All You Need to Know About Storing Food

Sounds simple. You get your new camper, stick everything in the fridge and away you go! Well nothing in life is really easy. This article is mainly about not ruining food. First up try to read all the info that came with your van about the Electrolux fridge. Depending on the model van you have and its age makes a fair bit of difference to the advice given here. The fridge photo with the two fingers on the left below is the model in most A'vans pre-2000. The photo with no fingers is current in the A'van. If you want to know more about how and why your fridge works you could start by reading the info in A-Clinic (June 2001) and also scanning through the messages in A-Forum. The basic difference in the two models is the method of lighting. The latest model has auto ignition as it is connected to the van battery. If the flame goes out, it keeps trying to relight which is an excellent safety feature. Whilst this is happening it clicks furiously giving you an audible warning that something is amiss - usually out of gas in the middle of the night!

The fridge on the left is the pre-2000 model fitted to all A'vans. You press the red button on the right to light it. The fridge on the right is fitted to all current model standard A'vans (not on high sided models).

You do have to work at getting the most from your fridge. Let's start with winter camping. The photos below graphically illustrate what happens if you leave fruit in the fridge overnight and the outside temperature falls below 5 degrees. Yes it all goes rock hard! It is a very good idea to always have a room thermometer in your van so you can check the temperature. If you think there's a cold night ahead ALWAYS turn the fridge down to MINIMUM using the control on the RIGHT if on gas, or the control on the LEFT if running on 240 volt. The fruit pictured (not ours!) went hard simply because the van owner wrongly assumed that the thermostat on the left also controlled the coldness when on gas - an easy mistake to make! Remember that the controls on caravan fridges are very crude compared with your domestic refrigerator. You will have to experiment to find the best settings and even then they will change with the seasons. We tend to take fruit out of the fridge overnight in very cold weather. We have an inside/outside thermometer permanently fitted to our camper, and on the morning these photos were taken it read 2.9 degrees! Who needs a fridge?

It really is this hard! Note the axe there as well!

One very cold banana - note the frost!

We strongly urge you to lash out on an accurate fridge thermometer as this takes a lot of the guesswork out of running your fridge correctly and thereby avoiding food spoilage. The one shown was made at Maleny in Queensland by Technitherm and cost $15.00 from Kathy's Kitchenware. Oddly we have NEVER seen these in any camping shop. It would be wonderful if Electrolux were to install digital thermometers in the door as standard as some of the opposition 12 volt companies do! Don't forget when running on battery you have ZERO control over the temperature. We find it hovers around just below zero to 5 degrees except on exceptionally hot days inland. The worst we have ever had was 10 degrees with 45 degrees ambient.