Dry Ice????

Good morning.

I worked in Aisa for a number of years, and some of the small fishing boats used to cover their block ice, with fine saw dust, and pack it tight around it, i would try it before you leave home, and see if it work's, other than that, take one extra esky with you, full of block ice....Enjoy your trip.

Cheers for now...William H...Bunbury...WA.

Afternoon mate,

Sorry can't help you with the dry ice situation. this is what we do. for a weeks stay somewhere.
We have a 65lt blown plastic esky(Big Chillie) that we use for drinks only. A good fortnight before a trip I freeze down 4 or 5, 4lt ice cream containers if water into blocks. These will last a good week with a top up of bagged ice every second day or so, depending on how often the kids are in and out of it for drinks. This also includes myself for Beers. Although I do enjoy a Jack Daniels with dry, no ice. Hmmm
A trick to make the block ice last longer is to drain the water out a couple times a day. I find that helps.
For our food and perishables we have a ChesCold Frig/Freezer 3 way running on gas that works a treat. Again I freeze it down a week before we leave.
With the dry ice, will Salt help it keep cold?
Sorry I'm not much help.
Enjoy your trip away :-)

Hairy

when we go camping i do like Hairs&Fysh do with the block ice.
i then put it in my converted ice box (made out of a 140 ltr upright freezer) on top of a grill that i made out of square aluminium tube covered by larger mesh with some mouse wire over the top of that.

it keeps the ice up out of the water which drains through the bottom.the grill is about3/4 inch off the bottom.

the water drains through the tube which i curled into a pig tail so as no air gets up into the icebox........it works a treat as my ice lasts for ages,cheers. Image Could Not Be Found

Image Could Not Be Found

Image Could Not Be Found

Image Could Not Be Found

a little off your original topic --- if you want to scare your fellow camp site attendee's / visitors

put some dry ice into a 3/4 filled 1.25 pet bottle and quickly put the lid on and stand well back .... makes a very large bang :)


Boc

P.s not for the kiddies to try

Hairy.

Try cutting down a coolite vegetable box with lid, like the ones the shops receive there broccoli in. Just glue it back together with a pva glue and add some electrical tape. Put this in the bottom of your esky with the dry ice in it. Put your frozen food or ice on top and it will last for ages. Hope this helps.

Rob

Hi Hairy,

The problem with Dry Ice is that you can't use it in your bourbon.

I use block ice which I freeze at home in a couple of suitable sized plastic containers. When placed in the bottom of the ice box, I end up with a four inch layer of solid ice on the bottom. Place the booze (and cool drink) on top any usually top up with a 5kg bag of crushed ice to surround the tinnies.

I reakon the "secret" is having a suitable "esky" to start with.
Mine is an EvaKool Icebox. In fact I have two. A forty litre and a 65 litre.

I get a week or so from the ice in mine, however it is hard to replace with either block ice, or dry ice for that matter, when "out in the sticks". The crushed ice will also last longer in a well insulated ice box.

Bill

Just freeze some water in 3ltr milk bottles . You need one third volume of ice . So if your esky is 90ltrs then you need 10 x 3ltr bottles . The ice will last 4 or 5 days . If you dont use the one third principle then it wont last . I have kept ice for 5 days during summer with this method . I have an evakool esky though and it is superb as i have stated before .

We used dry ice a lot when we lived at Karratha in the eighties. We'd pack eskies and go to the islands off Dampier for a week at a time.

Dry ice works fine to keep stuff frozen. We found it best to separate layers of food with newspaper and used a full newspaper between the dry ice and the food to prevent burning.

One thing to be aware of....don't use an esky or fridge that seals perfectly. The CO2 gas produced when the dry ice warms will build up pressure and pop your esky!

Obviously you have to be really careful handling dry ice but otherwise it has few drawbacks. It will last quite a while if you start with frozen food and try not to open the container too many times. We found 4Kg would be enough to keep the food for a family of 4 frozen for a week.

Back in those days I was also a beer drinker and I used to buy my beer in aluminium cans and freeze them before going away. The ends of the cans would pop out but they never ruptured, and so long as you waited until they had completely thawed before opening, they were fine.

One thing the kids uded to love was to put a small amount of dry ice in a separate esky, put a lot of newspaper over it, put some apples on that and seal the esky for a while. When the apples were nicely chilled we would take them out and when the kids bit into them it was like eating a fizzy apple drink. The CO2 from the dry ice would carbonate the apples!

Chhers

Russ

Hairy,
What you need is a chest freezer a bit bigger than your stock of essentials, and a heap of milk bottles.
A mesh cage to fit inside that will hold the milk bottles stacked from bottom to top on all sides, a bit like isulating the inside.
Then switch on the freezer a week before you go, and then stack the inner space with the essentials a day before so that when you load it everything is dam cold and the outer layer is frozen.
Might need a pound though as it sounds heavy, LOL, might need castors as well.
Could also whack the gennie onto it every few days for a while to top it up!
Sorry we will be unable to get there over easter, would be interested to see how the dry ice works.

Cheers Pesty

I found it to be quite expensive & it came with a warning not to carry it in an esky in the car.

Hairy, a few years ago, I worked at a place that had a big CO2 tank onsite, and we were allowed to "shoot snow" (flaked CO2) out of the sample hose into our eskies for camping trips. It was too much of a good thing- froze everything up (veges, fruit, beer). Also, the CO2 makes your milk go sour.
Most of us went back to using block ice. Remember when ice block vendors used to use dry ice in those big canvas shrouded boxes ? Does anyone else remember having a too-cold ice block stuck to your lower lip and and having to painfully peel it off (with attached skin) ?

Thanks for the replies.....
I think Ill give it a go and see how well it works.....Ill let you know after Easter..


Cheers
Hairy