Longtime camper here. Cover your cooler with a heavy blanket. An old tattered comforter is good. When you get into the cooler, please don't remove the blanket. Instead, open the lid under it, and get out what you want. This lets in less hot air into the cooler. another thing that you can do is get the blanket wet. " Evaporative cooling.". Happy camping.
Another tip I've learned: Add 1/4 cup table salt to 2 quarts water & shake to dissolve (use old juice bottles, & use enough to line the bottom of your cooler). Freeze these 24-48 hrs. before use. Pour your ice over the sealed frozen bottles. It will extend your ice for 1-3 more days. You can refreeze these bottles for future use. Also, adding cushion foam to fill the air space (as your ice melts) will slow down the ice melt.
I learned a tip from Randy Newberg. When doing your pre-chill at home use old milk jugs or soda bottles cleaned out and filled with water as your block ice. It’s reusable, has a lot of mass, if you used gallon water jugs it’s drinking water as well.
I learned from Randy Newman... If you've got troubles, I've got 'em too There isn't anything I wouldn't do for you We stick together and can see it through Cause you've got a friend in me You've got a friend in me
RIver outfitters often use reflectix as an inner cover over the top of food and ice inside the cooler so it is the first thing you see upon opening. This holds the cold air in when opening the cooler and also can be used as a sunshade when opening during the day. Never let the sun shine inside your cooler. Also, wet burlap over the outside of the cooler will assist in evaporative cooling and works wonders. And covering the cooler during the day with sleeping mats will help to insulate it. And then there is the idea of freezing bottles of water and using those as your ice. I use gallon and 1/2 gallon bottles for this and they melt slowly and keep the cooler dry.
I have a cheap cooler, covered with reflectix and blankets..tried the reflectix inside as well it makes no diff..if it's 75⁰ or higher my ice doesn't last more than 24 hours..I keep my food in a bin and dbl wrapped in silicone bags so it doesn't get soaked..I keep my cold water til I get new ice..20 bucks+ a week is nutz..for frozen water🤬🤬🤬 keep drinks in a cooler bag but it's even worse...
40 years ago, in our river running days in the hot American Southwest, we could do a 7 day river trip and arrive at takeout the last day with a bit of ice left! We did everything you talked about plus a few more. Precooled cooler with crushed ice. Precooled all food. Our own ice blocks in 2 Tupperware containers. No loose ice. Frozen food as much as possible. Precooked some food. Only opened cooler twice for lunch: food out, food in. Visualized food we were getting out before opening cooler. Always kept cooler out of sun except when on river. For breakfast and dinner kept cooler opening to a minimum. Only one person accessed cooler; the cooler captain! Wrapped cooler w/2 insulate pads, then covered w/space blanket & bungee cord. Reusable ice pouches on top. I liked your tip of wet towel.
We tent camp regularly for a week at a time, we’ve been doing this for over 30 years and have learned a few things that work well for us… The main thing is that we have a large family with a lot of kids, so we use two coolers. The first cooler is used as a “deep freezer” of sorts, and is for foods that absolutely need to stay completely frozen as long as possible, for safety reasons like keeping all our meat items frozen long term, for some of the perishable lunch & breakfast food things that are planned for eating later towards the last half of the trip so they also need to stay frozen long term, and a lot of extra frozen water bottles (instead of ice). This cooler is “stop sign red” lol, it’s kept in the coolest shade possible with blankets under/over it, and everyone knows that nobody is allowed to touch it except mom or dad. We do our best to only open this one rarely, if it’s absolutely needed, and we check in with others to see if anything else is going to be needed from it for the rest of the day so that we only open it once for all… we try to plan what we are taking out before we even open it (so we can be quick about it), and usually the goal is to take out things that will refill the “regular” cooler. The regular cooler is more like a fridge than a freezer, and this is one that everyone can access as needed-but we do ask them to make sure of 3 things: clean hands only, be quick about it, and make sure you close the lid all the way (little kids think this rule is amusing, but it works: “always sit on it to double check” 😆). This fridge cooler has frozen water bottles at the bottom, then I layer stacking shelf organizer bins to keep things easy to move around in bulk (you can pick up two bins to reach the bin at the bottom, pick up one bin to reach the bin in the middle, etc). We try to combine matching items in bins, for example sliced sandwich options all in the same bin, with deli meats in one gallon ziplock and cheeses in another gallon ziplock, mayo, mustard, sliced pickles all in the same bin. I also try to separate produce from meats as far as possible so if I have the deli meats etc on the left side, the produce bins will