Camping With Dry Ice
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- čas přidán 10. 07. 2012
- This is a follow up to my "where to find dry ice for camping" video. The dry ice held up till 3 1/2 days after we picked up 20lbs of dry ice from a local Safeway supermarket. Also remember that the cooler was stored in the shade from our tent in an average daily hi temperature of 90-100'F and average daily low of 65-70'F. The cooler we used was an igloo 50qt 5-day cooler. We may be trying this experiment again in early September when we go camping again and the average temperatures will be 15'F lower. Hopefully the temperature drop has an effect on the longevity of the dry ice in the cooler.
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I have used dry ice many times over the years, traveling to a remote cabin near the canadian boarder. I typicly always stayed ten days. But always had issues with keeping my food frozen and cold the entire stay. At that time they did not have any of the tight sealing coolers that are on the market today. What I did was put dry ice in my coleman cooler similar to the way you do it. Since heat is not a enemy to dry ice, and air or oxygen is, I placed the cooler in two large heavy duty trash bags. Then squeezed out most of the air and sealed them up. The items in both of my coolers were still froze soild at the end of ten days. This seemed to work very well, I used this method for many trouble free years. I now own a tight sealing cooler, and want to try dry ice in it. Good video, and good ideas bro, I just wanted to share my experiance with you. Dave
thanks for the tips this is great!!!! Any other camping tips would be wonderful!!
If the seal is too tight you could have an explosion because of how much dry ice expands you'll need some kind of way of releasing the pressure, which is why it's often put into cheap styrofoam eskys. The good sealed ones are great for regular ice, but I'd be careful about making sure it is able to release the excess pressure
"Heat is not the enemy of dry ice" ? Uh my dude yeah it is. Dry ice is subject to the laws of thermodynamics like everything else. All you did by removing the air was make it more difficult for heat transfer to occur. You can do the same thing with regular ice.
i will keep this in mind.
Did you open rhe drain plug to release the gas pressure
You are such a smart camper. I'm using this method for my next camping trip. Thank you for posting this video!
I've never used dry ice in my cooler before, so this was super helpful! Thanks :)
Thanks for the tips and info. Yeah planning a 6 day canoe trip in 90 degree heat. What I've done also is in the morning, I would take out the evenings frozen meal and put in a soft sided cooler...by the end of the day it would be soft or thawed. Just keep transfering what you need into something to thaw out. Great video.
honestly this is perfect for my short camping festival trips !!! im so glad I know how to use it now , thanks so much!
I scanned some of the comments quickly so apologies if this has been said. I think you lost a lot of your potential ice preservation by popping all that ice into your 100 degree cooler. Think of the thermal exchange that happened to bring it down to 66 degrees in the 20 minutes it took you to get home. What I do is toss in some “sacrificial ice” the night before to bring down the internal temp of the cooler and the temp of the insulation as low as possible. Then, the day of packing, I toss that out and restart with the fresh stuff. Of course you could do the same with ice packs or frozen water bottles - but you gotta start as cold as possible.
So essentially take the cooler and sit it in a deep freezer? Hmmm 🤔
For all you people in Florida that take a cooler to the grocery store so you meat and milk and ice cream gets home in one piece, although I always forget this is also a good concept to use in your cooler that you put in your car I don't always go straight home so I always have to get a bag of ice from my groceries. But what I seem to never remember to do is to chill out the bag that it's going to go into first haha
I always put my frozen goods into a closed paper bag first, and then a plastic bag, for better resistance to warm winds.
@@chquentincoleman6426 How bout freezing a few used milk jugs with water and putting them in the cooler the night before to lower cooler temp? Don't take out till your home with dry ice and reg ice, then stick them back in freezer for next go round. I have a Yeti 65qt, I always prechill it and make sure that everything that goes in is as cold as possible and have gotten 5 days with just regular ice.
Thanks so much everyone for info on this dry Ice I much appreciate it.
Next weekend, I’m planning to do this (dry ice) for the very first time. Great help thanks.
