Adventures in Refrigeration

Refrigerators in boats aren't typically like those at home.  Unless you have an endless supply of power, you need one that is a bit more power efficient.  In my case, the refrigerator cabinet is a large, fairly well insulated cabinet that opens at the top (like a good portable cooler) and has a divider inside that splits the space into a freezer section and refrigerator section.  The "cold" in the freezer is provided by what is called a cold plate system. There are two metal plates filled with a liquid that will freeze when the refrigeration compressor runs and then they slowly absorb the heat.  Think of it kind of like a block of dry ice that is repeatedly re-frozen to keep the freezer cool.  The refrigerator side of the cabinet is kept cool by allowing some of the heat from the refrigerator side to passively bleed over into the freezer through a couple holes in the divider between the compartments.  

Freezer and Refrigerator Controls

This works OK,  but has a couple issues. The temperature of the freezer plays a large part in the temperature of the refrigerator.  Both the refrigerator and freezer are colder at the bottom than at the top.  If you open the refrigerator much, the refrigerator side can warm above safe temperatures and take a while for the spillover air to cool it back off.  Conversely, if you don't open it enough, things can freeze in the refrigerator side, particularly at the bottom.  And while I like a cold beer, frozen ones can  be an issue. And finally, my freezer could only reach a low of around 15° F (ideal is near 0°F).

One more issue, specific to my fridge, is that the genius who installed it placed the expansion valve (the point in the refrigeration circuit where the cold starts to be generated) outside of the refrigerator cabinet.  This valve freezes and thaws with each refrigeration cycle and therefore condenses water out of the air and makes a big wet mess in the cabinet.  

Other than some of the issues above, my refrigerator did work OK, until the last few trips.  The refrigeration compressor started developing an issue where it would try but fail to successfully start up until after a random and increasing number of attempts. This caused the freezer to warm to unacceptable levels at times. After some investigation, I could only narrow it down to either a failure of the controller or the compressor.  Since those components make up the majority of the system, the system is over 30 years old, it was showing a fair amount of corrosion, and I wanted to correct that installation problem, I decided to bite the bullet and replace the entire system myself.

The old cold plate configuration

This may seem like an excessive step to take, but new systems come pre-charged with refrigerant and special connectors so they can be done as a DIY projects.  Given the difficulty I've had in the past hiring "professionals" to come work on the boat, I actually thought I will either break even or come out ahead...and I wouldn't have to be at the mercy of a "professional's" schedule. So I did a little research and decided I would replace the refrigerator with a newer version from the same manufacturer (SeaFrost).  A similar system should at least minimize the complications of the install.

Replacement System
(image from SeaFrost)

Of course, as often happens with projects, what started out as a simple swap-out of the old system for a new one and the relocation of the valve location slowly grew with several of those "while I'm doing this, I might as well..." thoughts.  The freezer would freeze, but not quite cold enough for ice cream.  Ok, actually, the colder the better for all longer term food storage...but ice cream would be nice too.  When talking with the SeaFrost salesman, it didn't take much convincing for me to upgrade from the smaller equivalent replacement to the next step up with a bit higher capacity.  The upgrade also had the ability to control compressor speed, so I could turn it down and and achieve the same results as the smaller system while using less power.  The existing system had the cold plates mounted in an L shape along adjacent walls, and the salesman highly recommended moving one plate so the two would be on opposing walls for more even freezer temperatures (stuff in the freezer would be sandwiched between the plates).

The old fridge removed

Naturally, if I could get the freezer colder, this would likely exacerbate the problem of the beer freezing in the bottom of the refrigerator.  So I began to think about how to solve that issue.  I had heard of others using small fans to mix up the air so the cold wouldn't settle at the bottom. I also thought of adding some sort of movable shutter to manually control how fast the "spillover" between the freezer and refrigerator would occur.

Patching holes and installing
a new cold plate

I finally settled on a theory that wasn't too mechanically complex and I believed would solve several issues.  My theory was that I would plug the two holes at the bottom corners of the divider, I would construct a small duct on the refrigerator side of the divider that would route the air from the hole about 1/4 of the way up the wall to near the top of the refrigerated section, and I would put a fan at the top of that duct that would pull cold air from the freezer and dump it out near the top of the refrigerator. I would leave the gap between the refrigerator lid and the top of the divider alone to allow return airflow.  Since warm air rises and cold air falls, I figured this duct would limit the majority of the spillover without a mechanical shutter to close the hole.  Then, when the fan was turned on, it would draw the cold air from the freezer up the duct and spill it over the top of the refrigerator.  As the cold air fell down through the refrigerator compartment, the warmer air of the fridge should rise and the pressure differential caused by the fan would cause that warm air to enter the top of the freezer section to be re-cooled.  This mixing should also make the temperature more consistent from the top to the bottom of the refrigerator. And by drawing the cold air from the higher point in the freezer than the very bottom, there would be a section at the very bottom of the freezer where the coldest air would still pool and become a deep freeze section that wouldn't be impacted by the bleeding off of cold air for the refrigerator.