be on the right side, and the dairy/other things will be in the middle. I pre-bag individual servings of snacks like grapes, carrot sticks paired with individual serving of ranch, etc. so the kids can just easily grab a snack bag and go. I also pay attention to the layers in the sense of, things that need to stay coldest and can be wet (without getting soggy) should be closest to the frozen water bottles at the bottom. Things that need to try to stay dry and don’t necessarily need to be “cold” can be towards the top of the cooler, like breads. We don’t bring anything that has a paper carton type package because it will just fall apart in the shuffle of the wet cooler and get soggy bits of paper all over everything. I add a bunch of frozen as well as just pre-refrigerated juice pouches all around the sides, middle, and top, for some added coldness. When we notice this one is starting to not feel quite as cold as we like (usually around end of day 2 or beginning of day 3), we move some more frozen things over from the deep freezer cooler…. and then we keep doing that as needed for the duration of the trip. We usually somehow end up bringing home things that are still very frozen lol. 🙌🏻
The most important thing I've learned; heat rises, cold sinks down. Dont set your cooler on a hot surface, like concrete or asphalt. The heat goes up into the bottom of the cooler. I bring a 1 1/2 inch thick piece of rigid foam insulation, foil faced, to set the cooler on. Doesnt take much room and really extends ice melt time.
The best thing we did was to precook and freeze most of our meals. My dad always froze gallon milk jugs and used them as his block ice. He was a master ice chest packer!
Great suggestion on pre-cooking and freezing meals. Somebody taught us that early in our journey, and we attribute that moment to being one of the major game changers in our camping experience. It just gets you off on the right foot, saves a bunch of space in your cooler, adds extra insulation. And at the time we found our camp meals were better with it. Today we’ve kind of changed our style a bit and do a lot more home style cooking out at camp. But even with our big camp meals, we still do some pre-cooking. We had another person mention the gallon milk jugs earlier. And they said the gallon milk jugs actually pack better than block ice. Essentially the shape of it fits better in the freezer with the items. I have always been an awful chest packer. I strive to be like your father. One day, one day. I must admit though I’m way better than I was five years ago.
By the way, I’m starting to notice a trend on the channel. It looks like we have a lot of nurses in the community. Makes me think nurses as a group are some adventurous people. Everybody always thinks I learned my outdoor skills from my father. However, most of them came from my mother, who is a nurse and then the rest was filled in by my grandpa and grandma. You kind of struck a chord with the comment about your father. I love how camping brings up those nostalgic feelings. I’m always brought back to those moments with my grandpa and grandma with their Stanley cooking equipment and their little well organized picnic baskets.
My dad froze his cleaned trout in milk cartons and they doubled as ice and dinner. We had the old wooden, sawdust and tin lined Coleman cooler. Ice lasted days in that thing.
I just spent 5 days in the desert. I was not camping in one single place. After loading my coolers in the back of my pickup I used my chair as a way to create an air space and used a heavy canvas tarp to cover the entire coolers and chairs. I had my ice last the entire trip. I used containers like milk jugs for my ice in my food cooler and the loose ice and block ice in my drink cooler. Really appreciate the tips for future trips.
This is a GREAT video. I live in Texas and just throw stuff randomly in a cooler. I've learned a lot and thought I knew everything there was to know. I was WRONG.
My number one tip is salt. While having some air as insulation for veggies to prevent freezing is preferred; meats, drinks and frozen foods will benefit more from a really cold brine. Liquid water can fill in all of the gaps and takes up less space than frozen water. At the same time, a brine solution is much denser and resists changes in temperature even better than fresh water. Finally, a brine can reach temperatures much lower than fresh water as well, allowing you to keep frozen foods frozen much longer. Personally, I also add a bit of distilled vinegar to the mix as well. The acidity along with the salt helps fight the growth of bacteria and slime mold. While this isn't a problem if you clean your cooler and let it dry out completely for a week or so between use, I have a cooler that is used nearly 24/7. Every day I add 1T vinegar, 2T salt and about a pint of fresh ice and once a week I siphon off about a gallon of brine and use it as weed control around my firewood stacks, deck and firepit.
Salt makes ice melt faster. You use it in an ice cream freezer to make the temperature lower. We use in a cooler to make our food stay fresh. There is no benefit to having the food a few degrees cooler. But when camping, there is great benefit in not making as many trips to refresh your ice.
