Refined Refrigeration

At the annual Kitchen and Bath Industry Show in Orlando, Florida, in April, manufacturers displayed ever more ways to differentiate your kitchen and bath from your neighbors' and, in the process, spend lots of money.

For example, for about $55,000 you can get the deluxe freestanding Diva de Provence custom-made 8-burner, mauve-colored range. Scaling back, for only $5,860 you can get Whitehaus Collection's frosted-glass dual sinktop that seems to float against your bathroom wall (it's actually supported by three small chrome-plated brackets and the chrome-plated waste pipes for each sink). This price also includes two wall-hung mirrors, each with its own adjustable magnifying mirror to use when shaving or applying make-up, and techno-styled, chrome-plated faucets. There is no medicine cabinet or drawer storage, but for an additional $895 you can get two freestanding maple boxes to put on the floor under the sink to hold your pills, toiletries and hair dryer.

If you want drawer and cabinet storage in your bathroom and opt for a standard vanity base, you can still one-up the Jones with a Mineral Art Foundry sink made of semi-precious gemstone dust mixed with an acrylic binder. Some of the choices include turquoise, lapis, amber, malachite and "white buffalo" (a personal favorite); the cost is about $2,700 per sink.

Going from the extravagant and extraordinary to the experimental, Dacor, an upscale kitchen equipment manufacturer, is now developing a "cooling drawer." Similar in size to the lower drawer of a 30-inch range, the cooling drawer has no noisy or cumbersome compressor and can be installed anywhere in the house. If you're tired of walking that extra 30 feet for a drink while you watch the Superbowl, this could be your ticket. But, given its small size, a more useful place for the cooler drawer is the bathroom. Diabetics can use it for insulin storage and anyone who wears make-up can keep cosmetics in it to slow down their deterioration, Sarasota, Florida, pharmacist Cheryl Bubil said. Unbeknownst to most consumers, she explained, cosmetics, including eye-makeup, foundation, powder, blush and lipstick, deteriorate and eventually become contaminated with bacteria and microorganisms. They should be thrown out and replaced every six months, though most women do not do this. The refrigeration unit could be even more useful for people who purchase the increasingly popular hypo-allergenic, preservative-freecosmetics because they are even more unstable and should be replaced even more often -- Bubil would do this every 30 days.

Dacor's cooler drawer will be available next year; the expected price will be about $1,500.

Moving on to what is available in the here and now, the new federal standards for energy efficiency in refrigerators -- as of July 1, they must use 30 percent less energy than they did last year -- has led many manufacturers to overhaul their entire design of this appliance. The wonders of digital technology and microprocessors and the acuity of designers have produced refinements that would appear to make life easier while saving energy.

I looked at three 36-inch wide, side by side models, manufactured by Maytag, GE and Kenmore. Each one has a freezer-door water dispenser that can accommodate large containers and sports bottles as well as regular sized glasses, a device in the refrigerator for easy storage of tall bottles so you don't have to remove the contents of an entire shelf before you can adjust it, and several lights in the refrigerator compartment so that you can find things more easily when it is full.

Here's where they differed:

Maytag's "Wide by Side:" Instead of the usual side by side configuration with a narrow freezer and a wider refrigerator unit, but neither wide enough for the occasional large purchase such as a holiday ice cream cake, 15-pound turkey, deli tray, or outsized watermelon, both halves of the unit have both wider and narrower shelves. The wider refrigerator is at the top, the wider freezer at the bottom.

Two of the three drawers in the refrigerator have a "Climate Zone Technology" feature with preset temperature and humidity control for citrus (38 degrees), produce (34 degrees), and normal (the same temperature as the rest of the refrigerator compartment). The top drawer can also be used for meat (31 degrees); the bottom drawer has a humidity control only. The price for a unit with white doors is $1,899.

GE Profile Artica:A digital thermostat for both the freezer and refrigerator compartment allows you to set the temperature precisely. If you want ice in a hurry, the "quick ice" feature boosts production by 40 percent. The electric sensors in the freezer compartment are claimed to reduce the length and frequencyof the defrosting cycle and eliminate freezer burn as well as the formation of those annoying ice crystals on ice cream.

One of the refrigerator drawers has a "custom cool" feature. This includes "express chill" which eliminates the risk of forgetting that you put a bottle in the freezer, and it later explodes. The same drawer can also be put into "express thaw" mode to thaw a piece of meat as large as three pounds (but you have to plan ahead; defrosting 3 pounds takes 12 hours). When the meat is defrosted, the drawer automatically resets itself to 30 degrees. "Select temperature", also in the same drawer, is similar to Maytag's Climate Zone, but differs in the details. The preset temperature for citrus is 43 degrees, produce is 34 degrees, and meat is 30 degrees.

The fresh produce drawer has a replaceable filter that absorbs the ethylene gas emitted by some produce that can accelerate deterioration. The suggested retail price for a unit with white doors is $1,699.

Kenmore Elite:This unit also has digital thermostats for both the refrigerator and the freezer. The "acceler ice" feature in the freezer produces ice 50 percent faster than the normal cycle. The ice collects in a large, easily removable clear plastic container that is mounted in the door; moving it to the door has increased the freezer storage capacity by about ten percent.

The "grocery saver" feature in the refrigerator quickly lowers the temperature of newly introduced food (either leftovers from dinner or recent purchases) to keep them fresher longer.

The produce drawer has an adjustable humidity control. A separate meat/produce drawer has an adjustable control that will increase humidity when vegetables are in it or lower the temperature when meat is stored there.

The suggested retail price for a unit with white doors is $1,899.

The features in these three refrigerators look nifty, but how useful are they? Will humidity and temperature control or some other thing in fact reduce spoilage and possibly the number of trips you make to the grocery store each week? As for produce, Sharon Franke, of the Good Housekeeping Institute, explained that different types of produce spoil for different reasons; to prevent this you need a variety of strategies and one or even two crisper drawers can't do everything. Lettuce and leafy greens need higher humidity and a lower temperature. Citrus fruits need a higher temperature. Vegetables with skins such as carrots and cucumbers, and strawberries, which can get moldy, need low humidity and a low temperature. Apples do emit ethylene gas, and should be stored separately, if possible. Overall, the best strategy for storing produce is not to store it very long.

Of the produce-saving features offered by these three manufacturers, Franke tested Maytag's Climate Zone, which was introduced last year, and she found that the steady temperature for the meat and produce drawers did make a difference, though she had initially been skeptical.

What is makes meat spoil, and how should it be stored? Bacterial growth causes the spoilage. This process stops when the meat is frozen, so you should try to store it in a refrigerator compartment with a temperature near freezing, and 31 degrees is ideal, Franke said. The actual number of days that the meat will stay fresh in a refrigerator is hard to estimate because a lot depends on the age of the meat when you purchase it, and what the meat is subjected to before you get home and put it into your refrigerator. Even driving around for an hour doing other errands before you get home can enhance its deterioration.

How about freezer burn? Franke said the main culprit here is air -- if the cellophane covering on a meat package has holes or a self-sealing plastic bag wasn't closed properly or still has air in it, the food will be affected. To prevent freezer burn, she recommended putting food in self-sealing plastic bags, which are specifically intended for freezer storage, or covering food with heavy-duty aluminum foil. The length of the defrosting cycle can also have some effect of some food items. If it's on too long, there can be temperature sways and ice cream, which is a liquid or bread, which is soft and has air in it can be affected. In theory a shorter and less frequent defrost cycle should reduce this problem. As to whether a specific design can eliminate freezer burn, Franke said, "you have to use the appliance and see."

Back