New plates installed with valve
inside refrigerator box

I'm no thermodynamics expert, but this all sounded reasonable to me. So I decided to give it a try.  I installed the new refrigerator...which takes much more time than that one sentence gives it credit for.  Carefully bending copper tubing so it doesn't kink, by yourself, while working in cabinets where you can barely reach what you are working on is not trivial.  Then I found a vinyl (PVC) downspout at the local home improvement store that I could cut into a U shape and create a duct.  Estimating that the refrigerator section was around 5 cubic feet, I ordered a fan that would move about 2 cubic feet of air per minute.  This would theoretically do a complete air exchange in the empty cabinet in about 2.5 minutes.  I figured there would be a balance that would need to be figured out between taking cold air from the freezer too quickly and cooling the refrigerator too slowly, so this was my best guess at a reasonable flow rate.

Testing the duct

In order to experiment a bit, I temporarily sealed the lower corner holes (and the wire/line access hole) with excess packing materials, built the duct using some PVC glue, and ordered a small dual-bearing computer fan and a digital temperature controller for it.  I ran experiments and found that I did seem to have positive control over the refrigerator temperature.  With the freezer at about 15° F at the time of the test, I set the other controller to turn the fan on at 37°F and off at 36°F. The temperature in the refrigerator would slowly fall when the fan was on (about 30 minutes to go from 37°F to 36°F) and would slowly rise when it was off (about an hour to rise from 36°F to 37°F).  I also checked the temperature at several levels within the refrigerator compartment and found only 1 degree of difference between the top and bottom.  During the tests, I did not observe any noticeable rises in the freezer temperature beyond the normal operation.  I did run the tests with both the fridge empty and with several milk jugs filled with water to simulate a partial refrigerator load.

Fridge duct with fan installed

Happy with the results, I made the changes permanent.  I did make one additional change and lined the lower half of the duct with some thin, foil backed, closed cell foam insulation to help further reduce unwanted bleed over.  After warming the refrigerator cabinet back up, I attached and sealed the duct with silicone, cut foam to make removable seals for the bottom corner holes, ran the wires and temperature probe needed to control the fan, and sealed the cabinet access.  I added a magnetic switch in the fan circuit so the fan would shut off when the lid was opened, and I installed a small electrical project box to hide the connections and extra wire from the fan and switches.  

So far I'm pretty happy with the results.  The only thing I'm wondering right now is if I need to increase the size of the fan to improve the speed at which the refrigerator section cools.  But I think I need a bit more experience with the current behavior before I make any changes.  I can also probably tweak the settings of the temperature controllers for both the refrigerator and freezer sections; however, this will be done slowly over time as I determine a sweet spot once the whole system stabilizes.  The first picture above is the system running with the freezer and refrigerator cabinet temperatures displayed.

I'd also like to give a shout-out to the folks at SeaFrost.  They were very helpful with advice and design recommendations on this project.  I wish more marine industry parts and service suppliers were this helpful and responsive.

Now I have a reliable refrigerator/freezer that acts a bit more like a home system than it does the normal boat cold plate system.  

A Couple of Projects

 Well, if you have read through my blog, you probably have a good idea of the amount of maintenance required to keep a boat going.  And this post will be no exception.  It still amazes me how many new issues appear when you leave a boat sitting for even a short period of time.  So, upon returning to the boat I had a list of minor things to address (for example, some running rigging needed to be replaced and some leaks needed to be addressed) and a couple of bigger projects.

The first project was the inverter.  As I mentioned in my previous post, my old Xantrex Freedom Marine inverter decided to give up during our spring shakedown cruise.  I pulled the unit and did some troubleshooting and found a blown internal fuse.  I tried replacing it, however the fuse immediately blew when attempting to start it up...so something in the internal circuitry has obviously failed.  I guess I could try repairing the unit, but it is 30+ years old and there are newer options out there that provide pure sine wave output and are more efficient.  It made the most sense to replace.  Of course, I don't want to rewire the boat, so in addition to finding newer technology, I needed to find one that would fit in the available space.