@@NotMe-st8qc You can get a liquid brine colder than solid water and it resists change in temperature better than pure water as well. This gives more of a buffer and allows you t keep frozen foods frozen for longer. Aside from the buffer, I am more after the anti-microbial properties of the salt, as my cooler is never given the chance to completely dry. It's like you didn't actually read my original comment before posting a response.
For weekend outings we'll bring frozen boil-in-bag meals made with a Seal-a-Meal in individual servings since it helps keep the cooler cold, and we eat them directly out of the bags (supported by a bowl) so there's no clean-up except for spoons or forks. And we use the left over hot water from boiling them for washing the spoons/forks. We'll seal favorite leftovers, like chili, or stew, or if we don't have things in stock we'll repackage frozen meals from Stouffers.
ProTip: Instead of a towel as a barrier between ice and food, cut an old yoga mat and use that instead. It doesn't absorb as much water, it provides better insulation, and it's easier in general to move around. Can also place another yoga mat on top of the food for extra insulation.
Exactly.👍 I Cut a excasise mat up and use it in layers between the ice and food and top and put a thermo blanket over it and add salt helps.👍👍👍 from Australia 🇦🇺
I just bought a 12v camping refrigerator and hooked it up to my 400w solar panels and power station. It can freeze or refrigerate in the field for as long as necessary. I like this video though. It brough back memories :)
When I retired my 10-day car camping trips became 10-WEEK car camping trips. Cooler with ice no longer cuts it. I want to be able to stay out in the field as long as possible without re-supply, so having to get ice every other day is suboptimal. 200w solar panel + 1800W LiFePo battery bank + 12V 45W 20qt refrigerator + the sunny western US = two-week supply cycle.
If you have access to a chest type deep freezer (maybe in your basement or garage - perhaps even over at you parents or in-laws place) I suggest putting your cooler right inside the deep freeze at least overnight before you leave on your trip. If the deep freezer is a bit too full, take the frozen foods out and place them directly into your cooler, then place that now full cooler back into your deep freeze. This also saves on what might otherwise have been wasted ice.
Pre-cooling my cooling my cooler in the freezer works great! Be sure to remove the items inside the cooler before lifting the cooler from the chest type deep freezer. One time I forgot to do this and the handle of my cooler cracked. I learned this lesson the hard way!
Hey Drew I love your Channel. I have an additional tip for you when cooling down your cooler. I use reusable gel packs that I got from a meal prep company. I freeze them very flat and I can line the inside of my cooler with a base on the bottom. I also put a small Rack in my cooler to put the real cold stuff underneath the rack cover it with another ice pack and then put my fruits and vegetables on the top of the rack. That way I can lift the whole rack out to get what is below the rack without digging
Living in very hot, humid Japan and having typically 4 to 5 hour drives to a campsite, I ditched my cooler-box for a dometic three-way fridge (looks like a cooler) years ago. Nevertheless, the same essential tips apply even to that fridge. I always pre-cool it on AC before packing it. Even though in the car I can use a DC connection, that only serves to maintain the achieved temperature. I also put those plastic re-useable ice blocks in and on top. At the campsite, if there is an electrical connection available, then I use the AC, otherwise I use the gas function (It uses one of those easily found gas canisters) and that does a fantastic job of not only maintaining the temperature but cooling the fridge and even ice forms too around the cooling element!
@@ElleListicyes, this comment is not accurate. The freezing point doesn’t matter, the heat capacity does. Heat capacity is basically how much energy it takes to raise the temperature of a volume of liquid. In this case, dissolving salt into water _does_ lower the freezing temperature, but this only means you’d have to freeze the salt water to a lower temperature, it does *not* mean it retains this coldness any longer. In fact, adding salt lowers its heat capacity (again the amount of heat it takes to raise a volume in temperature) compared to fresh water. This means the higher heat capacity of fresh water will last longer than saltwater because it takes _more_ heat to melt it and bring it to ambient temperature than if you add salt.
@Jabari-q4d I have been so confused on the subject. I’m hearing both sides of the argument here every day in multiple comments. Thanks for shedding a little light on this side.
