Using dry ice in ice chest?

[California Overland]

Wondering if anyone has ever used dry ice in addition to regular ice in their Yeti/Rtic/etc ice chests and what your results were?

Despite the claims made by these ice chest companies, usually after 5 days or so 15lbs of ice has turned to water. Wondering if adding dry ice to the mix would extend the life of the ice overall. Thanks.

 

[Biker Eagle]

I seem to remember that it's not a good idea to have a cooler with dry ice in a confined space. (Gases) But if your cooler were outside and ice was wrapped, it could work. Also, it's hard to find places that sell it. Plain old block ice works well in a Yeti style cooler. It too can be hard to find, block ice that is. Good question though.

 

[MMc]

Good question, not a easy answer. I camp 14 to 21 days unsupported and can Give you a cold drink on the last day, I can put ice in your cocktail for 14 day easy.

First use a chest just for drinks, prechill you drinks, I camp and surf in Baja, I put the drinks going into the chest in sea water to drop the temps. (80 air temp, ocean water 70, ice chest 34. dropping the 10 degrees helps save ice.) By using the chest for drinks you are not putting warm air into the food chest. this chest is used the most and opening it up is melting the ice. If you are NOT driving put as much melt water in the drink chest as possible, water warms slower than air. The 40 degree water will stay at 40 or so. When you open the chest the ambient air will replace the cold air and it will be rechilled when you close the lid. The less the air, the less that has to be rechilled. I will empty the food water into the drink chest when I change out the ice.

Second, use a box inside the chest to keep your ice in. I will start out with frozen h2o bottles in the bottom of the chest and block in the box. I try to keep the food dry. I'll also pre freeze H2O bottles put them with a food also. It's a pain the keep the food from getting waterlogged. I use the frozen H2O bottles for other fresh water uses. It helps to keep a ensolite foam top so add to the insolation.

Third, Ice chest with BLOCK ice and Dry ice. For 14 days I get 40# and fill the chest with blocks, whatever space I have in the chest is filled with proteins (Meats) and frozen H2) bottles. This chest is only open once a day. You pull the next days proteins and ice. keep this closed as much as you can. This chest too gets a ensolite foam pad.

Stuff: Keeping chest in the shade makes a difference! Keeping wet towels over the chest makes a big difference! When the first H2O bottles thaw swap the out for the ones in the dry ice. DO NOT PUT DRY ICE IN YOU FOOD CHEST!!! DRY ICE IS SUPER COOL AND WILL "F" UP ALL YOU VEGIES, AND BLOW UP ANY DRINKS. don't ask how I know this. You will need a icepick. The super chest add about 3 to 4 days, I love Maluna chest they sell direct on line. I get a extra day from their chest.
My guess is you are storing you drinks with you food, you will kill your ice in a hurry that way.
There are Ice houses that sell both blocks and dry ice. (look them up) The first time I saw a 100# block of ice and asked if we could just fill this up? it was pretty funny.

 

[California Overland]

Good question, not a easy answer. I camp 14 to 21 days unsupported and can Give you a cold drink on the last day, I can put ice in your cocktail for 14 day easy.

First use a chest just for drinks, prechill you drinks, I camp and surf in Baja, I put the drinks going into the chest in sea water to drop the temps. (80 air temp, ocean water 70, ice chest 34. dropping the 10 degrees helps save ice.) By using the chest for drinks you are not putting warm air into the food chest. this chest is used the most and opening it up is melting the ice. If you are NOT driving put as much melt water in the drink chest as possible, water warms slower than air. The 40 degree water will stay at 40 or so. When you open the chest the ambient air will replace the cold air and it will be rechilled when you close the lid. The less the air, the less that has to be rechilled. I will empty the food water into the drink chest when I change out the ice.

Second, use a box inside the chest to keep your ice in. I will start out with frozen h2o bottles in the bottom of the chest and block in the box. I try to keep the food dry. I'll also pre freeze H2O bottles put them with a food also. It's a pain the keep the food from getting waterlogged. I use the frozen H2O bottles for other fresh water uses. It helps to keep a ensolite foam top so add to the insolation.