I narrowed my search down to two or three options that would fit, were at least theoretically suitable for the marine environment, and would provide pure sine wave output.  Two of the options could be found listed on marine supplier websites with prices north of $1500.  The third option was from Renogy, a company that is more well known for solar and off-grid land based setups, but claimed their unit was marinized and could handle the more corrosive environment found on a boat.  The fact that their unit was also 1/2 to 1/3 the price of the others, I decided I would give it a try.

Renogy 3000w pure sine wave inverter
(Image from Renogy.com)

The unit was a bit longer than my old one, fortunately, that was the one dimension where I had a bit of extra space.  Otherwise, it was a direct replacement as it specified the same gauge battery cables and fuses and was a mostly drop-in replacement.  Wiring was pretty straight forward, and other than finding and replacing a poorly crimped cable end on one of my cables, the unit itself wasn't too difficult to install.  The unit comes with a remote panel, but unlike the Xantrex, it is not very informative, just a switch with a couple of status LEDs.  A remote that mimics the on-board display would be a better option, and hopefully they will consider making one.  The remote was also smaller than the Xantrex, so I had to custom fabricate a plate to mount the new remote where the old one was.  Fortunately, this was easy to accomplish by purchasing a 3-gang black switch plate from the local hardware store and making a few modifications.

Other than the remote display and a couple minor quirks, so far I really like the unit.  Unlike the Xantrex, it has a very clean, pure sine wave output. Things like my induction plate and microwave are happier about the supplied power.  It also switches over to inverter power much faster than the Xantrex, so the microwave clock doesn't need to be reset and the TV doesn't even flicker.  The most annoying thing about it is that the battery charger cannot be disabled when the unit is on and the AC circuits downstream of the inverter are not active in bypass mode when the inverter is off.  These are minor issues and easy to work-around, but would be nice features to add.  Given I could buy 2 or 3 of these for the price of the others, to me it is a worthwhile tradeoff.

Another bigger project is replacement of my old chartplotter.  The main reason for its demise is that the prior owner of the boat did quite a hack job when installing that resulted in a large hole behind it and so I never removed it from the helm.  I could possibly replace just the screen and maybe the seals that caused the current problem with the unit, but just like the inverter, the entire unit is older and I suspect other internals are likely soon to have problems as well.  I could buy a new unit from Garmin that would be mostly a drop in replacement with the same 8" display, but that will set me back about $2k...not to mention I'm not a huge fan of Garmin.  

The other option to replace the chartplotter is to essentially build my own.  There are a couple of open-source software packages out there that are capable of replacing an existing chartplotter and can better integrate most of my Garmin and Raymarine instruments.  For the cost of a Raspberry Pi computer, a touchscreen display, and a few other electronic bits, I could have a more capable chartplotter than what I have now.  All that for what should come in at under $500 and some of my time.

Openplotter running on my Raspberry Pi.

I decided to go this route and have been working on the solution for a little while.  I'm using OpenPlotter, which includes the OpenCPN chartplotter software, SignalK for data integration, and a variety of interfaces to deal with a variety of instrument data.  Above is a picture of my working system on a 15" touchscreen display that is temporarily hooked up to my boat instruments.  You can see current wind, depth, location, direction, speed, pitch and roll information.  You can even see the AIS data from a few nearby boats in the marina.  Not displayed but working is the radar information and overlay.  Since the computer isn't mounted yet, the sensors aren't fully calibrated so some of the information like pitch and roll are a bit off...but it is sufficient for proof of concept.  And for the first time since I've owned the boat, I can now send route data to the autopilot.  The only thing I haven't figured out yet is how to get more detailed sonar information as Openplotter doesn't seem to have a means of supporting a fish-finder type of sonar.  This solution will also be setup so I can easily detach the display and store it inside.

The final bigger project I'm working on is my refrigerator.  Over the past several years it had started developing an issue where the compressor made multiple attempts before it successfully started.  Originally, this was infrequent, but more recently it has happened with increasing frequency to the point that it was no longer reliable.  While looking into the issue I noted that the compressor was rather old and had significant surface corrosion.  Apparently the original controller had failed at some point and was jury-rigged with one from Alder Barbour.  So, my best guess is that either the controller or the compressor was the likely the current issue...of course, that makes up the vast majority of the system.  As a reliable refrigerator is necessary for any longer trip, I decided to bite the bullet and replace the whole system.  New systems have more efficient compressors and often come pre-charged so at least I won't need a refrigeration technician to come install it.