@@PlayingwithSticks it's more complicated than that. Saline has a lower heat capacity than pure water. Which is being addressed above. But, ice has about half the heat capacity of liquid (pure water or brine). The brine above is about 6% salt. It has a melting temp around 25 F and around 86% the heat capacity of pure water. If it and pure water are frozen to the same temp, they will both deliver similar cooling to 25 degrees. The brine will undergo phase change (become liquid) at 25 degrees. The water will undergo phase change at 32 degrees. So from 25 degrees to 32 degrees, the brine is providing about 170% the cooling as the water. Does that make up for the reduced heat capacity? That would take math at 2 AM and knowing the starting and ending temps. I like to have ice in my coolers (32F) when I get home so I suspect that the brine would edge out the pure ice. But yeah, that frozen brine isn't "lasting twice as long" as it's melting at a lower temp than pure ice and has 86% of the heat capacity at each state. We won't even look at the air temp above the brine that can cool to 25 vs ice that can cool to 32. Because you've got ice packs or insulation above your food, right? Right?!?
Wow. Patting myself on the back. I practice/implement all these tips/suggestions. Pre-cooling would be my #1. My Kong 70 went from 3-5 day retentention during summer camping to 5-7 days with pre-cool.
I usually use dry ice wrapped in a paper grocery sack and then wrapped in a plastic bag, top with a small wire grate and then a bag of ice. Also freeze my meats and the ice in my cooler is still frozen 3 days later. I enjoy your video tips thank you
Had a friend do that, froze the beer but the CO2 turned the watermelon into fizzy fruit, was great. I just plumbed mine in, installed a drain under a second basin with a hose going out, never have to drain it again.
The wet towel is a really cool idea. I will try that. I saw another RUclipsr keep wool blanket on top of his cooler to keep the cold air in. I’ve been doing that & it is true it keep the cold in. Thanks for sharing.
Have been living in a shelter for over five years (senior on pension; apartments very expensive). Not allowed food in our rooms - bugs, etc.. I'm not very good at following rules, even if they make sense. I keep all my imperishables in air tight containers and keep those containers in a plastic tote. As for the perishables, all I have is a very small square igloo cooler. We have access (two hour time limit daily) to a kitchenette with a full size fridge/freezer combo, microwave, and large sink with hot and cold water. The kitchenette is glorious! I purchase various juices in 1.89 L bottles. I saved four, cleaned them well, filled them with water, and froze them. They fit perfectly in the cooler. I buy a bag of ice and decant the ice into an air tight container and put that container into the cooler to pre-cool it. Then put the frozen containers, my cereal milk and any other perishables into the cooler. Once half or so of the water has thawed I start drinking it and it is so cold and refreshing! I then freeze extra containers and keep the cold recycling. It most certainly isn't an exact science but, under the circumstances, it's better than nothing! P.S. I keep making my cooling system better all the time.
Hi, loved this video. Reflectix lined cooler, vacuum sealed frozen meal kits, layered by day of use, with block ice in each layer. Each layer is covered with a sheet of reflectix to keep cold in and make food easy to grab. Up to 4 layers per cooler = 4 days of food. 2nd cooler same program. 3rd cooler reflectix block ice but just for drinks. Froze all the non carbonated drinks beforehand so they counted as ice. Pre-cooled the coolers indoors with sacrificial ice 24+hours before departure. And lastly....kept coolers inside a bear locker, with a pop up shade canopy to keep the bear box cool.
This was a very cool video! I got chills from all the good information being shared. I kind of feel like an ice hole for all the cooler mistakes I have been making. Looks like I need to chill out and do better in the future by following these guidelines.
Precooling was the rule I break the most. Precooling does work! I have gotten better about it. I have run a food and separate drink cooler for uear. That definitely helps. Only remove the cooler water when you are replacing it with ice. Good tips!
We used to break pre-cool a lot because we don’t have a large chest freezer. We only have the smaller freezer above our fridge. But lately I’ve just been using the ice packs. They take up less space in the freezer and they are always there. I know some people precool up to two days. But I find even pre-cooling for an hour or two the morning you go out makes a big difference. Good point on the water, I should’ve mentioned only dump it out when adding ice.
@@PlayingwithSticks Sometimes for us it was more of a time thing. You schedule your trip around work and next thing you know you are gathering up your equipment at the last minute. Ideally I would and like to do about a day of pre-cooling. But, like you mentioned, even a couple of hours help. Much better than throwing in the food and ice in a "warm" cooler because then your ice is "working" to cool down the cooler and then maintain.
Half gallon OJ containers make great ice blocks. Their shape lends well to packing other items. The sun is the main killer. This can be a challenge with teardrops because how you might orient your outdoor space often puts the galley in the sun. Closing the hatch often isn’t enough to protect the cooler.
