Nastiest Fridge in History.

[Gadjobrinus]

OK, that's an exaggeration. But a fridge I inherited from a co-worker of my wife's, is really nasty. The freezing compartment is overriden with green and a host of other mold species, smell knocks you out; the refrigerator compartment is not as bad on this type of mold, but other nasties I'm not familiar with by visual morphology are everywhere. I discovered what had to be 3 x 24 year old carrots sitting in their plastic bag, swimming in a black soup of nasty, in the right vegetable "crisper." Greasy glass shelving, butter smeared on the butter bin. Etc.

Never look a gift horse in the eye and all that, but if it's this nasty on the outside surfaces, I'm not too sanguine the guts are not equally contaminated. I've always had clean fridges to work with, lucky, I guess. Is there a way to truly clean this, or is this just better off receiving the coup de grace and curbed?

 

[Boomer]

I don’t think I’d send it to the curb before I took it to the local car wash and really hosed it down good, then brought it home and hit it with a ton of sanitizer and put some activated charcoal inside of it for a few weeks. I’ve seen miracles worked on old freezers/fridges.

 

[Pappers_]

I agree with @Boomer - you can clean out a fridge, lots of PBW and elbow grease. The question of whether you want to do it is a different one, but you can definitely make it clean.

 

[S-Met]

Cleanable for certain. Oxyclean, bleach ammonia, peroxide, baking soda. Not all at once though. Make sure it still works before putting any effort into it though.

Best thing after a gross cleaning, assuming that it does still chill, take it outside, pop off or prop open the doors and give it a days worth of direct sun.

 

[Boomer]

I’m not going to get into the details of what was inside of one of my freezers one summer when it went out (and we didn’t know it for about a month).

Cleaned up just fine and we’re using it today.

 

[Gadjobrinus]

OK, seems pretty obvious I'm just being a ninny. Will give it a shot - didn't even think of the car wash, thanks Boomer. And thanks everyone. Right now, my first batch is in a sanke in our kitchen fridge, crashed and ready for transfer to the brite...which is a sanke with ball locks, and it, too, is staying in the kitchen unit until this is dealt with. Needless to say, I'm this close to sleeping with Murphy, our lab.

 

[GoeHaarden]

bleach ammonia

Umm yeah, don't do this...

 

[beerlover77]

If a chicken decomposed inside the freezer and the juice got everywhere and it smells like dead bodys... you will never get the smell out. If it's just mould then it should come clean

 

[Boomer]

If a chicken decomposed inside the freezer and the juice got everywhere and it smells like dead bodys... you will never get the smell out. If it's just mould then it should come clean

Incorrect. You can ALWAYS get the smell out. I have a far more grotesque story and ours is fine, now.

 

[beerlover77]

Incorrect. You can ALWAYS get the smell out. I have a far more grotesque story and ours is fine, now.

Please share you story! I had a freezer that went dead once for 6 month... full. It had a nice mixture of rotton turkeys, chickens, roast beef, ground beef, pork and there was a 1ft soup in the bottom. After much effort it got recycled

 

[Boomer]

Let’s just say I had various baits and lures for trapping in there and it was FULL. When I finally opened it, it blew the door open and gushed out into the garage. It went out in July. Everything that could dropped and oozed everywhere into a giant conglomerate mess of unmentionables. It was absolutely abhorrent.

I had to rent a Hotsy to pressure wash the inside of my garage. After that, I started on the freezer. Trip to the car wash to spray it down and hit it with the brush, diluted bleach back at home, and then a paste made with baking soda. Scrub the ever living piss out of it with the baking soda paste and let it sit for a few days. Hose it out really well one more time and then let it sit open in the sun for a few days. After that, take some activated charcoal and wrap it in dryer sheets with a rubber band holding it closed and throw a few (I used 10-12) of those “grenades” in there and let it sit for another few weeks.

Once I finished all of that, I hit it with some Star-San in a spray bottle everywhere I could reach to get some peace of mind.

We’ve had it plugged in and running for 7-8 months now, smells fine, no off flavors in the food, etc.