Seafrost BDxp Refrigerator system
(image from Seafrost)

The original system was from SeaFrost. Not wanting to significantly alter the setup, I decided to go with them again.  After talking with someone from SeaFrost (I think it may have been the owner), I decided to get the upgraded version with a bit higher capacity.  The belief is that it should be sufficient to store ice cream (something that was just a bit beyond the ability of the old system).  The old setup of the refrigerator is what is known as a spillover system.  Some of the cold of the freezer "spills over" into the refrigerator side through some holes to provide refrigeration.  While this does work, it does have some drawbacks.  There was a tendency for items at the bottom of the refrigerator section to freeze while the top was barely within the safe zone for a refrigerator.  With the increased capacity of the new system, I think this issue might become worse.  So, I also intend to alter the spillover system by adding a duct, small fan, and temperature control in hopes that it will better meter the temperature of the refrigerator as well as provide a bit of air circulation to keep the temperatures a bit more uniform.  

So, those are the bigger projects currently going on or completed.  Hopefully they all will be done soon and I can head south and to the Bahamas.

Ice Cream On Board

Ice cream is often a special treat when you are on a boat.  No matter where you are, on a warm day it is nice to have a cool treat to enjoy.  But if your boat is like mine and your freezer doesn't really get cold enough to keep ice cream frozen, it is a rare treat that usually has to be purchased in a single-serving manner to be enjoyed at the time of purchase.  This isn't really a problem with my boat freezer, just a limitation of how a low power consumption 12 volt cold plate style boat refrigerator/freezer works.

Many people, in order to provide more freezer space for a long trip or just to keep things colder turn to portable refrigerator freezers.  These units often look like a cooler or ice chest, but inside they contain a small compressor driven refrigerator plate that usually runs on 12 to 24 volts DC.  The best units are well insulated, can maintain temperatures below 0 degrees Fahrenheit (-17.8C) and don't use a lot of power.  Of course the down side is the best of these also cost $800 or more for something the size of a medium size insulated cooler.

Of course I'm...um...lets say thrifty...and the price of these coolers was a non-starter for me.  Being stuck at the boat in the middle of this Covid19 pandemic, a better freezer option became a bit more important.  A better freezer would allow me to make fewer trips to the store as well as pre-chill items before adding them to my regular freezer (adding warm items to a cold plate fridge or freezer warms the items near them and is a potential food safety issue).  After doing a bit of looking, I found there were several other options for small compressor driven coolers at a much lower price point (from $200 to $300) and would run on 12 volts DC.  Of course, the question is how much "worse" are these than the much more expensive units?  Will they actually keep sub-freezing temperatures?  Will they use way too much power for use on a boat?  I looked through the reviews and finally chose one to give a try.

The unit I chose was the Joy Tutus 26 quart portable refrigerator.  I chose this unit because it claimed to be able to go to -7.6 degrees F, had a reasonable size with no handles that stick out so it would fit where I wanted to put it, claimed to hold reasonable temperatures for a while even with power disconnected, and had a company that at least had a web site and email addresses available (other than through Amazon) in case there were any warranty related issues. It was ordered through Amazon and arrived on time with no noticeable damage, although the driver apparently didn't see the right-side-up logo as it was sitting upside down (so, I had to turn it right side up and let it sit for 12 hours to make sure any compressor oil drained back to the compressor before startup). They claim the unit can run at up to a 30 or 35 degree angle, which should be more than sufficient for any boat or road trips taken with it.

The unit has a plastic exterior with non-skid feet and nothing but the 90 degree angle plug that sticks out to get hung up on anything (of course you need to make sure to not block the air louvers so it doesn't overheat).  The "buttons" are a touch-sensitive plastic panel that acts similarly to a smartphone touchscreen (doesn't appear to be mechanical).  Inside the cooler, the bottom pan is plastic and the side walls are painted metal and contain the cooling (evaporator) coils that seem to wrap all the way around the sides of the cooling chamber. A half-gallon milk jug does fit standing upright inside the chamber. The lid is also plastic with a foam rubber seal around the edge and uses magnets to hold the lid closed.  Unfortunately, the molding of the plastic lid may have resulted in a little bit of a bow and, with the seal in the lid having a tight tolerance, it leaves a very slight gap for about two inches in the front center of the lid (the seal failure is apparent as ice builds up at that location when in use as a freezer). Overall, for a relatively cheap cooler, the fit and finish aren't too bad other than the door seal. The unit comes with a 12/24 volt cigarette socket style power cord for direct DC operation and a "power brick" style transformer (like many laptops) so it can be used with 110/220 volt AC sources.

