The question about a fresh turkey and how long to keep it reminded
me of a rinse I've used before. When we lived in a very humid
state, we'd take long vacations. Upon returning home, the house
would have a very musty smell to it, so I got busy and built in an
ozone generator to the two heatpump fan units. I purchased 2
plate-type ozone generators and installed them with dampers and
timers so that they would turn on for 12 hours about 3 days prior
to our return. When we got home, the house would smell great.
That got me pretty well into thinking about ozone.

Here in our new location, one of the purchases I made was for a
small ozone generator, complete with porous stone for creating
ozonated water. On the several occasions I've done fresh turkey
and the many occasions I've worked with fresh chickens, I've made
up a couple quarts of ozone water and have rinsed the birds out
with it, together with a general wash of the ozone water on their
exterior surfaces.

Has anyone seen data or any evidence that this kills microbes that
can cause problems with birds?
--
Nonny

What does it mean when drool runs
out of both sides of a drunken
Congressman's mouth?

The floor is level.

Nonny wrote:
> The question about a fresh turkey and how long to keep it reminded
> me of a rinse I've used before. When we lived in a very humid
> state, we'd take long vacations. Upon returning home, the house
> would have a very musty smell to it, so I got busy and built in an
> ozone generator to the two heatpump fan units. I purchased 2
> plate-type ozone generators and installed them with dampers and
> timers so that they would turn on for 12 hours about 3 days prior
> to our return. When we got home, the house would smell great.
> That got me pretty well into thinking about ozone.
>
> Here in our new location, one of the purchases I made was for a
> small ozone generator, complete with porous stone for creating
> ozonated water. On the several occasions I've done fresh turkey
> and the many occasions I've worked with fresh chickens, I've made
> up a couple quarts of ozone water and have rinsed the birds out
> with it, together with a general wash of the ozone water on their
> exterior surfaces.
>
> Has anyone seen data or any evidence that this kills microbes that
> can cause problems with birds?

O3 is one hell of an oxidizer so it does destroy a lot of germs etc.
NIOSH has ozone as immediately dangerous to life and health with a
limit of 5 ppm. http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/idlh/intridl4.html
I probably picked up more than that fixing things in the old
arcades.

Food never really gets sterilized in the true sense. Well, with the
exception of cooking in a pressure cooker which is basically an
autoclave. Cooking just reduces the number of baddies present to
a number most folks can handle. Noting it does nothing to prions
like those that cause CJD.

I'd say it's better than nothing.

There are a lot of claims out there, just googling it turned up
the usual "live forever" style sites. But even limiting it to
..gov or .edu didn't turn up any real articles past one in 1999
where they just lightly discuss using ozone as a "non heat"
method of sterilization.

The only close one I found was on the FDA site.
http://www.fda.gov/Food/GuidanceComp.../ucm072524.htm

They have a lot of other related articles.



--
DougW

Nonny wrote:
> The question about a fresh turkey and how long to keep it reminded me of
> a rinse I've used before. When we lived in a very humid state, we'd
> take long vacations. Upon returning home, the house would have a very
> musty smell to it, so I got busy and built in an ozone generator to the
> two heatpump fan units. I purchased 2 plate-type ozone generators and
> installed them with dampers and timers so that they would turn on for 12
> hours about 3 days prior to our return. When we got home, the house
> would smell great. That got me pretty well into thinking about ozone.
>
> Here in our new location, one of the purchases I made was for a small
> ozone generator, complete with porous stone for creating ozonated
> water. On the several occasions I've done fresh turkey and the many
> occasions I've worked with fresh chickens, I've made up a couple quarts
> of ozone water and have rinsed the birds out with it, together with a
> general wash of the ozone water on their exterior surfaces.
>
> Has anyone seen data or any evidence that this kills microbes that can
> cause problems with birds?

Can't speak to the issue of birds, but I can say definitely that
ozonated water will kill baddies. I used to work at a cork processing
company that dealt with wine closures and I built a system that we used
to spray ozonated water on the corks. The system was intended to
increase the moisture content of the closures and at the same time kill
bacteria on the cork at the point of bagging for shipment to the winery.
A proprietary system, we received kudos from the customers for the low
level of creepys on our cork.
As for the issue of chickens, I cannot say that there is anything in the
ozonated water that would be undesirable in contact with food, but the
ozone is very corrosive to anything except stainless steel. The last
point is that we found that in order to be truly effective, the ozone
concentration had to be high enough that you could smell it. It smells
"tinny" or metallic to me. What that level was escapes me, as the techs
at QC would make measurements and give approval.

Dave T.