Like I said, I wouldn’t get rid of it before I’d tried everything (unless I found a comparable one on Craigslist for less than I thought my time was worth!)

 

[bpgreen]

How old is it?

Depending on the age, it might be cheaper to buy a new fridge when you consider electricity cost.

 

[S-Met]

@Boomer, almost my method. I wouldn't have thought to take it to a carwash, but depending, might be too much to lift.

Sometimes I use tsp and oxy and bakingsoda when its really nasty, took cat-piss smell off of cement with that paste.

But nothing worked as good as a day in the hot sun.

 

[nobadays]

A paper bag with the top rolled down and filled with charcoal bricketts will absorb most if not all residue odor after a good cleaning. Be sure to check the evaporation pan often affixed to the top of the compressor. ... that got me once after a hurricane (in Texas). If there is no evaporation pan there, there will be one somewhere in the lower part of the fridge. Often forgotten and always nasty!

 

[Boomer]

A paper bag with the top rolled down and filled with charcoal bricketts will absorb most if not all residue odor after a good cleaning. Be sure to check the evaporation pan often affixed to the top of the compressor. ... that got me once after a hurricane (in Texas). If there is no evaporation pan there, there will be one somewhere in the lower part of the fridge. Often forgotten and always nasty!

Very good point about the evaporation pan. Find this and clean it!

As for the charcoal, this advice is spot on. I just use an activated charcoal product that is granular. It’s important to make sure it’s activated, I’m not sure why, could just be marketing jargon. Regardless, this granular version is really inexpensive and lasts a long time. I’ve even used it in a similar fashion, except with coffee filters rather than dryer sheets, to scrub down a dog that got hit by a skunk. The stuff works really well and should definitely be tried before throwing away anything solely for odor reasons.

 

[kh54s10]

I would also look for any seams in the liner. If any slime got through a seam and into the insulation you can clean to your hearts content and you will still have problems.

But I would give all the cleaning ideas a shot.

 

[Metalchef1]

Do people really use oxyclean to clean brewing stuff? Doesn't it have perfume ingredients and all of that in it?
If you go to Amazon you can get 99% pure sodium percarbonate which is the active ingredient in oxyclean and arm & hammer without all the filler. And it's usually cheaper as well...
And my research has shown me that bleach cleans surface mold but does not attack the roots. Apparently hydrogen peroxide (which you get when you dissolve sodium percarbonate in water) attacks the roots as well and provides a better "clean"...
Just my 2 cents...

 

[divrack]

Let’s just say I had various baits and lures for trapping in there and it was FULL. When I finally opened it, it blew the door open and gushed out into the garage. It went out in July. Everything that could dropped and oozed everywhere into a giant conglomerate mess of unmentionables. It was absolutely abhorrent.

I had to rent a Hotsy to pressure wash the inside of my garage. After that, I started on the freezer. Trip to the car wash to spray it down and hit it with the brush, diluted bleach back at home, and then a paste made with baking soda. Scrub the ever living piss out of it with the baking soda paste and let it sit for a few days. Hose it out really well one more time and then let it sit open in the sun for a few days. After that, take some activated charcoal and wrap it in dryer sheets with a rubber band holding it closed and throw a few (I used 10-12) of those “grenades” in there and let it sit for another few weeks.

Once I finished all of that, I hit it with some Star-San in a spray bottle everywhere I could reach to get some peace of mind.

We’ve had it plugged in and running for 7-8 months now, smells fine, no off flavors in the food, etc.

Like I said, I wouldn’t get rid of it before I’d tried everything (unless I found a comparable one on Craigslist for less than I thought my time was worth!)

 

[divrack]

Oops..
I meant to say, you should have bottled that and let it age .. Might have ended up as a tasty sour...
OK I might be pushing my obsession here.