Thanks a lot man!! We are going camping for 4 days and you definitely answered all of my questions about mixing dry ice with regular ice, etc. Thanks for the help
Thanks for sharing this video, I had been looking into using dry ice for my upcoming trip and this video helped answer a lot of questions. I too am planning on being gone for 5 days, and if I only get three days out of 20 lbs, that'll be fine for what we need. One of the things I've read while researching (take this with a grain of salt, I'm going off of other people's word, and not my own experience) is to fill up the extra air space in the cooler so it lasts longer. Thanks again!
Great job I will defenely will try this my next time camping and I will get back to you thanks for your tips
Interesting -- thanks for your time.
Our family of 4 uses two coolers on our trips. We have a larger one using regular ice, for drinks and refrigerated type items. We have a smaller one with dry ice in it, for the frozen stuff. We've found that sausages, tater tots, etc will last longer and taste better if they remain frozen.
Another big help for us, is keeping water o flavored beverage in a separate beverage cooler. Just stick a bag of ice in the cooler, top off with water, add flavor powder if desired (coolaid, tang, country time lemonade, etc); then dispense as wanted. By keeping it in a container without a lid opening multiple times per day, the ice lasts longer.
I have a huge cooler so I used six and it was good for my week and a half trip and well after
Thank you for the video. I would have never thought about using dry ice. Great video. I'm going to try it.
I have a Kysek Cooler......like a Yeti, big bucks but it's mine for life. One week, is never a problem with even regular ice if properly planned for. Their big, heavy and expensive.....and interior space is more limited due to the thickness of the insulated walls. But like I said, it's a keeper for life and I'll never ever go back to regular cooler again. Thanks for posting!!
Really useful! Thanks for taking the time to make this video
Thank you so much. Your advice has greatly eased my worries! Yay!!
This is perfect were going camping for 3 days so we should be set, Thanks.
Thank you for the information and sharing with us.
Excellent video...very helpful
Jason - I will try the newspaper and cardboard next spring when we go camping again. Thanks for the tips!
Trying it this weekend, thanks!
You don't need a new cooler or insulation on the outside of your cooler. You only need to put a towel over the dry ice and the regular ice. Then put your food on top of the towel. This will make the dry ice last longer and keep the regular ice frozen longer. Don't forget to leave open the drain plug of the cooler, so when the ice eventually melts all the water will drain and your food will still stay dry.
The reason you leave the drain plug open is because dry ice is a SOLID form of CARBON DIOXIDE! It needs to vent.
Instead of a towel, use sheets of Reflectix inside the cooler to protect food from the dry ice and instead of ice, try freezing bottles of Gatorade which has a lower freezing point due to the sodium content. Close the drain, make the cooler airtight, pre freeze everything and pre chill the cooler. Add Reflectix to the outside in the form of a loose gift wrapping type shroud and keep everything in the shade and/or under a space blanket. By doing this I keep food fresh and beverages cold for well over a week.
Very helpful. Thank you
Just what i needed to see , thanks!
Very cool. Didn't think it would stay that cool. I'm doing that next trip.
Thank you for the information, very good. I will be using this info. soon. Good job!
thanks guys!
Great informative vid. Thanks, I'm going to fallow your tips next time I go camping.
Thanks for this. I was considering buying dry ice for my 7-day trip.
Thanks man - that was helpful for sure.
Nice work and thanks for sharing! Never used dry ice. Heading to NC mountains next month so this will serve my group well.
Just got back from a camping trip using this method with dry ice, it worked out great. It was a big group camping trip with my girlfiends family members and i packed my cooler with dry ice at the bottom and regular ice on top and then food and drink items on top of that. It was only a 3 day trip but the closest place to get ice was well over an hour away. All of the other coolers brought had regular ice and were melted or mostly water by the 2nd day (they didn't pre-cool their food). Mine were fine, infact some water bottles actually froze about half way. we could have gone another 2 days easily without ice. The only issue i had was keeping items on the top cold, but rotating them to the bottom seemed to help. Once again, thanks for the tip and the video.
VODZ Good reply and helpful to those interested.
VODZ If you store water bottles in your cooler, freeze them next time before you put them in the cooler. They'll serve as additional refrigerant and when they melt, you'll have water to drink and they won't soak your food. Keeping a few on top will speed the thaw so you'll always have a bottle of unfrozen water ready.
This was an awesome video...WOW Thanks so much for sharing..
This video is helpful. Thank you!
