |
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For some reason, probably a major problem with my psyche, I read /20-min over-cooked underwear/. |
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No, I don't know how either. |
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