Fridge left open

[DarkMutterings]

Fridge door got left open from sometime in the middle of the night to 6. Under normal circumstances I'd be fairly gung ho about throwing everything out and starting again but given the current situation I'd rather be more selective

First thing? How long til it gets cold again? I've barred everyone from open it and hoping it will get cold again within the day. Does that sound plausible or when will i know if it's broken and won't recool?

Food wise? I'm going with raw meat, milk will need eating today or throwing but veg, drinks, cheese, sauces should be ok at least for a couple of days. What about eggs? What else do I need to chuck out?

Thanks

I'd say it'll mostly be ok after just a few hours at cool overnight room temp...

Once it's re cooled have a good sniff and inspect of everything. Get rid of anything that smells or looks spoiled. Think about cooking and eating or freezing any raw meat, fish etc. Same for milk. Veggies, cheese, sauces and eggs I would expect to be absolutely fine.

Have had mine left open check the plastic milk bottle does it still feel cold if the door was only part open the fridge would be working hard to maintain the set temperature
Eggs will be fine they don’t need to be in the fridge
Milk you will know when it goes off it stinks
Veg doesn’t have to be refrigerated
As for meat the only thing I would be careful with is chicken

Thanks that's good advice

So far I'm not convinced it's recooling (we're overseas so it's been about 5 hours since I found out) which is making me more nervous that the food.

Thanks that's good advice

So far I'm not convinced it's recooling (we're overseas so it's been about 5 hours since I found out) which is making me more nervous that the food.

it should be cool again after about 12-18 hours depending on the volume and type of food in there - half full of mostly lightweight stuff like lettuce = v quick, stuffed to the rafters with dense stuff like cheese and meat tesselated tightly together then could be much longer.

however as pp said, the fridge motor would have been straining to cool at maximum power while the door was open, so could have blown something and be now broken.

if you have a significant amount of ice/cool blocks in the freezer you could put that in the fridge to lower the overall average temperature in there which might help?

The only thing I'd do is cook the meat. This morning Matthew a batch of stew or something but get it cooked. I'd expect everything else to be fine, just sniff as you go!

Great idea

if you have a significant amount of ice/cool blocks in the freezer you could put that in the fridge to lower the overall average temperature in there which might help?

And I'll clear out some of the bulkier items that don't actually need the fridge