Thanks for sharing! great answered all my questions
Had not heard of that one so just looked it up. Impressive! Putting it on my list. Mile High Campground in Cherokee for a few days. Owned by Cherokee reservation. A white water excursion then off the mtn to Ashville.
Great video!
That fed the two of us, plus a few shared meals with fellow friends that we're also camping. We actually came home with extra food still in the cooler. You could easily pack food for 4 in there for a week if you plan your meals accordingly.
great video man!!! great job
This answered my question about putting regular ice in with it. Thanks
I find using regular ice and dry ice together works best by pre-freezing water bottles.
Great idea, thanks, I'll do that next time.
Very helpful. Thank you.
VERY helpful video, THANK YOU.
Good video. I camp with dry ice too and use a yeti 60. I got 5 days of frozen meat from 75 lbs of dry ice. I also used lake water to make ice for my beer because I didn’t have wet ice after it melted. Camping is camping, you always learn something new or figure something out. Well done.
Seventy five lbs of dry ice!!! No way I could afford that. I use twenty pounds for two coolers in addition to prefreezing water and Gatorade bottles and any food that can be frozen. With some simple hacks I have meat and dairy for a full week in my Igloo BMX25.
Thanks for the video , I have wanted to know how it works and this has been very educational.
Thanks man for your useful video
I like your style!
Thanks for the great video. I will use dry ice next time I'll go camping
Excellent video.
Good job, very informative
I agree with the blanket thing. If we're going to use that cooler again this year we might use our old sleeping bags and swe up a cover for it to make it more effecient.
This is where the new product called Reflectix is ideal. Adds R-Value PLUS it reflects solar radiation.
Great video, answered my questions!
Thank you for the great video !
Thank you for the video... We are going for a 5day trip and worried about the food...Now no worries 😃... Thank you once again....
I mostly weekend warrior camp with my kids, I used to do dry ice, but it was too cold and froze everything. I didn't enjoy having to thaw things while camping and you cant shove a stick into a frozen wiener.
One solution I did was a dry ice cooler aka 'the freezer' and a regular cooler kept cold with frozen water bottles aka 'the fridge'. And then I swapped out bottles of water from the freezer to the fridge as they froze with the dry ice and thawed in the fridge (as the bottles cooled the other items) it worked.
but now I just use frozen 2L milk containers filled with water as I have found there is still a sliver of ice in them by the time the trip is done.
Saves the cost of buying dry ice ;)
Thanks, I’ll try this
Great video
I love this man
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Thank you that was very helpful.
That's right, thanks for addidng this, I completely forgot about this little tip.
What tip?
I had the drain plug closed. Just make sure you don't have anything stacked on the lid of the cooler so it can slowly burp the pressure out from the dry ice / carbon dioxide buildup.
Wrap the cooler in a space blanket, (shinny side out). This will keep radiant heat from going into the cooler. You also can put a cooler inside of a larger cooler. the lower the air temp is around the cooler that has the ice, the longer it will last. The space between the two coolers can also be used to store food that doesn't need refrigeration.
I have used nesting soft coolers for years. As supplies diminish I consolidate groceries and ice to the inner cooler and am able to keep perishables for more than a week. In addition to the space blanket trick, I made loose fitting covers from Reflectix insulation. Getting the cooler up off the ground by the addition of rubber feet is also effective.
Awesome video! Love the fact that you did multiple days in one video. If I had to suggest one thing to try in the future (if you do) is to insulate your cooler with styrofoam insulation board cut to size. Do all sides (top, bottom, 4 sides) and that should give you at least another 2 days - maybe more. Alternatively, you could use one cooler for frozen goods and another for traditionally cooled stuff like butter and yogurt. This way you're not opening the frozen cooler but when you need it. All in all a great video. Loved it!!
@mark_conger that is a terrific idea to build an insulated cabin for the cooler I would assume that in an RV it would also be a good idea to build a insulated cabinet where you would store your cooler...
Nice job!
Good tip.
Thanks it has been very useful
Well Chrazzari,
You may be correct, but all I can ad is that I have been doing this for years and have never had any issues whatsoever. It has always worked very well for me.
once he added ice it voided the whole deal. Ice of which is H20 touching the Dry ice will cause it to breakdown faster.Frozen bottles of H20 not touching the Dry ice will last 5 days in this mohave desert thank you.Done it !!