That’s a good point about the sun and the galley. It would be fun to do some controlled temperature tests on different galley hatch insulation properties.
Great ideas, and I have to admit to feeling stupid that I never thought of precooling the cooler. Going to add that to my trip prep checklists right away! As for the other tips, I can see the cold retention value of packing everything in ice and food layers, but it seems to me I'd spend extra time with the lid open having to dig down through all that to get to the thing I needed which might be on the bottom. Maybe this system is for the ultra-organized who have their menus all planned out and can pack the cooler with meals for the last day of the trip on the bottom. I am not that person. I'll have to cogitate on how I can apply some of these principles in ways that work for me. Thanks for a great video!
❄️ I had absolutely no idea I didn’t know how to pack a cooler! While I got a few things right it seems, after the many coolers I’ve packed, I would have discovered more of these great suggestions on my own! Thank you!
My dad is an absolute master at all of this! We have a cooler designated as the "freezer" with our meat frozen solid... you do not open the freezer, like ever lol. Once things thaw a bit we throw it in the "fridge" cooler that just has beverages and items that are just better cold but maybe not needed. This is a great video! He would agree! 😊
This was an awesome video! Thank you for all of the tips...which I violated almost all of them. However, I do use the two cooler system with drinks in the smaller cooler. The smaller cooler is actually a Alpicool C20 (liter) refrigerator. While driving the refrigerator is on and turns off when the engine is off. I need to pay better attention to the larger cooler, a blue Yeti. I bought the Yeti because it was the cheapest ($249) of the line. I chose blue over the lighter colors not thinking that blue absorbs more heat than white. I like the wet towel tip which goes into use tomorrow when I rearrange the contents. Great video!!
I always freeze large water bottles for my cool box. They hold a tonne of ice, don't dump water all over everything as the water melts, and also provide a nice refreshing drink towards the end of your trip. If I can't keep my cool box out of the sun in a particular location I cover it with a wet towel so that the sun's energy is used to dry the towel and not heat the lid of my cool box.
Dry Ice ... when we camp we use 2 or 3 coolers. We leaned from our teardrop trailer family of which we have camped with over 100 teardrops at one time over the years. Northern Califonia. Putting dry ice on top of a cooler that you will not open until you get to destination..We use block ice in the bottom and bag ice and bag ice. #1 cooler s for end of trail block ice in bottom frozen foods and loose ice and dry ice on top sites in a 5 day cooler sites in trailer or trunk where is is cool #2 is mostly loose ice holds drinks and snacks sits in the back seat and gets opened a lot, we cover it with towel or isolation so car windows will not over heat it. we add new ice at stops along the way with new snacks we find. #3 Block ice bottom this cooler is for lunch and dinner or even breakfast. sits in a 2-3 day cooler sits in truck or teardrop we add ice at stops I am building my second Teardrop trailer and plan to have a plug in freezer/ cooler. You did a very good job on this video Thank you
I find freezing a few bottles of water and any type of juice pouches really helps with keeping the cooler cold and the ice tends to melt slower. I line the bottom of the cooler with frozen water bottles and I put the frozen juices towards the top. All the other waters and juices that’s aren’t frozen is kept in the fridge from the night before, so it will be cold before packing the cooler. I also prep all my meats that I will be cooking. I season them, put them in ziplock bags and freeze them. I also find keeping the cooler out of direct sun light also helps.
These are excellent tips for weekenders. When I was still using a cooler, one thing I did to prevent my ice from melting as quickly was put an upside down bin on the bottom which helped to keep the block ice out of the water. 🌞
We love making meals and freezing them in freezer bags for the cooler. Makes for easy cooking at camp. Also pack our blankets and pillows around it for insulation from heat/ sun
Another thing I've found makes Ice last a lot longer is when I buy ice from a vending machine. Many charge half as most businesses do. And the ice is often a square, solid shape that's free of air bubbles. I suspect that tubular ice is designed to give off it's coldness fast, which means it melts faster. But when I get the ice from a machine, I use a sturdy bag I know won't leak. This keeps the ice and melt water out of direct contact with the sides of the cooler. This very substantially extends the ice's lifespan.