Third, Ice chest with BLOCK ice and Dry ice. For 14 days I get 40# and fill the chest with blocks, whatever space I have in the chest is filled with proteins (Meats) and frozen H2) bottles. This chest is only open once a day. You pull the next days proteins and ice. keep this closed as much as you can. This chest too gets a ensolite foam pad.

Stuff: Keeping chest in the shade makes a difference! Keeping wet towels over the chest makes a big difference! When the first H2O bottles thaw swap the out for the ones in the dry ice. DO NOT PUT DRY ICE IN YOU FOOD CHEST!!! DRY ICE IS SUPER COOL AND WILL "F" UP ALL YOU VEGIES, AND BLOW UP ANY DRINKS. don't ask how I know this. You will need a icepick. The super chest add about 3 to 4 days, I love Maluna chest they sell direct on line. I get a extra day from their chest.
My guess is you are storing you drinks with you food, you will kill your ice in a hurry that way.
There are Ice houses that sell both blocks and dry ice. (look them up) The first time I saw a 100# block of ice and asked if we could just fill this up? it was pretty funny.

Some good info here. Thanks.

Usually with our ice chest we access it twice a day, morning and evening. We are guilty of not putting properly chilled beverages in with the fresh ice, so in the future we'll freeze a few and chill a few before putting them in the ice.

We have thought of putting frozen Crystal Geyser bottles in the bottom, just never done it. We've also thought of making, for a lack of better term, PVC pipe bomb-looking sticks filled with water to freeze, but then when those thaw you're left with water sticks taking up room. The PVC sticks would take up less room than water bottles, but the water bottles would eventually be put to good use once they thaw. I wonder if there's something that could be added to water to make it stay frozen longer, like glycerin or those absorbent baby diaper pellets? Something like that added to water and then put in the PVC might be a good idea... if something like that exists.

Using some foam ensolite in the chest is a good idea. Do you just lay the foam on top of your goodies or do you glue it to the underside of the lid?

We do pre-freeze most meat before leaving, so that has worked well.

I think block ice and dry ice are becoming unicorns. So constructing a box to hold ice might be more feasible. Maybe some metal sheeting bent together to form a rectangular box that acts as a divider and stretches from the bottom of the chest up to the lid and is snug to the front and back walls. Maybe something big enough to hold 10-15lbs of ice that would allow stacking of food on either side of it. That box combined with frozen water bottles might do the trick. Something to consider.

We do keep the ice chest in the truck so during the day it's in an air conditioned environment for the most part.

The only other thing I've thought of is wrapping the ice chest in reflective insulation of some sort. I know Dometic sells a insulator for their fridges, there's gotta be something for ice chests.

 

[Flipper]

Dry Ice is a digital issue, everything is frozen rock hard or nothing. We used to use dry ice on our boat when we would cruise to Bimini and the Bahamas. I would pack the fridge with prefrozen food and dry ice and convert it into a freezer. The food we were going to use that day I would pull out and put it in the ice chest so it would be thawed by dinner. After the dry ice evaporated in a couple days, the fridge that was preset on med- high would take over. It would take several days to thaw the food into a refrigerated status. This added a good week to our food supply. Drawbacks: expensive and hard to find on the road or water. Asset: great for extending food supply on an extended trip.

 

[JayOtheMountains]

What has worked for me is the two-cooler setup. I have successfully gone 21 days and still had ice cubes on the last day. As previously mentioned, one cooler is your dry-ice setup with frozen foods and one is your daily. Minimize visits to both, if you can, and keep your coolers out of direct sunlight or hot places. The one thing to look for in a cooler is that it is in-fact dry ice safe. Some coolers don't vent properly and others will vent too much. Dry ice is Carbon Dioxide and will suffocate you if it's in an enclosed space that is poorly ventilated. Another item of consideration is that dry ice may contain contaminants that make it unsafe for direct contact with foodstuff; so don't put unwrapped food in direct contact with it.