 

[Scout]

I brought home an upright freezer that had been unplugged with food in it for several months. Not a lot of food, but enough to make the inside disgusting. I cleaned up the nastiness, hosed it out, scrubbed it, everything to get it back to usable. Then I plugged it in and it wouldn't get cold. The moisture rusted a refrigerant line and the freon leaked out.
I later got a $50 kegerator that hadn't been plugged in in about six years. It was moldy and smelly inside, with a keg and cans of Miller lite. The first thing I did was plug it in, and when it didn't get cold, it got scrapped.

 

[Boomer]

Oops..
I meant to say, you should have bottled that and let it age .. Might have ended up as a tasty sour...
OK I might be pushing my obsession here.

I almost did; but, not for drinking. It would have been some amazing call lure.

 

[Jayjay1976]

If I were in your shoes I would scrub it as everyone suggests, then get a few cans of that flexible seal spray sealant and go to town on the interior sealing up every crack, crevice, etc. to seal the compartment as well as possible against air seeping back in from the insulation and hidden recesses where mold spores are surely lurking. This is only for beer now, right? I'd even go as far as cutting out shelf supports, etc, to get the entire interior as flat, smooth and featureless as possible before sealing it up so that it will be easy to clean if you have spills in the future, leaving nowhere for mold to hide.

 

[kh54s10]

Do people really use oxyclean to clean brewing stuff? Doesn't it have perfume ingredients and all of that in it?
If you go to Amazon you can get 99% pure sodium percarbonate which is the active ingredient in oxyclean and arm & hammer without all the filler. And it's usually cheaper as well...
And my research has shown me that bleach cleans surface mold but does not attack the roots. Apparently hydrogen peroxide (which you get when you dissolve sodium percarbonate in water) attacks the roots as well and provides a better "clean"...
Just my 2 cents...

Yes people do really use Oxyclean to clean their brewing stuff. There are versions of Oxyclean and generic brands that don't have perfume in them.

I have been using them for almost 8 years. What I have now is sodium percarbonate and sodium chloride. No perfumes.

 

[Gadjobrinus]

Sorry guys, for some reason I'm not getting notifications of new posts and only happened to see them by clicking the "my replies" button. But thanks for all your thoughts.

OK, I admit it, I wimped out and bought a used Amana in great condition for $75. Part of it is that right now, lol, the keg is in our kitchen fridge and I've tapped all good will of those creatures I live with who just don't have their priorities right. So suffice it to say, it will be nice to move the keg to the Amana outside, hook the small Lasco heater and inkbird up to it, and I can come back inside to sleep at night.

And that gives me some flexibility of time to now focus on His Nastiness, using your many ideas. Which of course means I've now doubled the cellar flow rate.

 

[Jayjay1976]

Hey check this out, a mold-killing fogger; it needs a minimum of 100 cubic feet, up to 6,000 cubic feet, so maybe do your whole garage with the fridge wide open and set up on blocks. I dunno if it leaves a toxic residue like pesticides but it does say it's designed for use in schools and hospitals, so it must be safe? It also mentions appliances in the description.

https://shop.biocidelabs.com/Mold-Bomb-Fogger-Mold-Bomb-can.htm

Looks like you can get it for ~$30 shipped from amazon
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B079C2X1C8/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20

If I did my brewing in a basement I might fog the area annually just to wipe the slate clean to avoid exposing my precious beer to potential infection. I wonder how my wife would feel about mold-bombing our kitchen, as that's where I brew?

 

[Metalchef1]

Yes people do really use Oxyclean to clean their brewing stuff. There are versions of Oxyclean and generic brands that don't have perfume in them.

I have been using them for almost 8 years. What I have now is sodium percarbonate and sodium chloride. No perfumes.

Right on... Didn't know they had it without all the garbage in it? I pay just over $2 per pound for the percarbonate on amazon
.... Are the other ones any cheaper?

 

[kh54s10]

Right on... Didn't know they had it without all the garbage in it? I pay just over $2 per pound for the percarbonate on amazon
.... Are the other ones any cheaper?

Maybe close, but you can get it right away. A few dollars at Dollar General for their generic 2.5 pound tub
$8 for a 3 pound tub of Oxyclean Versatile. I would have to look at the label to see if it is the perfume free variety.