This improved my experience when camping for a longer than normal time, new cooler, and overall enjoyment. I have not been "educated" on what it means to keep a cooler in peak performance and this allowed me to stay out longer without worry.
put all of your ice in bags (zip-lock) - it keeps everything dry. you can use smaller bags to be able to pack into smaller places. you can then have clean ice and clean water in the bags. you can also use empty bags filled with air to minimize the air flow/heat loss - keep the cooler full of air that won't flow escape.
I don't trust ziplocks, not jam jar type lids either, having wasted too much food in melt water. Water gets into everything, no matter what. Also, plan and pack, last meal under to first meal top. 👍
You need two different classes of ice. There's sealed ice which you should use to make drinks, then free ice whose job is to melt into the water and provide cooling. Free ice will unavoidably pick up food nastiness and shouldn't ordinarily be used for drinks, particularly if you camp for a week or more. Another consideration is water quality used to make the ice. If you go through desert areas, the ice you buy could contain a lot of salt. If you go through areas with lots of iron or calcium in the water, the ice will be hard just as the water was. Make sure to preserve the ice made with known good water to prevent off tastes in your drinks.
This was so informative and interesting, thanks for making my upcoming camping trip a lot better, last year I really was frustrated having to go get ice, drain the cooler, and repeat every day, the closest store was 15 miles away!
Couple of things. Those freezer packs are good for maybe 1 day but you can't refreeze them if your out in the woods. If you have a cheap cooler, one way to further insulate them is to drill 1/4 inch holes in the top of the lid and squirt in foam insulation because the lids aren't usually insulated.
Non-moving air is insulation so the lids are insulated. Squirting foam inside of it generally doesn't work because foam needs air to bubble. Don't try this at home folks. You're better off gluing some XPS foam on the outside.
I did this, and it helped a lot! I learned to hold the lid against the sun or a very bright light to be sure that the space in the lid was completely filled by the spray foam. Cheap lids often crack a tiny bit and then have no insulation because the vacuum seal is lost.
Great tips, l do separate drinks from food in 2 coolers, and also consolidate after 5 days or so. But l also cover my coolers with blankets, and leave them in the truckbed!
Great info Drew, I like to freeze some water containers as well so that as it does melt, I have extra drinkable water. Definitely enjoy these types of videos. ✌️
I am seeing the number one comment right now is freezing water in containers. Sounds like this is something we are going to have to adopt. Thanks for sharing this. As always great seeing you on here.
DO NOT FREEZE DRINKING WATER IN WATER BOTTLES OR OTHER PLASTIC DRINK CONTAINERS... DO NOT DO THIS..... REFREEZING PLASTIC DRINK CONTAINERS RELEASES .. .BPA.. AND BPB MOLECULES.. i.e. The chemical that breaks down into synthetic ESTROGEN... .!!! CAN YOU SAY MAN BOOBS??. don't believe me.. Do your own research... You'll learn some disturbing things. Number one source of BPA chemical containing item...... PAPER STORE RECEIPTS..... then paper is BPA plastic coated and a laser prints your receipt... DON'T EVER TOUCH YOUR STORE RECEIPT S... the more you know.. 😮
Good ideas. I had started using the 64-oz squared-off juice bottles to freeze water as "block ice", stacking 3-high by 2 wide in the cooler. Benefits: longer-lasting coldness and clean water to drink (ie not purchased} When they melt after 3+ days, we have water to drink, and have had to purchase less ice. Sometimes we stay where we can re-freeze them (or some) Down side? Empty bottles to toss, or find a recycle place along the way.
So...very timely. I'm on like 13 generations of ice in my Yeti in the back of the truck/jeep right now. I have a freezer that will freeze the ice blocks to -15 deg F and i swap those out along with the ice. But I can tell you I can barely even put my hand in there to get drinks out. Don't drain the water!!!!! At least not all of it. Love the tips and channel, as always.
This is, without a doubt, the most useful video I’ve ever seen that I didn’t look up specifically as a how-to. SUBSCRIBED. And, nice job, algorithm. Some tips I use regularly, most are common sense things that I’ve just never thought of. Bravo
Great info as always. Back in my Cooler Days I always pre-froze all my ice with Tupperware. That way no water got all over my food. When the ice melted I used my Berkey water filter to filter the water and then drank that water. No waste. I recently bought a Explorer Bear DC refrigerator for a fantastic fee and it has baskets, internal light, and incredible solid build and quick cooling and very little energy need. It's a fantastic product and worth your attention. I know, it has nothing to do with your review, and that's why I'm here...Just to annoy you. Ha!!! Nice work, and I think Shakespeare would be proud.
