Have a 5 day cooler. How to help the ice stay icy for 5 days!

[thenavyone]

Ok so I have searched around both on here and on google and I'm a bit confused.

My step 1 was to buy a colemans xtreme 5 day coolbox on lots of peoples advice.

Last year I took a party stacker cooler and by freezing items and taking coolbrick things we managed to keep the milk for 3 days. However having read on here, those iceblock thingys are rubbish?

So what do I use instead? Ice cubes? Frozen 2lts of water? Can you freeze cans of brother, will it taste grim? Does salt really help the ice get colder - I don't see how, don't they use salt to MELT ice.

Anyway, as you can see I am confuzzled beyond recognition. I just want my food and some cans to stay cold for 5 days. I do have the option of taking my party stacker cooler and the xtreme cooler thanks to my awesome trolley!

Any tips would be awesome!

[r0cky]

Definitely big blocks of ice, so go with frozen 2 litre bottles, and freeze anything else you can. Minimize opening of the cooler. I've also wrapped mine in blankets and space blankets before now to increase the insulation, especially during the heat of the day.

It doesn't look (at the moment) like the weather is going to be scorching this time, so that will help.

Salt won't help you in this situation, it basically lowers the freezing point of the ice (useful to make ice cream though!).

[ark]

Pretty well covered here :

/index.php?showtopic=160810&hl=cooler&st=0">http://www.efestivals.co.uk/forums/index.php?showtopic=160810&hl=cooler&st=0

[LostRiot]

Salt won't help you in this situation, it basically lowers the freezing point of the ice (useful to make ice cream though!).

[r0cky]

Sorry if this post sounds twattish, but I've heard loads of people say this and its not true. So to stop misinformation this is what happens,

• Salt and water in solution have a freezing point lower than 0C

• Any pure water (i.e. ice) in the solution is no longer stable, and melts

• But this takes energy and this energy comes from the heat supply of the salt solution (along with any beers in contact with said salt solution) this lowers the temperature of both the salt solution and the beers.

• As a lot of energy is needed to change the water from solid to liquid and the change is being forced on the system a lot of energy is taken from the beer, resulting in the rapid heat change.

Edited June 19, 2011 by r0cky

[LostRiot]

Well, the salt helps in the short term to lower the temperature of the surrounding water, but it won't help you in the long-run to keep the box cold over 5-days. Conservation of energy, you can't use it twice.

[thenavyone]

Sorry I must be a bit dim, not only did I not find that really hand thread! But I still don't know if I should put salt in the water to make it stay frozen for longer?

I think it might be best to just freeze cocktails then it's dual purpose!

[posthuman]

Let's step back a moment.

Is it really _so_ important to have a slightly cool drink that you'll go to all of this effort.

Think of all the time (and money) that you've invested in the cooler. The cooler's listed at £50 / £60 online. You could buy about 20 cold beers at Glasto for that money, and not have the hassle of having to stock and then drag this beast of a coolbox around with you.

[LostRiot]

Sorry I must be a bit dim, not only did I not find that really hand thread! But I still don't know if I should put salt in the water to make it stay frozen for longer?

I think it might be best to just freeze cocktails then it's dual purpose!

[artl]

for years we have filled cooler box up with frozen calypos. have always had still frozen stuff on the last day. not much help now [too late] but there are companies who will sell you dry ice [frozen co2] works really well

[tilt]

Let's step back a moment.

Is it really _so_ important to have a slightly cool drink that you'll go to all of this effort.

Think of all the time (and money) that you've invested in the cooler. The cooler's listed at £50 / £60 online. You could buy about 20 cold beers at Glasto for that money, and not have the hassle of having to stock and then drag this beast of a coolbox around with you.

[tilt]

Oh and for the op, I just filled mine with bags of ice last year, even in that heat it was still cold on the Monday.

[stutheblue]

Last year I used bags of frozen ice. Didn't really seem to work well. However it was very hot. Took frozen 500 ml bottles of water to Bearded Theory this year. Everything kept really cold. Followed the tip of a thread on here, did seem to work better, however was nowhere near as hot. I have the Coleman btw.

[redmosquito]

Last year I used bags of frozen ice.

[Karmann]

Let's step back a moment.

Is it really _so_ important to have a slightly cool drink that you'll go to all of this effort.

Think of all the time (and money) that you've invested in the cooler. The cooler's listed at £50 / £60 online. You could buy about 20 cold beers at Glasto for that money, and not have the hassle of having to stock and then drag this beast of a coolbox around with you.

[purplebridget]

hoping to buy a colemans tomorrow...bottles of water in freezer

[thenavyone]

Let's step back a moment.

Is it really _so_ important to have a slightly cool drink that you'll go to all of this effort.

Think of all the time (and money) that you've invested in the cooler. The cooler's listed at £50 / £60 online. You could buy about 20 cold beers at Glasto for that money, and not have the hassle of having to stock and then drag this beast of a coolbox around with you.

[thenavyone]

Salt water freezes at about -20 degrees C. Is your freezer that cold i.e. is it a chest freezer? If it isn't stop now because you won't even be able to freeze it in the first place.

If you think you might be able to freeze salt water then its still not necessarily better, water (or beer, or food) can't drop below 0 degrees C anyway, the salt water cubes will be liquid at that temperature, and that'll mean they won't be as cold for as long, last thing you want is melted cubes. The cool box is unlikely to be able to contain -20 degrees C for long, so if you want your ice to stay as solid for as long as possible go for pure water, if you want it to be as cold as possible go for salt water.

Personally, I'd go for a couple of bags of pure water ice cubes, then a load of freezer packs, they are better at staying frozen than water (anyone who says otherwise is mistaken, I can guarantee you this) but make sure you have quite a lot of them, but mix it up with ice cubes and it should work well at spreading the heat around, but make sure everything is water tight, as the cubes will melt.

Don't freeze anything fizzy, or anything in a can, you can freeze fruit juice, and freeze milk if you need to, make sure everything you can freeze (i.e. food) is frozen when it goes in that'll help massively, and you can defrost as needed.

Just to add, I know nothing about keeping drinks cold but I know an awful lot about the physics/chemistry of ice and snow.

[strudders]

you can also have a bit of fun when freezing your bottles as well...

[ronmanager]

If you have a car, use the frozen water bottles from arrival. Then drive into Shepton Mallet on Saturday Morning. Go to the supermarket there amd buy 3 x 2kg bags of ice for 99p each (and use their toilets on the way out.)

Also, when you arrive back at the festival, you'll be re-parked nearer the outer perimeter, probably in a overflow field nearer the road meaning you get out first on Monday.