Dry ice

[Rubicajon]

Hey guys and gals. Looking for your thoughts on using dry ice in our cooler. Were not ready to make the jump into a 12 volt fridge yet. Has anyone tried it. How did it work for you?
How did you deal with off gassing.

 

[Mike G]

I've been thinking the same thing. If you keep the cooler with dry ice in your rig, then you would have to leave the cooler open a bit to vent out the gas and crack open a window so you don't pass out from the co2. Check out YouTube, they have a few videos on it.

Sent from my G3313 using OB Talk mobile app

 

[gandrimp]

I used it on my last trip. I have a 70 qt coleman 7 day cooler, blue and white. I bought 10 lbs put it amongst my bottles of frozen water and I bought ice again on day 7, day 10 still had ice in the frozen water bottles,barely. Next time I will buy 20 lbs. I did nothing special for off gassing.

Sent from my SM-P580 using OB Talk mobile app

 

[Gary Stevens]

I have been using dry ice for a long time. I now have an RTIC 45 cooler and it works great. For this I will use a chunk about the size of two fists. On top of this I load up ice. You really don't need to do much after that other than crack the cooler about every 48 hours. Mike G aboves mentions leaving the cooler open. Never have done that. Have gone 12 hours of driving, and no issues while in the vechile. Not sure about the youtube videos about this, but I say nonsence. I have taken this basic set up to Burning Man seven times for as much as two weeks in the Black Rock desert.

 

[Luis Merlo]

The local fish gear supply store sells dry ice...pre order, 2 days notice...i will try it soon...heard good things, i did recently have a thermal bag made for my cooler and it works well, have to tweak it a bit to get a few more days...until a fridge comes along...cheers

 

[Rubicajon]

Keep us posted on how things work out.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G890A using OB Talk mobile app

 

[000]

I use dry ice in one of my bigger yetis for our longer salmon fishing trips that is remote so we need a supply of good ice towards the end of the trip to keep the fish fresh. I pack one of the coolers full of ice and 10lbs of dry ice. We try not to open the cooler until we need to and haven’t had any issues with the cooler staying closed for several days. I don’t use for food or beer since it ended up freezing beers and popping the tops off of bottles. Dry ice and regular ice adds up if you do a lot of trips though and fridges can be cheaper than you think. I got a scratch and dent edgestar 43qt that I’ve used regularly for the last couple years for $250 from open box direct. They don’t always have them, but it’s a great deal especially with free shipping. I built a dual battery system for about $250 Plus a deep cycle and am very happy having cold and dry food.


Sent from my iPhone using OB Talk

 

[Thenorthremembers]

I've used dry ice in the summer where temperatures are always 100+ and can break 110 easily. Dry ice will keep your cooler cold for at least 4 days perhaps a full week depending on weather. Just beware that stacking fresh food on it will freeze it solid. Try covering with regular ice or something you want to stay frozen.

 

[Mike G]

Just came back from a Mojave Road trip for 3 days and bought 5 lbs of dry ice for my frozen foods. I just used a cheap igloo 28 quart ice chest and I only opened the chest once per day when I was ready to cook dinner. The set up worked great but on the 3rd day, most of the dry ice was gone.

Sent from my SM-T560NU using OB Talk mobile app

 

[Jeepney]

My experience is that it's guaranteed to freeze your food so have another cooler for thawing, so you can have something ready to cook for dinner.

 

[HEYElliott]

I just picked up a Yeti Tundra 45 and was wondering the same sort of questions. The whole exploding can thing leads me away from dry ice especially if im not planning to be gone for more than a few days. The better coolers these days seem to keep ice longer so I don't see a huge benefit to dry ice. If I were the kind of person who was off grid for a month at a time I would probably go the fridge route anyway.

 

[Cort]

I use 5lbs of dry ice with 20lbs of regular ice in my Yeti 70(whatever the 70 size is, might be 74). The dry ice keeps things colder but also keeps you from dealing with soggy food as the regular ice lasts longer.

It’s important to put it in the cooler in a way that you won’t come in contact with it or others that dip their hands into your cooler.

I’ve never had offgassing issues but my head is never right next to the cooler when I open it either and I keep it in the bed of my truck. That’s an interesting one.

 

[LVCoffeeguy]

We have the RTIC 60 and it states that it is safe for dried ice - whatever that means. We always take two bottles of frozen water along with two blocks of dried ice and place this on the bottom of the cooler. We then take some foam insulation that we cut to the size of the cooler and lay it down as a protection for the food above it. Then we take all of our food and drinks and try and get it all to fit. Fill in the rest with cubed ice due to the fact the open air/space is the devil when it comes to coolers. Typically we can easily make it 9-12 days this way and I have Ice Cold water to drink at the end of the trip.

 

[DesertFox]

Does the dry ice create fog when it gets wet from the melting regular ice? It would look cool if you open the cooler to grab a cold one and fog oozes out.

Sent from my HTC U11 using OB Talk mobile app