Ice Chests---how do you keep your beer iced down out in the sticks?

[twinmill28]

When we're camping and have the trailer fridge loaded with food, I love to have ice cold beers and sodie pop in the cooler to save room in the fridge. Problem is, my cheapie $30 Igloo isn't cutting it anymore in the Florida heat. I've honestly never thought about how inconvenient this is; my ice is melting in less than a day.

I think there's been forum discussion about using high dollar stuff like an ARB fridge/freezer and how awesome that is, but I'm not a raging alcoholic needing to keep my beer that expensively frosty! I looked at a site today that has a danfoss type compressor/dual voltage fridge/freezer unit for around $480, but that still rings too high for me.

After more reading I discovered both the Yeti and the Pelican Ice Chests that are bear proof and if done right, can keep food cold for many days depending on temperature. The larger ones ring in around $300-$350; ok, getting closer to what I consider obtainable, but still out of reach unless I sacrifice part of the mortgage payment.

So my question is for you folks using ice chests or low dollar electric set-ups, what are you doing to keep the beers frosty? I've glanced across something about using dry ice, I've never messed with it, but the advertisement said regular ice chest plastic would become brittle and break---anyone experienced with this stuff?

 

[alrock]

Get a better quality Igloo or Coleman - their "extreme" or five day chests work well. Also use a block of ice whenever feasible for the longest lasting ice and use cubes for the fastest cooling. It can be helpful to freeze food for these trips as that can work (initially) to help keep things cold. I can get 2-3 days out of a block of ice even in AZ heat.

I do use dry ice to transport ice cream and it's very effective at keeping things cold but you would have to keep it away from the beer as it would freeze the beer. It evaporates so it is best used with minimal in/out of the cooler as well as minimal extra space in the cooler that would allow evaporation.

So, on the lower end budget recommendation, get a good cooler, combination of blocks and cubes, and keep the cooler out of the sun.

 

[bebe]

A Marine Cooler with ice, make sure beer is already cold. Works Perfect. Can last 7 days.

We have used dry Ice to maintain our ice supply on big trips. Put dry ice wrapped in paper on top of an ice chest full of ice. As needed, transfer ice from "ice" chest to the "beer cooler" or "food chest".

 

[Zach]

Might be that you're letting the beer sit in there too long. You need to drink it quicker and problem solved. Get another bag of ice when you get the next case.

 

[Steve #1]

Like bebe said, use dry ice to keep your ice cold or you can put it in a slightly insulated container inside your cooler but you will have to make sure things don't freeze. Dry ice can be hard to regulate.

On a side note, for those of you that use co2 to air up your tires, you have instant dry ice on hand. Use a blower nozzle and release the co2 in to a pillow case. In an emergency, stick your beer in the pillow case and you will have a nice cold one in seconds. Just don't get carried away and get left trying to figure out how to fill your tires while you drink that nice cold beer.

 

[Sethmark]

The ARB is worth every penny. It'll keep ice solid in the desert indefinitely.

 

[ABNTROOP]

http://www.airgasdryice.net/pdfs/penguin/packingacooler.pdf I typically place it in the bottom of my cooler with a 1/2-3/4" piece of honeycomb cardboard above it cut to fit the bottom of the cooler snug, then food and regular ice. Drastically slows the melt rate of the ice and keeps me going on long weekends. Too thin of an insulator between the dry and wet ice though, and you'll be chipping your food out of a glacier and probably bustin your knuckles up.

 

[3Hummers]

I use the Yeti and pre-cool the chest with ice before loading the chest and completely filling it, the more ice surface the colder things stay so crushed ice is best for colder beer and pop.

 

[Kurt]

I build a cooler up in layers and usually have a igloo/large ice chest and a small satchel cooler that can hold a 6 pack and some snacks.

I put paper wrapped dry ice on the bottom of the big cooler and layer in ice cubes on top to make a barrier from freezing. Then layer in your drinks. I get a few juice bag drinks to fill in the gabs between bottles which helps to keep the big cooler packed tight. I transfer items from the big cooler to the small cooler if you got people opening and closing it on a regular basis.

Big blocks of ice work well, we use those on the semi truck when crossing the southwest to keep the milk and water cool.

 

[Fish]

On a side note, for those of you that use co2 to air up your tires, you have instant dry ice on hand. Use a blower nozzle and release the co2 in to a pillow case. In an emergency, stick your beer in the pillow case and you will have a nice cold one in seconds.

Hmmm, you may have to explain that one a little more :huh:

 

[Steve #1]

Hmmm, you may have to explain that one a little more :huh:

The fire extinguisher works better because it dumps the CO2 faster but this gives you the idea. Cheaper regulators may freeze up when doing this too but should be fine to chill a beverage.

[video=youtube_share;tLNHDxd6nDc]http://youtu.be/tLNHDxd6nDc[/video]

 

[twinmill28]

Thanks for all the interesting input on this---I've truly never thought about using an actual technique to keep stuff in the ice chest cool for any length of time.
I've always just dumped ice cubes on the bottom, stuff in the middle, and ice on the top. Now looking at it, this was a great way to keep stuff cold for a couple of hours and no more.
Like I said, I've never given this any thought, but it has been a long, inconvienient road I've been on. The first clue I got was on Friday leaving the ice chest in the hot car all day at work. My plan was to pick up ice on the way home--then I got to thinking about how hot the chest would be and how quickly the fresh ice would melt in that thing. Hmmm, wonder if I should have the ice chest at a cooler temp to work better holding the ice.
Now that we have the trailer and it goes with us everywhere that we need to take food, I am no longer so concerned about keeping food fresh for days in an ice chest (this info would have come in REALLY handy back in my pre-trailer road trip days when I carried sandwich fixings along with beverages), but I am still very interested in keeping my drinks cold for longer than 6 hours on a camping trip. I am curious how well the dry ice will work if I layer it up right with cubed ice for the duration of the camping trip.

 

[JGBB04]

only good option for us is the high dollar coolers or a fridge. I got an IdelB mid size (40qt) fridge from http://www.truckfridge.com/ for about $580.

 

[Big2dabank]

I just put my beer in James $580 fridge.

Actually, I have a jockey box that I use for beer and a small foot pump to push it from a slim keg. I hook up the keg (my brothers microbrew so beer is cheap), the beer passes through a series of copper coils in a small igloo with dry ice inside. If dry ice is not available then I use an ice/water/salt mix. The keg stays stay outside the box at ambient temperature and the beer comes out the jocky box nice and cold. Endless supply of cold brew for everyone.