Going camping this weekend....?

M

Ms. J

New member
and we need to keep the food cold Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.

I'm freezing bags of water right now, so we will have blocks of ice and that melts slower.
We are going to freeze meat patties that we will cook Saturday.

We will fill it up with ice also.
Any great ideas of keeping meat cold for a weekend?
The temperature is in the 90's!
Yes, thought about dry ice, but I can't find anywhere that sells it here!
 
Buy a cooler that has a very good insulation rating. You will typically have to pay a bit more for them.

Don't open the ice chest every 10 minutes. The longer the lid stays shut, the longer the food will stay cold.

Make sure that the food is cold when you load up your ice chest. If it is already cold, then you aren't trying to cool the food down with your ice in the chest, you are only trying to maintain temperature, therefore your ice lasts longer.

Get the blue cooler packs and freeze them in advance. Layer your food and ice packs, keeping the food you need last on the bottom. This way they stay cooler longer.

Keep the ice chest in the shade, under a picnic bench, or anywhere out of the sun and away from heat sources such as the campfire or cooking stove.

I like the idea of keeping your drinks in a separate cooler. Note that Iced water will cool drinks down faster that just straight ice. This is because the air between the ice cubes, which is an insulator, is replaced by liquid water which transfers the colder temperatures quicker.

You can see if Baskin Robbins sells Dry Ice. It can be had if you look around hard enough. You probably won't be able to find it at any of the big retailers though. Just start asking clerks and store managers of the hardware stores, grocery stores, etc if they might know where you can find some dry ice.
 
Not going to help you, but in Alaska we use glacial ice. It's so compact that there is no air in it and it melts much slower. In the lower 48, I've used those blue plastic ice packs and a really decent cooler. They've worked for me for three days and your food isn't sitting in water when the ice melts. Keep the cooler in the shade and keep the drinks in a separate cooler so you're not opening it every 10 minutes.
Have fun.
 
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