I have a cooler-cooler made of reflective RV insulation that is made into a box to go around my chests. In direct sun it keeps 20 deg cooler than ambient temps. For extreme desert travel I hook up a bucket swamp cooler to the rig and can keep the inside of the cooler-cooler about 50 deg on a 90 deg day. Everything hinges on thermal efficiency. Your mileage may vary (YMMV).

My primary areas of fun are Southern California, Death Valley, Mojave, Aridzona, and Baja. If you're in Idaho you're going to have different results than us desert dwellers. YMMV

 

[Flipper]

What has worked for me is the two-cooler setup. I have successfully gone 21 days and still had ice cubes on the last day. As previously mentioned, one cooler is your dry-ice setup with frozen foods and one is your daily. Minimize visits to both, if you can, and keep your coolers out of direct sunlight or hot places. The one thing to look for in a cooler is that it is in-fact dry ice safe. Some coolers don't vent properly and others will vent too much. Dry ice is Carbon Dioxide and will suffocate you if it's in an enclosed space that is poorly ventilated. Another item of consideration is that dry ice may contain contaminants that make it unsafe for direct contact with foodstuff; so don't put unwrapped food in direct contact with it.

I have a cooler-cooler made of reflective RV insulation that is made into a box to go around my chests. In direct sun it keeps 20 deg cooler than ambient temps. For extreme desert travel I hook up a bucket swamp cooler to the rig and can keep the inside of the cooler-cooler about 50 deg on a 90 deg day. Everything hinges on thermal efficiency. Your mileage may vary (YMMV).

My primary areas of fun are Southern California, Death Valley, Mojave, Aridzona, and Baja. If you're in Idaho you're going to have different results than us desert dwellers. YMMV

Great points of concern and insulation ideas

 

[MMc]

I put the ensolight on the stuff in the cooler, I am trying to minimize the air between the cold stuff and the rest of the chest.
It's really important to keep cold stuff cold and be aware of what things change temperatures faster than others.

 

[RideFlyDiveJeep]

Definitely not a good idea. As CO2 sublimates it gets larger. And your cooler will burp CO2. Enough gets into the cabin you'll pass out. Too much, and it doesn't take a lot, is fatal. Windows down you're probably okay. Also don't turn your cooler into a CO2 grenade by trying to super seal it.

 

[Graeman]

We did a camping trip before I bought the refrigerator and I wanted to try Dry Ice to see how well it would work. Our destination was 4hrs away from home, when we arrived I checked out the coldness of my food. Drinks frozen and exploded due to expansion and those were glass bottles of Mexican coke. Not a good idea to use. Stick with ice and pre-frozen bottles of water.

 

[old_man]

I have had no problem finding dry ice at most Walmarts here. Having two coolers, one for frozen foods using dry ice then moving the daily usage over to a normal cooler works great. I normally freeze a 24 pack of plastic water bottles and never start out with block ice. That way my cooler stays way cleaner and does not get soggy.

 

[MMc]

I don't understand the anti dry ice crowd. It's a tool like anything else. I don't burn charcoal in my tent , but I cook my dinner with it. Dry ice is the cheapest easiest way to get stuff super cold. Will it blow up a carbonated beverage, hell yes! Don't sleep with it in you tent or set it outside your car if you sleep there. Veggies do not do well at -120 degrees. If you want to have ice and fresh meat 14 days plus out, use it. Like with any other tool use it for it is and do so safely.
Most super cooler have a breather valve built in because many of us use dry ice.

 

[Lanlubber In Remembrance]

Wondering if anyone has ever used dry ice in addition to regular ice in their Yeti/Rtic/etc ice chests and what your results were?

Despite the claims made by these ice chest companies, usually after 5 days or so 15lbs of ice has turned to water. Wondering if adding dry ice to the mix would extend the life of the ice overall. Thanks.