Operation is pretty straight forward.  Touching the on/off icon on the panel for 3 seconds turns the unit on.  The display shows the current temperature inside the unit.  Pressing the (+) or (-) buttons adjusts the temperature, pressing the setting (gear) button switches between Max and Eco modes.  If you press the setting and (+) at the same time for 3 seconds, the display switches the display between Fahrenheit and Celsius temperature display (but there is no indication on the display as to which way it is set).  After a minute or so with no buttons pressed, the touchscreen locks to prevent accidental adjustment or power off.  To unlock, you have to press the setting button for 3 seconds. The unit remembers the last setting and will resume where it left off after a power interruption (tested by unplugging for 2 hours).

After turning the unit on, the display read 70 degrees.  I set the unit for -8F in Eco mode and the display read 24 degrees in about 20 minutes, which is in-line with their claims for cooling (with the chamber empty).  After another 15 minutes it read 12 degrees.  At this point I placed a pre-frozen (~20F) half-gallon milk jug that was filled half-way with water into the unit.  I noted that the thermometer read 28 F at this time. After an hour from the initial turn on (with the pre-frozen jug now inside) the display read -3F and the inside thermometer was around 10F.  The unit didn't seem to get much colder according to the display over the next 40 minutes (the thermometer temperature did drop by a few degrees), so I switched it from Eco to Max mode.  It did eventually reach the displayed temperature of -8F, but it took a while and I honestly don't know the exact timing as I was only checking on it every 30 minutes to an hour at that point.

Freezer holding 1/2 gallon milk jug and making
ice.  You can see the lid seal issue as well.

For the power consumption tests, I used a KillAWatt meter and the AC adapter that came with the unit as I don't have any convenient way to measure power consumption over time using the direct DC chord.  As a result, the following numbers should be higher than actual performance if connected directly to a DC source due to the inherent losses in converting power from 120v AC to 12v DC. After the one test getting it to go to it's maximum cooling setting of -8F for a short period, most of the rest of the testing used settings between -1 and -3F.  The only things inside the cooler were a small, simple, refrigerator thermometer and a half gallon milk jug filled half-way with water (ice). I kept the ambient temperature in the boat between 76 and 79F for the tests.

It has two power consumption profiles, MAX and ECO.  From what I can tell, ECO just runs the compressor at a slower speed...and in the grand scheme of things doesn't appear to be much more economical (I suspect it is actually less but did not run many tests in both modes)...it just limits the max power it can consume at any one point in time (I assume it runs longer to reach/maintain a given temperature).

In MAX mode, I saw power usage when the compressor was running between 37 and 57 watts with the large majority of that between 38 and 42 watts.  If you assume no loss in the transformer, that max range would be 3 to 4.75 amps at 12 v DC nominal.  So, actual DC usage would again likely be less.

In ECO mode, I saw power usage between 35 and 42 watts with the majority between 30 and 35 watts.  Again converting to 12v DC and assuming no loss, that would be between 2.75 and 3.5 amps.

Over a 72 hour and 24 minute period, the KillAWatt reported 1.89 kw of power used from a point where I turned the cooler on after it was at room temperature of 77F, set it for -3F in Max mode and placed the frozen jug of water in it.  During this time I made ice using two regular refrigerator ice trays 3 times and checked the internal thermometer readings twice a day and noted any differences between what the display read and what the thermometer said. I figure this activity would roughly equate to normal usage of a freezer.  1890 watts over 72.4 hours is 26.1 watt/hours.  At 12.5vdc (~12v nominal in ~80% charged state) that would be 2.09 amp/hours or around 50.2 amps per day as a freezer.  I assume power consumption would be less if being used at refrigerator temperatures.

If I were to take a guess, I'd say that the power transformer brick is probably in the 80% efficient range...so the 12v DC numbers above would make for a very conservative over estimation of actual power used when directly connected to a DC source.  Unfortunately, I just don't have the means to run this test using the direct DC connection. 

The last test I ran was to see how long it would keep contents cool without power.  So, when the cooler was reading -1F and the internal temperature was reading 5F, I placed the frozen jug of water and thermometer in the cooler, let it sit for a few minutes to stabilize, and then turned it off.  I then turned it back on momentarily after an hour and the display claimed the temperature had jumped to 24F.  Another hour later, I checked again and it claimed the temperature was 29F.  Another 45 minutes later, I checked again and it was up to 34F.  At this point I opened up the cooler to check the thermometer and it read 42F. Not the 10 hours from 0 to 34 that the original listing stated, even when having the frozen block of ice in the milk jug helping out.  The initial jump may have been related to opening the cooler when putting the ice jug into the cooler and the fact the ice jug was stored in my boat freezer at 18F...but the rise still seems faster than it should, again indicating the insulation isn't optimal.

