Is firm ice cream possible in a vintage fridge?

[ken]

I never knew the evap coils were changed to the exposed, angled design for 55 in the GE and that the earlier models werent the same. Ive always thought of them as a drawback of my 55 Combination. IMO it really cuts down on the available height to store tall items on the top shelf. And if anything happens to touch them it will act like a wick and cause water to run down it and drip off. Seems they took a step backward with this design considering earlier models coils werent exposed. I wonder if consumers complained about them at the time?

In comparison my 54 Frigidaire has them mounted flat at the top of the compartment and I believe covered by a plate. My 55 Philco has the coils mounted vertical on the upper back wall of the compartment and are covered by a plate.

The Frigidaire and Philco make it possible to use all the available height between the top shelf and "ceiling" for tall items. GE engineers had to realize the drawback of the new design at the time.

 

[norgeway]

In any event!

Im going to get rid of my new fridge one of these days, I hate it!!

 

[combo52]

Freezers

Still the BEST way to keep frozen food at home long term is a chest freezer, 2nd best way is an upright Frost Free freezer, manual defrost up-rights are OK, but they tend to have warm areas in the top shelf and upper door areas.

For durability again you can not beat a chest freezer, a FF up-right is three times more likely to break down compared to an upright manual defrost freezer and at least 5 times more likely to fail than a chest freezer.

Having a fan in a freezer probably outweighs the disadvantages, foods stay at much more even temperatures, freeze faster etc. The drying effect of the fan forced air is negligible to nonexistent if you have foods properly warped.

The best way to measure a freezers temperature is to either insert a probe type thermometer into the middle of something like a box of ice cream or keep a cup of cooking oil in the freezer and insert or keep a thermometer in it. A glass of water in the refrigerator section with a thermometer in it is also the best way to keep an accurate check of the refrigerators performance.

A single door manual defrost refrigerator with an exposed box type evaporator CAN NOT maintain an even zero degree food temperature without freezing most of the food in the rest of the refrigerator, yes you can make some delicious frozen deserts in the aluminum ice-cube trays if they are set directly on the evaporator. The instructions for making these frozen deserts always instructed you to turn the cold control to the coldest setting while doing so, and to reset the control to the regular setting as soon as you were done so as to not freeze all your fresh food.

 

[norgeway]

RE GE single door!

A good friend of mine in Lenoir NC still has a similar GE as yours, It was bought in 49, has ran all these years without one single repair, and get this, it still has the same light bulb in it...get anything today to be that dependable!LOL

 

[whirlaway]

Chest Freezers

I agree with John,I would luv to find a small 1930s chest freezer to place beside my fridge.I dont recall seeing any in my 1930s magazines,air-conditioners yes,freezers not! Anyone seen any? I do like that round-one from the 40s,its so cool looking.I know they had frozen foods!

 

[norgeway]

RE Chest Freezer..

You dont see any from the 30s, because from what I have heard, that round Deepfreeze was the first small home freezer!

 

[philr]

According to this ad, Frigidaire had a home freezer in 1929. 

 

 

[whirlaway]

WoW

Looks like the old ice-cream parlor freezer.I need to look around!Thanks! For the imput! Great AD! Bobby