From The Cellar
Cellaring food has quite literally changed my life. It has changed how we eat, what we eat, how we store food, and has vastly increased our self sufficiency. Winter eating used to be boring and repetitive. Not anymore.
I grew up with things called ‘cold rooms’, and I still get the odd look when I call mine a ‘cellar’. Cold rooms generally had one vent to let in cold air in the winter, were placed along an unfinished outside basement wall, and weren’t very well insulated if at all. My grandparents kept everything from canned goods, soft drinks, preserves, beer & wine, and my folks used it for canning and storing potatoes. I don’t think any of my other relatives or friends had one, to give an indication of how much these are used around here. When the time came to plan the construction of my own cellar, much reading led me to the construction of two separate cellars: one specifically for wine, and one specifically for root vegetables. So far, I’m the only person here I know that has this setup, and I’m not sure why.
The wine cellar is ultra insulated with polyextruded styrene boards 4″ thick to the foundation, has a triple stud wall [each wall insulated] facing the basement, and is insulated to about R30 in the ceiling to isolate it from the floor above. One of the advantages to our northern climate is that it’s 100% passively cooled – all the cold is supplied by the cool earth under the foundation of the NE corner of our house. That’s right. Zero operation cost. Zero potential failure rate due to loss of power, or freeze up of an AC unit. The annual temperature swing is excellent – between 9C and just under 16C, with daily variations even in the hottest of summer days hardly spanning a couple decimal points of a degree. The relative humidity ranges from 45% in the dead of winter [with the help of a passive humidifier setup] to 75% or so in summer. It serves its purpose well, and can hold roughly 60 cases comfortably – the vast majority allocated to home-made fruit wines.
The root cellar is built differently. Key to its function is ventilation, to prevent rot in vegetables and fruit and expel gasses released by certain foods. I replaced the window in the space with a plywood sandwich of polyextruded styrene boards – 2 3″ ABS vents cut through the sandwich. One at the top for heat escape, built flush on the inside, with wire mesh from an old screen to keep rodents and bugs out. The second 3″ pipe is attached to a length that runs diagonally down the wall to the floor on the opposite side of the room – the cold air return. The difference in locations creates circulation through the space. I’ve got it insulated heavily as per my wine cellar with the exception of the foundation wall, as summer heat penetration is not critical when the root cellar’s empty. With wine, it needs stability all year. Target temperatures for this space are from 1C to 6C, with humidity in the 80%+ range [which will be a challenge here]. This will be my first winter with the root cellar in operation.
Having built these cellars, I was happy to discover as time went by that many food items require the temperature and humidity ranges that these cellars create. Namely cheese, and charcuterie items such as dry cured meats. Aw, shucks.
An interesting lip on the edges