Fridge thoughts

Unfortunately it sounds good but doesn't work in practice.

There are a couple of problems.
1)A freezer uses about 3 times the power of a fridge. So that battery that would last about 24 - 30 hours with a fridge will last about 8 - 10 hours with that same fridge set as a freezer.

2)That wouldn't be so bad, if you could run the fridge as a freezer while driving, and freeze the ice containers while driving then transfer them across as you say. The problem is that even if you drive 8 hours a day the containers won't have time to freeze. properly. You need at least about 2 days to make good cold ice blocks.

Sorry

Hi odog
I cryovac all my meat an never need to freeze any thing an currently in NT an tge packs of meat lasted 5 to 6 weeks then just top up along the way
Cheers mechpete

I have just completed a 6000 klm trip using two Engels one as fridge and one as freezer and if you need to freeze ice you put it in the bottom of the freezer and rotate each day you shouldn't have a problem when you are on the road . I have two large batteries in the back of my ute to power the Engels and they are kept charged when I am driving .Just make sure you have a good second battery and a means to keep it charged .Graemeb .

Hello Mate.
This is exactly what the wife and i do.
We use our 65 ltr engel fridge freezer as just a freezer and like you said get large ish freezer blocks and rotate the coldest 6 in the morning.
Usually about 6 in the esky and 12 in the freezer rotating as i say in the morning and also take out of freezer what ever you are going to have for dinner...steak fish and it will partially or fully defrost by night.
I just keep milk butter bread ham and nibbles on bottom and freezer blocks on top with night meal on that.
We use a good esky as well but we have done this method for years in extreme temps just keep the esky out of direct sun with towels or such.

Mate..
Bloody hard on batteries unless you are driving every day and who wants to do that??
Buy cryovaced meat or ifn you are going through towns every now and again go to your friendly butcher and buy it fresh..
Some people think that you can't buy good meat more than 100ks from a capital city..
Most of the red meat you buy will be killed in major cities,cryovaced and sent off to butchers and supermarkets..
Danny

I have had a number of friends who do that - Run the engel on freeze and pull out the meat or the preprepared meal and pop it into an esky to keep the other stuff cold.
Works well through the winter. Can't see it doing too well in the heat of Kununurra in May.

We haven't gone that way. We like to decide dinner while sitting back at beer oçlock and like to cryovac the meat, so no real need for a freezer. And a freezer doubles your power consumption.

Friend has done this for years. 18 Litre Engel does the freezing, 80 Litre esky stores vegies and bread and the stuff that needs to stay cool but does not like below 5 Degrees C. Keeping 18 Litres frozen takes a lot less energy and he puts a thermal blanket over it to help.

Mate does not drink much and only has to remember to pop a couple of beers in the freezer at the last stop before camp. Otherwise, a couple of ice cubes in a long Scotch does the trick.

You can pack a weeks tucker in 18 Litres and leave plenty of space for ice and a beer or two.

Iza

We turn our fridge into a freezer when we travel and have a small 15lt fridge inside the ute cabin. We freeze all our food into small bricks in plastic tubs, then take them out of the tub and vac pack then. this makes it easier to pack and keep frozen as well as not having to worry about empty containers. We even vac pack cheese ,salami etc to help keep fresh. We take out the evening meal an place into the fridge inside the ute to defrost. This helps keep the fridge cool, and rarely comes on. Normally we need to place the vac pack on the gamma oven ( bonnet)to finish defrosting while setting up camp. We have never had a problem keeping food frozen in the main fridge (freezer). There is normally enough food packed into the freezer for 6 weeks. We also keep 2 small freezer bricks with us, and rotate one every day. 1in the freezer and 1 in the small fridge.

A bit late on the scene - out of range.

We have two fridges with the smaller 20L used as a fridge. We have camped for three nights and no charging by any means. But we do have three batteries under the bonnet with one for cranking and normal car duties, and two in parallel for all all 4wd stuff, including the two fridges.

Works for us with meals (pre-cooked and uncooked) frozen and transferred to the fridge when needed to defrost.

Phil

Similar to Roachie, we use a 40 litre Engel as a freezer, and a have a 68 litre fibreglass ice box. have done it for years, including one stint of 12 months and have just finished a 2 month trip.

