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GENERAL CHEESE MAKING BOARDS (Specific Cheese Making in Boards above) => INGREDIENTS - Milk Types, Formats, & Pre-Cheese Making Processing => Topic started by: wharris on August 27, 2012, 03:05:36 PM

Title: Fridge Failure
Post by: wharris on August 27, 2012, 03:05:36 PM
OK,
I have not posted a serious question here in about a year. But I have one today.
My wine and cheese supply fridge pooped out.  This was a small, dorm sized fridge that was used to house all my wine/cheese supplies.  Not the wine or cheese itself, just all the cultures, enzymes, chemicals, and testing agents.
So, All my Anatto, my cultures, my Rennet, my CACL, etc were in that fridge.
In the freezer i had a collection of half-used, and unopened cultures. 
It was not a trivial amount.
In the freezer section were perhaps 10 packages of unopened cultures, and 10 that were opened, but re-sealed in sandwich baggies.  Also, I also had about a pound of lipase.
I've tossed all my half-opened cultures, and my lipase.  That kind of sucked.
But my question is what can be saved. Specifically can my un-opened cultures, Anatto, Rennet, and CaCL be saved?
My thoughts are that at least the cultures and CaCL might be salvageable.
The fridge died one day, and the contents were removed the following day.  Nothing got "hot", everything just slowly assumed room temp over the course of a day.
Thoughts?


Title: Re: Fridge Failure
Post by: linuxboy on August 27, 2012, 03:41:46 PM
what was the highest temp inside the fridge after it died? Meaning, when you discovered it and took action? And how long did that high temp persist? Depending on the answer, everything, even the starter might be perfectly fine.
Title: Re: Fridge Failure
Post by: wharris on August 27, 2012, 03:52:44 PM
24 hours at room temp.
Title: Re: Fridge Failure
Post by: linuxboy on August 27, 2012, 04:18:08 PM
That's.. 70F? 75F?

Everything is fine. A little loss of viability in culture, some rennet strength loss, and depending on age of lipase, a touch (5%) less strength. CaCl2 doesn't go bad. Annato is stable.
Title: Re: Fridge Failure
Post by: wharris on August 27, 2012, 04:36:38 PM
Its a basement, so, 65ish... 

I tossed the Lipase because its storage instructions included keep frozen.

OK thanks for the feedback.
Title: Re: Fridge Failure
Post by: linuxboy on August 27, 2012, 04:41:38 PM
Absolutely, if you don't keep lipase frozen, it will degrade much faster overall over time. But a one-time event with temps that low for a short duration is pretty much harmless. Minor damage.