Keeping Ice

[LostArra]

After all the pizzing contests over what cooler is best I'm presenting a list (and plagiarizing some) that I've accumulated for keeping beer cold, Alaskan fish frozen on airlines and elk meat cold on the road from Wyoming to Oklahoma. Please add your own methods to the list. Packing our coolers smarter is probably as important as what cooler you buy.

1. Pre-chill your cooler before adding anything. This is just common sense why we take ice in the cooler before adding meat.

2. Use frozen salt water or ice extender. I used to freeze gallon jugs of frozen salt water for years and it would actually freeze other foods in the cooler so I knew it was a good thing. You can google this and see physicists debate the issue but it works. I then started using an Ice Extender out of curiosity and found it works a little better.

Amazon.com : KoolerGel The Ice Extender By TBK Industries LLC : Cooler Accessories : Sports & Outdoors
1?ie=UTF8&qid=1533683757&sr=8-1&keywords=ice+extender

3. Pre-chill your beer or meat if possible. My state is going to now allow cold full strength beer to be sold to the public so this will help. Our liquor laws haven't changed much since the 21st amendment was ratified in 1933!

4. Fill your cooler as much as possible with ice. No dead space. More ice, less air which is warmer.

5. More ice, less beer. Get another ice chest if necessary but having a larger percentage of ice relative to beer/meat volume works best. Fill it to the top.

6. Get space under your cooler for air flow.

7. Use large blocks of ice like frozen gallon jugs vs ice cubes. Bigger ice, less air.

8. Draining melted ice. I usually don't. Head scratcher for me when elk quarters are involved. 34 degree water is better than having more air space but it just depends on how you feel about submerged meat. It doesn't bother me too much since there isn't much melting in a day or two.

9. When the ice chest is riding in the truck bed we keep a wet towel strapped to the top.

Add any ideas you have for keeping cold stuff cold.

 

[Davebuech]

All good stuff LostArra, thank you

I dont do salt water in my jugs in case I need drinking water, but agree it does freeze colder and last longer.

I might add to your list

Wrap/cover it with a blanket or sleeping bag and keep it in the shade whenever possible.

Dont open it! I keep one cooler chock full of frozen jugs and ice. This cooler doesn't get opened unless there is meat to chill. Ice will last wayyyy longer than most people get to hunt. Use a smaller/separate cooler for drinks/food whatever.

 

[Mattt]

Agree.packem full, get them off the truck bed and I like to cover mine with gear. Harder to check but makes a huge difference in the amount of ice I have to buy. I take the ice bags and lay them on top of the ice in the cooler. Seems to help too especially if sun is on the cooler. Dry ice to me is the biggest. From Wyoming to East Tennessee in September I will still have some dry ice in a cheap Coleman if I packed them full and covered them

 

[KSP277]

Has anybody ever froze sawdust and water? Into blocks or in gallon freezer bags. Seems like The myth buster guys made a boat out of it once and the dang thing just wouldn’t melt.

It’d have to be in some kind of container to keep the melt off of whatever is in the cooler. I saw that several years ago and always wondered if it’d work for a cooler.

 

[Jimbob]

Sleeping bag over the cooler, old sleeping bag IN the cooler to fill all the air space at the top.

 

[N2TRKYS]

It doesn't take much ice to keep my unpunched tag cool. However, you will need to drain the water to keep it from getting too soggy. Lol

 

[LostArra]

It doesn't take much ice to keep my unpunched tag cool. However, you will need to drain the water to keep it from getting too soggy. Lol

I've found that cold beverages are even more critical when served with tag soup.

 

[Fatcamp]

Freeze a couple inches of ice in bottom of cooler before loading.

Deep freeze is way colder than the refrigerator.

Precool everything.

Carry a spare cooler full of ice. Bust up frozen milk jugs and completely fill a spare cooler. Tape shut. Cover in blankets. Not sure how long it will keep, but a damn long time.

 

[camping1601]

Use a second smaller cooler for drinks. In the morning when things are already cold, fill the small cooler with drinks and some ice from the main cooler. This way your not opening the main cooler everytime you want a beer and you can fit more ice in the main cooler.

 

[H2PVon]

So lets say I leave on a Thursday from home. Start hunting Saturday. I have Coleman Xtremes loaded with frozen gallons of water. Will they last until the following Saturday?