What about if it had bubble wrap around the dry ice or just the foam board and nothing else touching it ????
i agree used to buy it all the time for my boat. when you put in normal ice the dry stuff is working overtime to keep it frozen. it would be best to have 2 ice boxes or even dont break up the normal ice keep it in the plastic bag.
+molliemollie got to be careful with sealing the dry ice… As it melts/evaporites it expands
Dangerous explosive if your not careful. Do not attempt unless sober
TheHmurveit I did not know that!!
Yes. Make sure " Be stay frozen" . Good job lennie.
thanx sooooo much for this review.. I have been wanting to know how long this ice would last... thank you!!!!!
very intresting video
thanks for your experiment! I've always had good luck freezing a couple juice cartons(60 oz) one with orange juice and others with drinking water. last a long time and when they melt your cooler is still dry and you can drink whats in there.Also keeping your cooler in the shade helps a lot. If camping with kids or heavy beer drinkers a small cooler with drinks/ snacks helps because of how many times it get opened..
For shade, cover your coolers with a space blanket and keep them off the ground. Adding feet works well.
This is really great info to pass along! Thank you so much for taking the time to make this while you were on your vacation. I don't know for sure but an army surplus might have some kind of cooler/freezer? Just a thought. Thanks again!
Nice vid, Man!
Keep your cooler in the shade at all time. Make shade if you don't have any. Makes a big difference when camping for an extended period of time.
great tip thank you!
When you use dry ice shade does not matter,…. What matters is keeping it air tight so that the dry ice does not escape. As long as it is air tight,… you will save the cooling effects of the dry ice
@@OynxBlack Dry ice can not be kept in an airtight container or it will blow up!
And keep it off the ground to eliminate conduction. I added feet to my Igloo BMX25.
thanks for the video,im considering using dry ice to transport ice cream when i drive to pick it up a 100 mile trip during the summer
Wow! Someone who likes ice cream more than me!
+Jeff Martinez, I want to take a moment to thank you for your service to our country. As a veteran myself I understand what it means to sacrifice years of you life in service and want to make sure you know I appreciate that. Thank you sir!... and have a great veteran's day!!
Good and simple explanation like it
I'm super excited to use drybice in my hundred dollar cooler which works amazingly with frozen half gallon jugs.
The "Hot Setup" is to use a combination of both.
I use dry ice and have frozen solid ice cream on day 6 of a canoe trip and using a NON Yeti....$39 dollar Coleman Cooler.
My suggestion to make the ice last longer is to build a box for your cooler and then line it with 4" of polystyrene. You could even make a lid for it as well. So essentially you would have a cooler in a cooler. The polystyrene comes in 8ft x 4ft sections at any building supply store like Home Depot or Lowes. You can get it in 1-1/2" thickness or 2" thickness.
I did that with mattress foam, and put it into a quilt vacuum bag which I keep on an empty freezer shelf.
Try making a soft box out of Reflectix insulation instead of rigid foam. It works great.
Nice 👍. Thanks for the video. We are going camping for 4 days. And was looking into dry ice or I don’t know what’s it’s call. But I am going to go buy some now. Thanks again
Good video. I recently purchased a Engel 123 cooler for a Bahamas boating vacation. I'm hoping if I:
- Precool the cooler the day before with a couple bags of ice
- Wrap three 12x12 dry ice blocks in newspaper
- Place hard frozen two inch thick ice blocks completely atop the dry ice
- Fill cooler completely
That the cooler will remain
On the lower end coolers they are mostly a 2 walled hollow space. If you fill this inner space and the hollow lid with spray in foam insulation it will greatly increase your performance.
2nd insulation enhancement. Make a box that fills your cooler with the home insulation that is bubble wrap with foil exterior and a slide over top. This 1/8 inch thick product gives a R-7 insulation value. This should also help prevent cracking of the plastic from the dry ice cold.
Both products can be found at most home improvement stores. I.E. Lowes & Home Depot.
Cold improvement. Take flat containers or bottles. Fill them With a saturated water and salt solution. Pre-freeze This mix has a frozen temperature of 0 degrees. This is why the Fahrenheit scale starts at 0 with freezing water is at 32. 0 was the coldest temperature where a saturated salt water solution would consistently freeze.
