Safety of vacuum packed smoked salmon in turned off fridge?
I have a piece of cold smoked salmon, vacuum packed, in my fridge. Unfortunately when leaving the house I turned the fridge off accidentally and left the house for 8 days. The house was unheated and the kitchen is on the north side so is unlikely to have got outside the 4-8C range and the fridge was unopened. I shoved a thermometer in when I discovered and it read below 5.
I'm inclined to think in those conditions it should be OK but I'm not sure. It doesn't look or smell any different than before.
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If the salmon was actually nonperishable (perhaps refrigeration was needed only for quality), you're of course fine. You'll have to try to figure that out from the packaging or maybe the manufacturer.
If the salmon needed refrigeration for safety... the danger zone is temperatures above 40F/4-5C. Even in a warm house, refrigerators generally are insulated well enough to keep a safe temperature for up to ~4 hours. (Really old refrigerators, or ones with a damaged seal around the door may not do as well.) So if the room cooled down fast enough, the refrigerator would never have gotten into the danger zone. On the other hand, if it stayed at 10-20C for most of a day, the fridge may have gotten too warm for a while. You can try to guess at this based on your knowledge of your house and the weather, but it's hard to say from here. If you think the salmon spent several hours over 5C, and it needed refrigeration for safety, it's no longer safe. If not, it's fine. Take your best guess, and when in doubt throw it out.
I would say it is impossible to know, so don't risk it. As you were away for 8 days the fridge could have been above 5 degrees for days then cooled a bit before your return.
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