 

[Scoony]

Two years ago, we picked up the processed and frozen elk from the processor packed into a few cardboard boxes. The meat processor folks provided instructions that we followed and it worked. We got some dry ice from the local grocery store and placed it on top of the frozen meat in the cardboard boxes and sealed up the seams with tape. Placed the boxes in the back of the truck covered in coats, blankets and sleeping bags. 30 hour drive back to my home in KY, the meat was still frozen and still had some dry ice. We opened up the boxes, divided up the meat, repackaged/resealed the remainder for the additional 9 hour drive back to PA. Trick with dry ice is to seal it up as best you can.

A few weeks ago, I drove to southern Florida to pick up some stuff the daughter had left from selling a house down there. There were some small items that needed to remain frozen for the trip back. Used the dry ice trick in a small cooler. It froze a few other items that I put in there and the dry ice lasted the 2 day drive back home.

 

[steelheadmike]

So lets say I leave on a Thursday from home. Start hunting Saturday. I have Coleman Xtremes loaded with frozen gallons of water. Will they last until the following Saturday?

How frozen do you want them when you're done?

Thats asking alot from an Extreme. You're trying to get 10 days from a 5 day cooler. It would depend on your weather conditions and where its stored. You'd need to pack it full of frozen bottles and then pack ice around it, tape it shut, and bring some blankets to put over it. Depending on where you were at, you'd probably have mostly frozen jugs left.

 

[LostArra]

How frozen do you want them when you're done?

Thats asking alot from an Extreme. You're trying to get 10 days from a 5 day cooler. It would depend on your weather conditions and where its stored. You'd need to pack it full of frozen bottles and then pack ice around it, tape it shut, and bring some blankets to put over it. Depending on where you were at, you'd probably have mostly frozen jugs left.

10 days is a stretch from any cooler. If the week of hunting was in cool or cold weather then it ups your odds.

Good advice from steelheadmike.

Keep it in the shade if possible. Under the open tailgate can work if you trust your neighbors.

 

[pods8 (Rugged Stitching)]

I run two 120qt, I purchase 10lb blocks of ice before hand and toss them into my deep freezer which is set around -20F to -15F which I suspect is colder than the coolers at the store thus I cool the thermal mass down even more (which means more heat transfer before they even start melting), I load all the ice into one cooler to limit air space and until the meat shows up its more efficient to just keep the one cooler chilled.

"X day" cooler depends on how much ice it starts with. Fill a cooler full of ice and it'll go longer than "X" days. With jugs the downfall of loading extra in is that they don't shrink as they melt. With frozen blocks they shrink down so if you show up 5 days later you'll drain the water and likely not have to toss any ice out to make room for the meat yet still have ice. If you show up day 1 you might have to toss out some ice (or move it to another cooler) to make room but at that point things are looking good as you have a punched tag.

Generally speaking I want ice available when I show up to get the meat cooling, if I have enough to last days more awesome but if I need to make an ice run after my tag is punched for some reason its not the end of the world. Realistically I haven't needed to do that in Oct temps an initial 120qt cooler full of block ice that eventually gets split to two coolers and loaded with an elk has always had ice left for at least a week.

 

[H2PVon]

How frozen do you want them when you're done?

Thats asking alot from an Extreme. You're trying to get 10 days from a 5 day cooler. It would depend on your weather conditions and where its stored. You'd need to pack it full of frozen bottles and then pack ice around it, tape it shut, and bring some blankets to put over it. Depending on where you were at, you'd probably have mostly frozen jugs left.

10 days is a stretch from any cooler. If the week of hunting was in cool or cold weather then it ups your odds.

Good advice from steelheadmike.

Keep it in the shade if possible. Under the open tailgate can work if you trust your neighbors.

Looking at 'enough to keep meat in and not spoiled if I happen to shoot an elk on Tuesday so I don't have to leave and get ice' cool. Not necessarily frozen.

 

[Fatcamp]

We took a Coleman to Wyoming like I detailed above which was still full of ice on day nine. Actually, that one was frozen bottles with freezer ice packed around it. Temps started with a high in the 80's, ended with lows in the 20's. Pack it full, tape, cover, and don't open.

 

[Trial153]

Lots of good tips. One thing for me....no soggy meat. I always keep it out of the water.

I have rectangular tubs that bought to be cooler specific. I freeze them then stack them in each cooler. Way better then milk jugs as they stack and are neater leaving less dead air space. Meat get laid right on top of them, keeps it cold and dry.

 

[LostArra]

Lots of good tips. One thing for me....no soggy meat. I always keep it out of the water.

I have rectangular tubs that bought to be cooler specific. I freeze them then stack them in each cooler. Way better then milk jugs as they stack and are neater leaving less dead air space. Meat get laid right on top of them, keeps it cold and dry.

I like that the tub idea. Thanks