Explorer Bear DC that’s new to me. I will definitely be checking it out. I am a huge fan of efficient fridges. So far I haven’t found anything that beats my mid ICECO, but I am always open to trying others. I think that new one from Ecoflow would give it a run for his money as well, the one with the ice machine built-in.
That explorer bear already has my attention with a lid that can come off both directions. That’s one of the things that has been attracting me to some of the newer fridges out there. There’s many times that we stick our fridge in our car. Using the 12 V socket makes us have the fridge open in the direction that is not useful.
The Explorer Bear is probably more for guys like me on an extreme, SS only, budget. Compare prices per performance and I think the Bear comes out in good shape. Luckily there are lots of options for many budgets.@@PlayingwithSticks
Great Video! Another option, buy a portable refrigerator and battery for food, just have the Ice cooler for drinks. And since portable fridges and Portable Battery Generators are getting cheaper and cheaper, it is SO worth it. Of course this only works if it is in the budget, if it is way out of budget or the money spent vs how often you will use it doesn't make sense, then spend a little more and get the best quality cooler you can afford. For me, having a cooler a medium sized battery and a small portable solar panel, I can have almost unlimited food storage. Mine can even split into a fridge/freezer setup. But it makes sense for me, I go on extended weekend trips almost once a month, and usually some extended trips 2-3x a year. Be well
One more tip: if you make the ice yourself, add salt to the water. This way, the resulting mix will freeze at lower temperatures than water alone. Hence: a) the temperature inside the cooler will be lower, and b) the ice made that way will stay frozen for a longer period.
I was wondering about that if it would help make the water colder too. Like when you added rock salt to the ice around an ice cream maker in the good old days.
I am very skeptical of this tip. Salt just lowers the freezing point. It doesn't cause the ice to reach cooler temps. Also the salt will cause the ice to melt at that same lower temp. So I don't think this tip is correct about either point.
Thermal dynamics101,if your wanting a cooler use ice,the water will be 32° f till the ice melts then temp rises,if you use thermal bags -i.e. from prescription freezey bags they last longer . And if your buying ice find a dry ice retailer ,1lbs lasts a long time and can keep frozen stuff frozen . refrigerator cooler ice / freezer cooler dry ice.
@@pedroagonzalezfoto What does melting point have to with temperature? Ice in a freezer will be the temperature of the freezer. You wouldn't say that alcohol in the freezer is warmer than ice only because it's melted.
Excellent !! Got 3 week adventure I need to stock real food for. You answered many basic questions ice blocks, wet towels, pre cooling, ice to food ratio w frozen food counting as ice…etc. So helpful.
Me too... I actually bought a metabo (actually hikoki) one from Japan, it uses tool batteries, charges when attached to 12v and are easily removable so if you want to run longer just bring a few extra batteries
That Makes total sense! I'm taking 2 coolers from now on! I definitely pack frozen food! Plus I put hummus, dips, and items that can get ruined in soggy water from the cooler, into a larger sealed plastic container. No more water dogged cheese and lunch meats.
Your video is very good and you hit most of the points! As someone who's done a lot of dessert camping, (Lake Powell for example 102F or higher) I kept ice for weeks! You nailed it, ONLY buy a white cooler, and always keep it in the shade! You might think "well if it's in the shade, it can be black!" Wrong any LIGHT is absorbed as heat, on a dark colored surface! You nailed it on never put anything in the cooler not already chilled, it's not a refrigerator! Place all food, in sandwich, pint, quart and gallon zip lic freezer bags! It's sick, 90% throw their steaks and hamburger in the store package into the cooler, blood ice, cooler water in your steak and burgers! Use as stated a combination of block and bag ice both and 100% fill the cooler, all empty space with ice! Buy the best cooler you can afford, Igloos are junk! As stated you need a cooler about 3 x's bigger than you think, because 2/3rds is going to be ice! Granted we are talking camping, not day picnicking! But even an Igloo or similar cheap cooler can be made much more efficient by buying closed cell foam self adhesive door weather strip, not too thick, 3/8" wide and put around the lid! Opening top cover portion, as if you put it on the cooler lip it will get damaged, torn! A harware store bail snap down latch can be added too, pop rivited on, to clanp seal the lid diwn tight on your new gasket! The same way you hear the ocean in a conch shell, that's air moving inside a closed shell, the high end coolers have a gasket, (as your home refrigerator does) and strong cover latches! An