So, from an energy use standpoint, this portable refrigerator/freezer doesn't seem bad.  Yes, it may be a bit higher than the really expensive ones, but it meets my needs quite well.

Now, didn't I mention ice cream?  Well, I did perform an ice cream test.  After the initial testing, I plugged the unit directly into one of the boats new DC sockets and set the refrigerator to -2F.  I bought a half-gallon (OK, 3 pints...since you can't get an actual half gallon of cheap ice cream these days) of house brand rocky road for the final test.  Over the course of the next week or so, I had ice cream as desert after dinner. The ice I made for drinks was the other item normally in this unit.  In my regular boat refrigerator, if you put ice cream in the freezer it wold be OK the first evening, soft serve the second evening, and a milk shake by the 3rd.  With this unit, the ice cream remained frozen and at a serving temperature of about 4 degrees F over the course of a week.

Other observations about the unit.  So far it seems quiet.  I can just hear it if it is the only thing running on the boat.  But if there is any other ambient noise, it drowns out the quiet hum of the compressor.  It sits just outside the always open door to my berth and I cannot hear it at all inside the berth. That makes it quite a bit less noisy than the small bar refrigerators like you usually find in hotel rooms.  When acting as a freezer, some condensation does occur on the sides and bottom of the unit, so the insulation isn't perfect.  As previously mentioned, the lid seal seems to have a very small leak right at the opening handle notch as ice slowly develops there.  I notice that when I place items in the lower left corner of the chamber (as viewed looking down from the front of the unit) the displayed temperature tends to quickly jump, so I believe this is the general location of the internal thermometer.

And speaking of the thermometer...at the temperatures I was testing, I found the internal chamber temperature measured with a thermometer at roughly the center of the chamber to be about 5 to 7 degrees higher than what was displayed by the unit.  This is not unexpected and, as anyone that has ever used a refrigerator that doesn't have a fan to circulate the air will know, is quite normal.

Is the unit as good as the much more expensive Engel or Dometic units, probably not.  But it does meet my needs and at a much more wallet friendly price.  Longevity is still a question, but if it lasts a while, I think it will make a nice addition to the boat.  I do really like having the ability to pre-chill leftovers before putting them in the boat freezer, having plenty of ice for drinks, and of course ice cream on board.  Now that I can make ice and store ice cream, I might have to give one of those ice cream maker balls a try.

Provisioning Tricks and Tools

Provisioning for a longer trip is always an interesting task on a boat.  Having to plan what to cook for an extended period of time, how much to purchase, and how to store the provisions are tasks that anyone cruising on a boat must tackle (unless you are lucky enough to be anchored somewhere that has a boat "drive up" or delivery service like Pizza Pi).  In this time of COVID19 restrictions, even though many are not actively cruising, longer term provisioning is a similar task for anyone that doesn't want to visit a grocery store often regardless of if they are living on a boat or on land.  But where do you start.

My galley...which never looks this clean.

Unless you are one of those rare people that could appear on the food show "Chopped" where people whip up decent meals from random ingredients, you will probably need some recipes.  The old school card catalogs, recipe binders and books are one way to have recipes handy, but they can take up a lot of valuable space on a boat, are subject to water damage, and require a lot of manual work for  planning and provisioning.  One tool I have found helpful is a recipe app for my smart phone and tablet.  While electronics are still susceptible to water damage, having the data stored on multiple devices and taking some precautions to protect them will help ensure they are available when you need them.

In addition to storing the recipes, these apps can often help with meal planning and creating shopping lists to simplify provisioning tasks.  I originally started using an app called Pepperplate and found it to be adequate, if a bit glitchy at times.  Unfortunately, just as we were preparing for the Bahamas trip, the makers of Pepperplate suddenly sprung a paid subscription model on their users with no way to export their recipe data.  That behavior didn't sit well with me so I quickly tried to find a replacement  (they later provided a simple export after much backlash and a significant hit to their reputation among their users).  The requirements for the replacement application were:

• It must work on Android and preferably on Apple devices and Windows as well.
• It must store recipes in a local database so it works even with no internet connection.
• It must have some ability to generate meal plans for multiple days or weeks.
• It must be able to generate shopping lists from recipes and meal plans.
• It must have the ability to import/export recipe data.
• It should have the ability to synchronize data between multiple devices.
• It should have the ability to import recipes from popular online recipe sites.
• It should have the ability to scale recipes to vary number of servings.

