I was putting pie dough in fridge and just realized I have no clue as to the appropriate temp to set my fridge.  The temp of 36 degrees was the default temp it set to when I plugged it in. What temp should a fridge be set at?

it needs to stay at or below 40 -- 36 is ok because that would allow for the temperature fluctuation from the door being opened constantly all day but it might cause your eggs & liquids to freeze 

I keep my fridge at 37 to 40 and my freezer at -10 to 0.    When I'm doing chocolate work and opening and closing the freezer-side-door in my indoor side-by-side, I'll move the indoor regular food to my outside standing freezer so I don't get partial defrost by opening and closing and introducing hot chocolate molds 30 or 40 times.  I also have to adjust the wait times for the chocolate to set because it starts taking longer and longer.

I've lost power several times and have had fridge/freezers that quit working or were intermittent.  I now have temperature gauges in both sides of my side-by-side, my outside cake freezer, and purchased temperature gauges for my niece's home where they have several fridges and chest freezers. 

SoCal has power outages due to the excessive heat and I wanted to make sure that the food is safe.  All the teenage kids have been told to NOT open the fridge or freezer if there is a power outage!

This is an inexpensive model, $3, that you can purchase online:

http://www.webstaurantstore.com/taylor-3507-trutemp-2-refrigerator-freezer-dial-thermometer/913RFT2K.html?utm_source=Google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=GoogleShopping&gclid=Cj0KEQjwjrqvBRD6wf2fy-C61PIBEiQAUzKQTtM6cy-hfMHgvV1aZIeLOQcoVyDv8j-YhrNddD7DXbIaAq6i8P8HAQ

apti, you need a generator to tide you over since your power goes out so often -- our power has gone off three times this summer -- no bueno

Thank you, I kind of panicked and lowered the temp setting several degrees because I wasn't sure.  I'm going to set it back to 36

Norcalhiker,  Here I was thinking you knew everything.   No worries, though, I still think you are mighty darn impressive.

K8 -- nah... The main problem was because I was trying to keep my original side-by-side going because it was easier to spend $230 for several repairs than it was to pay $1200 for new one.    Other than the 3 state/part of Mexico power loss in 2011, most of our power losses are a couple of hours. 

The 2011 blackout was a MAJOR eye opener about my personal and family preparedness.  Whoa baby, it was about 98F, cel phones didn't work, and land lines were iffy,  Fortunately, I have training as a first responder and calmed down my immediate neighbors (after I picked up the kids at elementary school).  The traffic was so bad without traffic signals that it took 5-1/2 hours for their parents to drive 25 miles.   People were running out of gas on the freeways.

Everybody involved had to throw away just about everything that was refrigerated or frozen.  Now I keep 3 or 4 gallon containers of frozen water "just in case".  They also work great for ice blocks in igloos. 

The upside of the 2011 blackout was that I was able to take my then 8 year old niece outside at 2 am and show her some constellations and the night sky without any background lights from any cities or homes.  We were outside for about an hour and I told her I hoped that she would never be able to look up into the sky in San Diego again without having some sort of backlight from cities.    Certainly made me appreciate how lucky we are to live in America.

yes we've had our power out for long spells here -- a couple weeks for an ice storm in the 90's then we had straight line winds take the city down for over a week -- but we got a generator when I was on a medicine that prevented me from getting hot -- weird huh-- it could stroke me out so we've only used it a handful of times -- but thankfully i don't take that medicine much anymore -- it's really nice to have that back up though if we need it --