Question about temperature during drying

toolhawk1 · Post by **toolhawk1** » Thu Aug 25, 2011 22:39

Ok I built a temperature / humidity chamber with controls works awesome but have Sugar and salt dry cured hams going right now , My ? is after fermenting and now drying my sausage how critical is temp as long as I stay below 60 degrees , what will the effect be if it is 50 degrees or 45 , my humidity is fine in my drying chamber , when I first started temp was fine at 58 but when I woke up this morning it was at 48 , was able to stable it out at 55, but my ? is at 50 degrees would it be fine but just take longer to achieve moisture loss or do I need 58-60 degrees for all the ingredients to do their work. I am going to pick up another temp controller tomorrow but was just wondering ???? Thanks !!!

uwanna61 · Post by **uwanna61** » Tue Aug 30, 2011 01:05

Toolhawk
How did you make out with the new controller?

Typically controlling the temperature would be the easy part with a well built curing cabinet and humidity is the opposite and can be a challenge for some us.
Now for temperature fluctuation, my thoughts would be to control the temperature at the set point or pretty close to it. I would also think with a good reliable controller and incubator cabinet, you should be able to achieve this with little to no issues. Can you give more detail on the curing cabinet is it a converted fridge \ freezer? Let us know how you make out.
Wally

toolhawk1 · Post by **toolhawk1** » Tue Aug 30, 2011 02:37

Is a pretty large cooler , bigger than it looks , coke cooler with cooling unit coming down from the top inside, full independent temp range part of he unit , humidistat to control humidity , 2nd temp controller to control covered light for heat , (can maintain 27-110 f) tested for 1 month before any meat was put in , but had gallon jugs of water for mass to see if I could maintain any temp , light bulb is also used to lower humidity , unit has fan that can run continually if wanted was used to keep glass door clear, I also have secondary fan hooked to dimmer switch to control speed of fan if needed or to push heat as it is hooked to light
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/143/068xy.jpg/
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/32/070gc.jpg/
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/851/082xy.jpg/
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/8/069xh.jpg/
lets see if pics show up

toolhawk1 · Post by **toolhawk1** » Tue Aug 30, 2011 03:13

toolhawk1 · Post by **toolhawk1** » Tue Aug 30, 2011 03:14

Question about temperature during drying

Question about temperature during drying

pics of chamber

pics of chamber