I do the frozen water jug thing also, works great. I use the 1 gallon jugs of water from the store and freeze them, after they melt you can drink them. We did the Green 3 weekends ago and actually made it through without them melting more than maybe a 1/3 of the way at most. I also freeze all my food, if you are cooking pasta put the sauce in a bag and freeze it, I bring precooked chicken for burritos that I freeze, turn your food into ice..
And yes, the Green is cold enough that beer submerged in the river would be plenty cold for anyone to drink..
cook a huge batch of chilli, freeze it all in large ziplocks, and serve over instant rice. chilli=block ice, warming frozen chilli=less kitchen stress...don't put warm beers in cooler.
Good topic
Keeping the ice above your most parishable and below the not so partisables. try some thin flexable reflective type insulation,cut it just bigger than the inside of cooler and set it over the ice inside the cooler. It will move up and down with the changing contents.
True Dry ice is -109 degrees and Emits posionous gas. Don't sleep in a inclosed vehicle w/ dry ice. It's Tricky, think of ice as the refrig and dry ice as the frezer. I'm still experimenting, have had success in keeping bottled ice(replacements for the refrig) and meat frozen way solid for a few (three)days in a small cooler w/ nothin else in it, also crumple newspaper in the frezer to displace the air inside.Cool stuff. However I don't think it's going to last as long as normal ice, under normal use.
Be sure to clean (disinfect) the tops of the beverage cans that you may drag or try not to think about J.I infections. The later has worked for me in the past, but I have'nt dragged in a while.
Another good trick is to buy the square, 2 gallon water jugs and freeze them. It keeps the water off your food and you can drink it after or if it melts.
This is the way I block my ice as well. Agreed, you probably won't need the H2O on a 4 day but at least your tortillas won't turn into pancake dough.
drain the water out of your cooler twice a day. water is above freezing and transfers heat very well. we had a piece of ice at the end of 18 days on the grand with 100+ temps.
After experimenting for several years, I also put a piece of insulation inside the cooler and use only block ice. The other key is to keep a paco or similar pad on top of your cooler. Light colored pads are obviously better than darker ones as far as heat absorption is concerned. The additional insulation it provides is invaluable on long desert trips IMO.
these are great tips! One question about freezing gallon water jugs - do they expand and crack or do you let some water out and then re-close the lid prior to freezing them?
fill it to about an inch below the neck. It'll expand a bit. Any more and the jug will puff out, expand with the ice, become brittle, crack... (all depending on how full/how much expansion). takes a bit more than overnight to freeze.
i also use the foam board (it's about 1/2" thick and has aluminum foil on both sides, you can buy it at most construction/lumber yards). this one thing can increase the life of your ice by quite a bit.
i also have cut a piece of cheapo ensolite (sp?) sleeping pad to fit inside the top of the cooler, sandwiching all the food between the two.
as far as the dry ice thing, my method is to load my block ice the bottom of the cooler and fill as much empty spaces with cubes. then put dry ice on top of the ice and cover with the foam. i do this 6/8 hours or so before i'm going to load the cooler. by then the dry ice wil have disapppeared and will get your ice from about 20 degrees above 0 to 20/30 below. always use gloves to handle the dry ice.
just make sure that when you load the cooler you put things that are frozen on top of the foil/foam board. keep your perishables (lettuce, tomatoes, etc.) near the top to keep them form freezing.
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