I used to freeze plastic 2 litre milk containers but found that they would end up leaking due to the flexing when freezing/melting. Now use plastic storage containers 2 x 3 litre and 2 x 1.8 litre, one of each rotated daily. Apart from being stronger they have flat tops so we can store on that easier than the top of the milk containers.

The blocks of ice inside the containers are still half to three quarter frozen when taken out of the cooler in the morning.

Often the meat put in the cooler to thaw has to be taken out late afternoon as they are still frozen. I think you need a quality Esky to make it successful.

Paul

Like Mechpete, I cryovac all of our meat and just keep it cool.
Never have needed a freezer.

We have a 40L Engel in the back of the vehicle and a 70L Waeco upright in the van.

Sometimes I take the Everkool Icebox for drinks and sometimes just use the Engel fridge for them.

All the engel owners trying to be evakool owners....... I had to take that cheap shot haha.
Seriously time to rethink your cooling requirements and get a fridge/freezer, and no, an evakool doesn't use twice or three times the power of an engel.
I can tell you as a serious beer drinker that using freezers (even in an evakool) to chill water (or hot beers) flogs the batteries. I would not recommend freezing water unless you are on the road every day in which case, fill your boots. Sitting in camp playing those games, however, is not my idea of fun.
Freeze what you need to freeze, rotate drinks into the fridge in short rotation (I only keep 8 beers cold and the rest in the cupboard. Take one out, put one in, same with soft drink and poppers). Fill the unused portion of the freezer with ice cubes for the rum. Nothing further your honour.

We used to do that before I went and bought a smaller fridge, the coldness of the food assisted the cooling of our drinks too. In fact we used to stop and put a few beers in the freezer about 1/2 hr to 1 hour before we pulled up for the day to make them icey cold.

I bought a smaller 35L Waeco just before we did the Canning in 2012. We also made Ice by using a zip lock bag with water, placed in the freezer, at the end of the days driving put in our Cointreaux in the middle of the Canning - the look on our travelling companions was priceless when they realised we had ice in the middle of nowhere.

cheers

Thank you all, for some great advice, we will put it all to good use. Thanks again. Happy travels.. Owen n Sue

Yes you can freeze water into blocks of ice in any good compressor fridge ........ but the practicality or lack of it is in the detail.

Somebody said that the same fridge used as a freezer will use 3 times the energy it would use as a fridge ....... from my experience it can be a great deal more than that.

A lot of people are running their portable fridges and freezers hotter than is wise and a lot of food kept in eskies is not kept as cold as it should be.

That said it is possible to keep a properly packed and managed esky on ice for 3 days ..... if it's a good esky, with sufficient ice in it, in a cool place and properly managed.

If you are having difficulty freezing ice over night or in 24 hours .... ya freezer is probably not set cold enough ....... to properly surpress the growth of microbes a freezer needs to hold its contents below -10C ..... in practical terms that means the freezer has to be set below -15C .... reccommended is -18C.

A lot of people think their frozen food is safely stored because it is still frozen ...... but unless it is frozen hard and well below -10C it can't be considered properly frozen.

If ya not running ya freezer below -15C, it probably wont make ice overnight and you are running risks with your frozen food.

It was said that it takes 48 hours to make good hard ice ...... that is true ........ hard ice lasts a lot longer ...... but it will need to be in a -18C freezer for 48 hours.
That said ice is still ice (it still works) and most of the party ice and other commercial ice you buy is not properly hard particularly by the time it gets to you.

Many people have barely enough battery storage and recharge capacity to reliably and sustainably support a fridge operated as a fridge ........ if you are to operate a fridge operated as a freezer ..... particularly a freezer that is actively freezing freezing down ...... you need a very solid electrical supply.

The devil is most definitely in the detail.

cheers

I used to do something similar years ago but eventually found it to be APITA. My setup now is two of the newer 38lt Engels, one as a freezer, and the other as a fridge. Works perfectly for me. I also found that the one used as a freezer is not that power hungry, as you open it a lot less than the fridge one.

Hi Odog
We have done this for quite a while. I run my Waeco 60L as a freezer packed with vac sealed and frozen meat etc. We rotate 6 small freezer bottles each morning into a 50L ice box in which we keep 'fridge' stuff. We keep dairy stuff in the small dairy section of the Waeco. Works fine as long as you either have power every camp or carry solar. We carry 2 x 120W panels and all works well.