Thread: Ice for coolers

I always freeze water bottles to take with us. You're going to need water anyway so there you go...Freeze as many as your freezer allows space for then drink when they thaw. It probably won't last the whole trip but it will get you through a couple of days anyway.

Here are a few tricks I figured out over the years that work well for us and help keep ice chest cold longer. We usually camp for 7 - 10 days at a time.

1)Separate food and drinks into different coolers. The one with the food will be opened far less often than the one with the drinks. You can always combine and down size as you use up your food & drink supplies. We have even utilized a third ice chest just for ice to be used for drinks. This further reduces the number of time the other ice chests were opened.

2)Frozen meats in the bottom of your food cooler will go a long way to keeping everything cold a long while. Pack your ice chest according to what you plan on cooking each day. Meats to be used later in the week go on the bottom, while meats to be used in the first day or two go on top. I have had meat stay frozen up to 4 days using this method.

3)Spend the money to buy really good ice chests to begin with. They may cost you more initially, but the savings you will have by buying less ice will eventually make up and surpass the price difference. Plus a good ice chest will give you many years of service. For 10 years now, we have used a coleman steel cooler for our meats. It was an expensive initial purchase, but I have had ice stay good with very little melt for as long as 5 days - and that was without adding any additional ice.

4)Keep the uyour ice chests in a shaded area. I know this sounds simple, but it is a fact that I have seen many people ignore or over look. Under a tree or the picnic table usually works well. We have even placed them in a "spare" tent that we set up to put extra gear in.

Of course, WHAT you put in your ice chests, as well as how often you open them, greatly impact the length the ice will stay ice.

I hope that some of you may find these tips helpful.

Happy Camping!

Cheyenne

Thanks for the welcome, srds! I am very happy that I found this website.

One caution I would like to include for anyone utilizing the salting the ice method srds mentioned.

:2cents: Remember to be mindful of WHERE you drain off the water (or dump the left over ice) when you have added salt, as salt can kill the grass and other plants. The higher the concentration of salt used, the higher the probability of killing the greenery in the area where the water (or ice) is dumped.

I wouldn't want anyone to use this method, then go home and dump out their ice chest in the yard without thinking, only to end up with a big brown spot of dead grass a week or two later and wonder why. :eek:

Happy Camping,
Cheyenne