With limited time, I narrowed it down to the two applications Paprika and RecetteTek.  Paprika is rather well regarded, but the trial was limited, purchase is per platform or per device and per major release (as best I can tell), and I didn't have time to dive very deep into its functionality before purchase as we were preparing for the trip at the time and I needed to manually rescue my data from Pepperplate before they shut me down.  I decided to give RecetteTek a try as it seemed to have most of the features I wanted and was free so my crew could also use it to help with planning without incurring an additional cost.  I'll do a review on it at some later point.  In general, these apps help make planning and provisioning easier and you end up with a shopping checklist of items to purchase without ending up with a bunch of missing ingredients or excesses.

RecetteTek with some of my
recipes and provision entries.

Another trick I figured out that is related to the recipe app is provisioning for other non-recipe or non-food consumables.  I created a "recipe" in the app that simply includes a list of snack and condiment items like popcorn, chips, candy, mustard, salt, and pepper as ingredients so they can be easily added to the provisioning grocery list.  Another has non-food consumables like toiletries and cleaners with estimated quantities of consumption for one person for one week (so you can simply scale the "recipe" for number of crew and length of time and then add it to the shopping list).  This way I don't forget to get the ketchup, dish soap, or toilet paper.

Obviously storage space is limited on a boat, and cold storage is at a premium so canned and dry goods, and recipes that can use them, are a great help.  Still, one likes to have fresh...or at least frozen...items around.  Of course, even if you are lucky enough to have refrigeration on your boat, that system has some quirks too.  Unlike the big refrigerators you find in the average American kitchen, the efficient boat refrigerators are often top loading, smaller overall size, and lack an air circulation fan.  The result is you can put a lot into a smaller space and they can run fairly efficiently on 12 or 24 volt power, but it takes a lot longer to cool or freeze items.

I've found 3 tricks to deal with the boat refrigerator.  The first is to realize the refrigerator is most efficient and works best when it is full, not empty.  So, if I don't have a lot of stuff to fill the refrigerator or freezer, I will place old milk jugs full of water in it to take up space and provide more thermal mass than the air alone.  Another trick is to never put anything warm in the refrigerator or freezer.  Since there is no circulation fan, all cooling is of a radiant nature and warm items take a very long time to come to temperature.  In the process the warm item can also warm up surrounding items which makes the whole thing less safe. The last trick, particularly for the freezer, is to package as much as possible in single serving or single use packages. Smaller packages take less time to cool before putting them in the fridge, can freeze faster than larger packages, can often make better use of refrigerator space, and doesn't require you to repeatedly thaw and refreeze items when you need some.

Turning a broccoli crown into multiple freezer packs using
the hints from the National Center for Home food Preservation.

One last thought about food storage...as this is what prompted me to actually start writing this post.  In this day of COVID19 I've found I'm taking a better look at how I am storing food on the boat.  I know that some things that we regularly refrigerate don't actually require refrigeration.  I didn't realize that cabbage, which seems to be refrigerated in the store, actually does better sitting on my counter than it does in a bag in the fridge. With the shortage of canned options, I've also been freezing some fresh stuff for later use.  I found this website that has recommendations and best practices for freezing all sorts of things (like the broccoli above).  The website theboatgalley.com also has many tips and tricks for food storage.

I hope this is helpful for your provisioning tasks...be it for a long cruise or just waiting out the current virus scare.  If you have other tips or tricks, I'd like to hear about them...so feel free to let me know in the comments below.

Drippy : 1, Mike : 0

Well, I did successfully get the refrigerator valve (a.k.a Drippy) to stop sweating and dripping.  Unfortunately I also got it to stop cooling as well.  Sigh.  I went back to the manuals I found on the Sea Frost refrigeration system and they do say that if this valve is mounted outside of the "cold box", that it needs to be insulated.  They, of course, recommend the cork tape stuff I was unable to ever find, but this foam tape should have been an acceptable, and probably better insulating, option.  So it sure seemed like what I did would not have caused this response in the refrigerator.

But, what is step one in trouble shooting any problem: "Did you mess with it when the problem started -> If yes, put it back the way you found it".  So, I ripped some of the insulation back off of the valve.  When I did, I discovered what might be the problem.  Since the vapor line, liquid line, and thermostat probe are bundled together and all run through the same 1 + inch hole into the cold box, I wrapped the lines together.  After all, without the wrapping, this was exactly how the system was configured.

