Dry ice in ice boxs

Submitted: Thursday, Jun 24, 2004 at 22:59
ThreadID: 14107 Views:4794 Replies:5 FollowUps:4
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Folks,

Before we went tripping I asked about dry ice in ice boxes and I thought I shoud tell you what happened.

Had a 52 litre box with 40mm walls or there abouts. lined the bottom with a fruit box of foam about 25mm eaxtra. Topped it with 20 kg of dry ice and stomped it down with a rubber mallet. We then put in the frozen goods and seeded it with some more dry ice in the gaps.

It only lasted 5 days and could hardly be seen to be worth it. The frozen goods were well frozen but the evaporation rate with the ice at -76 degrees was too great for the extra we needed. There was condensation on the outside of the box so it meant that was colder than the surrounding area. That was only above the height of the foam inside.

We swithced the frozen stuff to the Engel on freeze and used the ice box with party ice for 5 days fo chilling after that. That got us across the desert anyway.
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Reply By: Member - Rohan K - Friday, Jun 25, 2004 at 10:02

Friday, Jun 25, 2004 at 10:02
John, dry ice is best used in a block. Breaking it up makes it little better than party ice - just colder.
AnswerID: 65014

Reply By: Nudenut - Friday, Jun 25, 2004 at 12:47

Friday, Jun 25, 2004 at 12:47
Dry ice can not be expected to be a long term freezing medium

I use the engel (in my case a copy trailblaza) as freezer which can be used to freeze 2 x 2 litre plastic containers and swap them between the esky to keep day to day perishables...works a treat
AnswerID: 65036

Follow Up By: Member - JohnR (Vic) - Friday, Jun 25, 2004 at 16:30

Friday, Jun 25, 2004 at 16:30
Nudie, good suggestion. With the continual refreezing the 2 litre containers it may tend to tax the systems a bit. We had thought a little about that.

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Follow Up By: Nudenut - Friday, Jun 25, 2004 at 16:40

Friday, Jun 25, 2004 at 16:40
if your moving you wont suffer any problems...a short drive .half an hour should be enogh to top up 2nd battery
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Reply By: Magnus - Friday, Jun 25, 2004 at 17:40

Friday, Jun 25, 2004 at 17:40
John,

Just for fun I did an Advanced Google search on the words USING DRY ICE. There are 2900 plus responses and just a quick look showed there was some really good stuff in there.

Worth a look before you write off the useage of dry ice.

Cheers

Magnus
AnswerID: 65086

Follow Up By: Member - JohnR (Vic) - Friday, Jun 25, 2004 at 19:48

Friday, Jun 25, 2004 at 19:48
Magnus,

have done some of the same and sought advice from others who had used it previously. I used some of the tecniques that are represented that really only give a little more insulation, eg, paper or cardboard round it or over it, something to absorb any moisture. There is some absolutely cr** info and questioning there too, on the net I mean.

Longer term there is probably little option but a smaller freezer rather than a worry about it much again except if I could get replacement easily along the way. We actually used greater than 20% (near 30%) of the volume and all we did was freeze the goods well.

I think I was expecting that it would last longer but perhaps the insulation was not thick enough.
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Reply By: Jeff (Beddo) - Friday, Jun 25, 2004 at 18:06

Friday, Jun 25, 2004 at 18:06
I too found that dry ice did not last long - what we did was use ice in 2L plastic milk bottles - but we would throw in a few blocks of dry ice to freeze everything down - this made the ice last days longer - we were getting 6 days out of the ice in our evacool esky. Then ya borrow your mates Engel to refreeze the bottles or make sure your near a town again.
AnswerID: 65089

Reply By: Swerv - Friday, Jun 25, 2004 at 21:03

Friday, Jun 25, 2004 at 21:03
Hi folks

On the subject of dry ice. I have just returned from a trip to Rainbow Beach. Seeing as though I don't have a fridge, I decided to use a block of Dry Ice that was intended to be last eight days. It cost about forty dollars. The guy who sold it to me was very helpful and I followed his advice. Here's what to do.

Put a layer of party ice in the bottom of the esky.
Leave the dry ice wrapped up in the newspaper that it comes in.
Place a wet tea towel over the dry ice.
Cover the dry ice in some more party ice.
Sprinkle a handful of ordinary salt over the top of it all.

This has a sealing effect on the whole lot. The gas from the dry ice blends with the party ice and keeps everything as a solid block for as long as the dry ice lasts. In my case I still had frozen snags at the end of eight days.

Worked like a charm for me. Now if your wondering what I was doing eating snags on a great beach. The answer is I didn't catch any fish. Such is life.

Regards Merv.
AnswerID: 65129

Follow Up By: Member - JohnR (Vic) - Saturday, Jun 26, 2004 at 00:23

Saturday, Jun 26, 2004 at 00:23
Interesting Post Merve, thank you.

I paid $2 a kilo for the dry ice. I wonder if you know what you paid for yours? I guess you had a lower heat gain to evaporate the block than we did which helped you. The thing about ice or dry ice is the space it takes up in the box and the weight of it all and whether it makes all the product wet too.

I am sorry you had to eat snags though..............
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