FireLion wrote:What about dry ice wrapped in newspaper? No water drainage. Since heat rises, and cold sinks, dry ice placed on TOP of the food stuff should keep it very cold for a few days. Caution, always keep the dry ice wrapped in newspaper!!! DO NOT touch it with bare skin!
The problem with dry ice is that the equilibrium temperature is almost -110DegF. That's cold enought to turn most foodstuffs that contains most common household liquids (water) suck as hamburger, milk, and beer imto a material you can drive nails into concrete with.
For a true freezing ice box, mix ice with rocksalt and use the property of solution freezing point depression, or use a low temperature blue ice solutions in a small superinsulated freezer.
I made (or rathere appropiated) a freezer cooler from a styrafoam shipping container for blood plasma. It has a form fitting lid and is covered with reflective bubble wrap. I jammed the whole thing into a plastic milk carton and made a latch to keep the lid secure. It works great---when filled with a 7 ponds bag of crushed ice and a cup of rock salt, I have kept a gallon of ice cream frozen for 36 hours. ---Note double wrap the ice gream---else you end up with slushy salty ice cream.
I usually carry three coolers---a superinsulated storage cooler (Coleman 36 quart extreme--it may not last 5 days but it will last four) in the galley, a smaller beer cooler (I drink dark, and according to friends warm, beer), and the freezer. Sometimes I'll add a fourth collapsible coo;er that I use to ferry foodstuffs, beer, and ice from the store to the campsite.
Rap
Kentucky Pool Made a Fool out of me.
Instead of Tennessee River it looks like I'm headed to the deep blue sea.
JHartford