The problem is that bundling the lines together actually leaves a small amount of air space in the middle of the bundle.  I apparently wasn't able to get the tape to produce an air tight seal for this air space, so the result is that ice then formed in the airspace between the pipes.  Now that there is a nice amount of insulation around this airspace, I created what was probably a permanent ice cube.  My current theory is that this ice was causing false readings for the thermostat and that caused the temperature to rise in the refrigerator but the rising temperature in the box didn't make it to the thermostat because of the ice.

To test the theory, I used a heat gun on low to melt the ice and I tried to separate the thermostat control wire from the liquid and vapor lines as best I could.  The refrigerator is now cooling better...but ice is once again forming on the valve and condensing when the refrigerator cycles off.  Since there is still some insulation in place, the cooling isn't completely back to where it was.  Guess I will need to dig more of it out and try to re-route the thermostat wire.

Some days, far too many it seems recently, have been of the fixing either not working or the process of fixing results in finding a bunch of other issues.  I have to say it is wearing on me more than just a little.  The fun to suck ratio seems to be spiraling out of control in the wrong direction during this last push to get things ready to leave Florida.

Refrigerator Drip

Originally, the wet wood under the sink was attributed to the condensation from the refrigerator.  Later I found a leak in the pressure water system that was the primary culprit.  Unfortunately, it wasn't the only culprit.  The refrigerator does play a smaller role in the issue.

You see, there is a valve in this Sea Frost cold plate system that is mounted outside the refrigerator box itself.  It seems like an expansion valve and performs the same function, but someone told me it actually has another name...whatever...I think I'll name it Drippy.  After all, being mounted outside the refrigeration box and being the point where it starts to cool, it does condense water out of the air and drip.  It would make for a great dehumidifier if it would get rid of the water, but dripping it back into the cabinet where it can run down to the spot on the floor that was rotting.

Drippy - Note the frost and ice in the hole behind

After fixing the water leak a while back I noted the drip but have just been keeping a rag under it to keep the water in check while the floor dried.  Well, every once in a while I would forget (or maybe the dripping was getting worse) and it started producing just enough water that the floor wouldn't fully dry, so I decided it was time to deal with Drippy.

There is a gooey black tape with cork (or some other semi-insulative) material in it that is often used to insulate refrigeration lines.  It is pliable so I figured it would work well insulating this valve.  In fact, there was a small amount of it wrapped around the valve in a feeble attempt by the installer to insulate it (visible in the picture above...the black wet stuff).  Well, I found that this refrigerant line tape is rather difficult to find.  It is not available in any of the hardware or big box stores anywhere in the area.  I did, however, find a sticky foam rubber tape that should work at the local Lowes so I bought some in hopes it would work.

I also noted that the small refrigerant pipes running into the refrigeration box and cold plates pass through a hole that is over an inch in diameter and is completely un-insulated.  Well, by the time I found it the hole was actually filled with ice (also visible in above picture).  So I decided to pick up some spray foam and seal up that hole as well.  Should help make the refrigerator more efficient as well as stop the condensation.

So, I turned off the fridge, defrosted the pipes and used the spray foam to seal up the big hole.  Once the foam cured I trimmed it flush with the cabinet with a serrated steak knife (since I couldn't see the hole as I was filling, I overfilled it a bit and had a big blob to get rid of). I then wrapped the valve and exposed pipe with the foam tape, making sure there was at least 50% overlap per the instructions.

I turned the refrigerator back on and came back to check on it a day or so later.  Unfortunately, there was still some condensation on the valve.  It was far less than before, but there was still some.  So, since I still had half of the roll of rubber foam tape, I doubled up on all the wrapping.  I couldn't get the additional tape wrapped well when it got close to the cabinet and in a bit of frusteration, I got the can of spray foam out and sprayed that into the areas I couldn't wrap again. By the end, the valve looked a bit like a little black Michelin Man sitting on a yellow cloud of foam.

Drippy No Longer

After the second wrapping, I waited a day and checked again.  Still just a very tiny bit of condensation...drat. Well, it is far less than it was, it has been very humid lately, and the valve doesn't really seem to be dripping...just a few beads of water on the foam covering the valve.  So, I decided I will just let it be for now and see if it is "good enough".

Oh, and I have noted that the pipes inside the fridge are frosting up where they did not before...so I appear to have changed something.  And in the days since the floor has remained dry even without a towel under the valve...so definitely a good amount of progress was made on the dripping.  Now maybe the floor will dry the rest of the way and I can complete that repair.