With both water ice and dry ice it is better to use blocks than cubes or pellets. In the larger forms the outer layers insulate the middle. The smaller sized chunks have more surface area. Hence are more exposed and melt more quickly.
Hope this helps.
Bubble wrap with foil (Reflectics) has R value of 0.5. Company lie about it's R value of 7. Now, after debunked, they changed it.
Instead of sacrificing volume, use that "foil bubble wrap" (Reflectix) on the outside where it can reflect solar energy. I basically gift wrapped my cooler with the stuff to make a loose, bottomless shroud which insulates and shades the cooler. I added a single layer in the bottom and double sided taped a piece to wrap around the outer bottom. My BMX25 by Igloo, which costs a third of a Yeti, now outperforms one. Also: Instead of carrying around useless bottles of salt water, freeze Gatorade bottles which does the same thing due to it's sodium content, and you can still drink.
@@AlAl-ji5hc It's 'Relectix' and I use it extensively.
It's Sept 3rd, I'm in Jersey City and Irma may be on the way. During Sandy we lost power for 3 days. If the power goes off this time I'm gonna be surviving (or at least not losing the contents of my freezer) because of your video.
in air freight we cover with poliexpan an euro or american pallet at 1m high and put inside 8-10kg of dry ice and it keep it cool from europ to japan 72h.
There is a video that shows how to use a foil insulation inside an igloo and use salt water and freeze. I have done this and it helps a lot. I do like your video and may try dry ice also.
Nice
With both dry ice and regular ice it works better to have it on top: cold sinks, heat rises. We had an old cooler that had a try for items you wanted to keep dry and that's where we wild put the ice. Also, with regular ice, block will stay frozen longer than cubes.
*had a tray
No need to put the dry ice on top where it gets in the way. It lasts longer on the bottom and has plenty of cold to keep stuff cool all the way to the top. Instead of block ice, freeze 2L water bottles and drink the ice water as it melts. Last's longer than an exposed block.
Get some foam sheet insulation and make a box to put the cooler in put the foil side out. That should help a lot. And of course keep the box in shade.
I appreciate every sub!
I purchased a 45 qt. Pelican cooler, with just regular ice it has a ice retention from 7-10 days. I have only used it a few times, summer in New Orleans in the summer can be quite extreme went it comes to heat. The ice in that chest lasted a easy 7 days, only problem is that these coolers are very heavy empty, so when they are loaded with ice and food, you need 2 people to carry it. The price are not cheap, but this chest will last a lifetime.
legit thanks man
Try using reflective insulation from a home improvement store. Had really good luck with too. The combination might work even better.
very helpful video thank you. After some research on the internet, a company that makes dry ice claims the ice will last 3 1/2 days in a cooler... so I don't think a different cooler will help you; its just the life span of dry ice. I'm going to try regular ice the first night of camping (and carry dry ice in 2nd cooler) then on the 2nd day when my reg ice runs out i'll supplement will dry. I'll have to find a way to keep food away from the dry ice because I ran into the same problems as you. (kept things too cool) but I love how it last 3 days. Thank you once again for the video.
The better the cooler the longer it'll keep food from perishing, because after "3 1/2 days" the dry ice will have melted but your Gatorade bottles will be solid ice for another three days after that.
I just watched a test similar to yours only just ice and soft drinks. In the test the Engle cooler did the best in ice retention for 8 days. Yeti came in second. But not by much. I suspect they both would maintain solid ice thru 10 days.
From my experience, dry ice sublimates about 2 to 3 lbs every 24 hrs. Sometime more based on the altitude. Last week i bought 10 lbs of dry ice and my food in the whole cooler staid frozen for 5 days. I still put all my frozen meats in there but no fridge food because i but the ice on top of my meats still in bag then put a layer of paper bags on top. Then lastly the dry ice on top. Since cool air goes down your meats and ice stay frozen longer.
I put the dry ice in the bottom where I don't have to touch it and then use sheets of Reflectix to create temperature zones within the cooler in addition to pre frozen Gatorade, water and meat. Lasts more than a week.
You have got this down to a science. Thanks for the tips. I never take my ice out of the bags. It stays better and you can refreeze it and move it over top of food etc. cubes all over the place bug me.
Have you considered freezing water bottles?