Fisher Paykel E522BRX 17.6 Cu. Ft. Bottom Freezer Stainless Steel Review
$1,849.00
Fridge Temperature
The Fisher & Paykel E522BRX 's temperature remained very consistent over time, but suffered from increased warmth in temperature the lower you go. The middle of the fridge managed to keep food at about 37 degrees Fahrenheit, the ideal temperature for food storage. The top of the fridge ran about two degrees colder, and the bottom ran about two degrees warmer, meaning the air is warming up as it falls. While this isn't perfect, you can make accommodations by storing food that's more perishable at the top of the fridge, with more durable items like Jello and juice, at the bottom
Freezer Temperature
The freezer also remained very consistent over time, providing nearly perfect freezing temperatures throughout the entire compartment. When the internal defrost cycle kicked in, the temperatures did manage to go up a few degrees, but never enough to effect the quality of the frozen food stored there. Aside from the defrosting periods, temperatures never fluctuated more than a degree, meaning your food should be well preserved and kept safe from developing freezer burn.
Vegetable Drawer
The crisper drawers on the Fisher & Paykel have a rather unusual design. Many standard fridges have two drawers, independent of each other, than can be opened or closed individually. This fridge, however, has two nonidentical buckets that sit in a single pull-out tray the entire width of the fridge. This means every time you want to get into one, you have to get into both, though both still manage to have individual humidity controls. While this rolling tray allows for easy access and even easier cleaning, it doesn't result in fantastic moisture retention. The Fisher & Paykel's crisper drawers lost about 0.21 grams of moisture per hour, an average amount for many mid-level fridges. If your dietary emphasis is on fresh fruits and vegetables, this fridge isn't going to be friendly on bulk purchases. If you eat your produce not long after you buy it, though, it should still be relatively fresh and crisp.
Power Loss
Food was still frozen after the 36 hour testing period where we unplug the appliance. The cold air was more than adequately contained, keeping the food inside secure for hopefully much longer than it would take for your local power company to fix any sort of outage.
Freezing Performance
Our temperature sensors are inserted into artificial food that is kept at room temperature, then inserted into the freezer compartment. Were we using actual food such as raw meat, the goal for the appliance would be to bring it down to freezing as soon as possible in order to lock in and preserve the greatest amount of freshness and nutritional value. The Fisher & Paykel E522BRX managed to bring our items to freezing after only 1 hour and 6 minutes - a fantastically short amount of time! It may not be flash freezing technology, but this unit dropped the temperature so quickly that your food should taste fantastic when thawed...as long as it was in good condition when you froze it in the first place. The icing on this frozen cake is the presence of the "super chill" - this setting makes your freezer extra cold for 12 hours when activated, resulting in even faster freezing. The users manual recommends this for freezing larger amounts of food, perfect for when you shop for meat at the wholesale store.
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