Never let dry ice sit in water in an enclosed container. It will expand the gas and blow up like a bomb. If you want to use dry ice, use it without ice. It will need a separator between your items or it will freeze them. Should outlast ice by at least twice as long.

 

[MMc]

By the way, I can get dry ice at most supermarkets. Block ice is a a bit harder to find, the ice houses will have it. YMMV.

 

[HIALT2D]

WOW! This thread has brought back some fond memories...

MMc knows his stuff! Anyone who spends that much time in that environment certainly has figured out what works and what doesn't.

Almost everything he's recommending my Dad learned through trial & error over the years on our 3 week long summer vacations. He learned the "little tricks" to keeping things cold in an ice chest as long as possible. Especially with 4 kids opening them all the time... We grew up camping & motorcycle riding in the desert. When we weren't doing that we were camping & waterskiing on the Colorado river in AZ. The daytime temps would frequently get into the high 110's - low 120's. Back then we didn't have fridges or the new-wave of coolers we have today. It was basically two of the standard issue green Coleman ice chests. One for drinks and one for meat & perishables.

I do seem to remember my Dad wrapping the dry ice in extra layers of newspaper and then covering it with a couple of layers of masking tape, but I don't remember exactly why. It might have been to keep his knucklehead kids from getting frost bite on their finger tips

 

[California Overland]

Lots of good info has been presented here, I'm glad I broached the subject.

In looking at my particular situation, two ice chests just aren't feasible, we just don't have the room. I did buy a larger 65qt insulated chest last year (have yet to use it properly) that holds far, far more than my older 45qt. I think what I'll do to maximize the amount of time we have off grid before needing more ice is to first freeze water bottles. I could probably fit most of a whole flat of the 16oz Crystal Geysers on the bottom of the new chest. Second, I'll experiment with block ice that's held in a thin metal container in the middle of the chest. Third, I will insulate the chest with Reflectix. I'll create a topper that rests on top of the food items as well as either wrapping the ice chest or creating a cover. With all these steps in place, in addition to freezing meats and beverages before hand, hopefully we'll get at least 7-10 days before needing more ice.

Btw, this article here How to keep ice COLD in the desert. - Desert Road Trippin' has some great ideas on maximizing your ice staying cold, including using dry ice. (Since that is what this post started out asking. )

 

[MMc]

WOW! This thread has brought back some fond memories...

MMc knows his stuff! Anyone who spends that much time in that environment certainly has figured out what works and what doesn't.

Almost everything he's recommending my Dad learned through trial & error over the years on our 3 week long summer vacations. He learned the "little tricks" to keeping things cold in an ice chest as long as possible. Especially with 4 kids opening them all the time... We grew up camping & motorcycle riding in the desert. When we weren't doing that we were camping & waterskiing on the Colorado river in AZ. The daytime temps would frequently get into the high 110's - low 120's. Back then we didn't have fridges or the new-wave of coolers we have today. It was basically two of the standard issue green Coleman ice chests. One for drinks and one for meat & perishables.

I do seem to remember my Dad wrapping the dry ice in extra layers of newspaper and then covering it with a couple of layers of masking tape, but I don't remember exactly why. It might have been to keep his knucklehead kids from getting frost bite on their finger tips

When we were at the CO. River in the summer back in the 70's we would bury the ice chest in the sand to help insulate. The newspaper wrap is a breathable insulation.
You should figure out how to intergrate a second chest just for drinks, a 20 QT is great.
FYI if you wrap your Veggie in paper it help keep them fresh longer in the ice chest.

 

[Flipper]

I have had no problem finding dry ice at most Walmarts here. Having two coolers, one for frozen foods using dry ice then moving the daily usage over to a normal cooler works great. I normally freeze a 24 pack of plastic water bottles and never start out with block ice. That way my cooler stays way cleaner and does not get soggy.

Never thought of Walmart, thanks, I will check it out at our local one

 

[mep1811]

I've used dry ice with regular ice in my Yeti coolers with great results.
there's nothing to worry about in terms of the dry ice evaporating and producing gas.