Igloo you get 12 air changes a minute through the unsealed lid! Where I disagree is with the freezer paks, a total unnecessary waste of money and space, after all its basically just more ice only in plastic, they are junk! Fill this space eith cube ice i stead! Also putting a towel inside the cooler, no! Putting plastic over the ice, insulation no! Lid is sealing properly a total waste! Put it (the beach towel) over the top, outside the cooler and keep the towel wet with lake or creek water, for real evaporative cooling! (Note: this only works in low humidity arid climate) This goes a long way, to holding ice in the cooler for the long term, I disagree in that the cooler MUST BE, kept drained! Ice is at freezing, water is unfrozen ice, therefore warmer, and will ONLY CAUSE, any ice it contacts to melt faster! This is where your WCRS, comes into play! WCRS = waste cold recovery system! This is a cheap Igloo, or even a 5 gallon pail, put your melons, fruits, warm beverages, anything needing chilled fast, into one of the above, THEN DRAIN YOUR COOLER WATER INTO IT! Draining it onto the ground, is wasting cold energy (BTU's) Another thing missed is pre freeze 500ml bottled waters at home, this counts as ice, plus pack it with you hiking, and you always have refreshing ice cold water to drink! Makes no sense to put it in the cooler refrigerated but unfrozen taking space, freeze it! Your other good point don't keep opening the damn thing! When camping in the desert with other families, they thought I was an ass! Their kids would run over and open the coolers, look in every 2 minutes then run off! I got on them about it, and the parents thought I was crazy! People really can be stupid!
I've been a camper for over 60 yrs. Used all of your tips except for the wet towel. Now I really love my 120/12V refrig. A real frig/freezer, not the inexpensive heat exchanger type. Another hint is to put a rack on top of the base layer of ice & then partially drain the cooler every now & then. Ice water gets into everything.... Keep your food out of the water.
So what ur saying is.... stop buying coolers. Buy 12v Fridge/Freezers instead. You can get as much food & drink in a small 20q 12v fridge, as you can a large 60q (100+lb filled) ice cooler using the 2:1 method. I dont think I'll ever use a ice cooler again
Great video is always hope you are doing well, missed you. For years I have been freezing 1 gallon water jugs, and flat Tupperware containers. Also, using the wet towel method. And I also have a small cooler four drinks to be used that day. Thank God for the 12-volt refrigerator I have now. Although even my last camping trip last weekend, I took a ice chest full of ice to make Daiquiris and have a Cube or two in my whiskey.
It seems like everybody in the comment section is using the water jugs. I don’t know how we’ve overlooked this one for years. I’m excited to try this on the next trip. Like you, we take our cooler with us as well. Although we love our 12 V fridge, we find lately that we need a little additional cooling support. Great seeing you on here as usual. Hope you’re having some great adventures this summer. Ours has been a bit on the slow end. Our camping season is just ramping up.
I gave up on coolers. Bought an Iceco, plug it into my Jackery and it is so much less hassle and it just works. Ice seems to get more expensive every summer too and harder to find
When we got our Bean Camper it came with a crappy Coleman cooler. Our Yeti doesnt fit in the cooler spot in the camper so we keep that in the jeep. Since I now have two coolers, I started separating things. With meals in the Yeti and drinks in the Coleman. Makes it handy when we hit the trail as we have all of the lunch food already in the Jeep. I only have to pop a few cold drinks on the top. I did cover the BLACK Coleman cooler with some of that silvered bubble wrap. Have not been on a trip to test it yet. Beyond that, I've failed most all of the other steps. I will hitting the dollar store or thrift store to find some plastic jug containers I can freeze for block ice. Best video ever!
I buy mix up cordial in square 2 litre containers. I fill them and freeze them, then drink them when they defrost. One in each corner of my 12 volt fridge helps heaps. And a few smaller bottles floating around. Frozen meat and meals in bottom. And dont use loose ice. I like the wet towel idea. I use my cooler for day to day stuff
I finally took care of this age old problem by installing a solar panel on the van along with a battery and bought an electric cooler. I bought the Iceco and love it. No more need for ice.
@@PlayingwithSticks Right now I'm camping in the 69 Siesta. I also take out my little Dico once in a while and I have a 59 Deville that I will be using while the Siesta is being restored. I will begin that one as soon as the 54 Jewel is finished. Should have that one done in a few months. Busy here. I have folding solar panels so I can take my power with me no matter which trailer or tent I take out. I built my own power station and it runs everything including my starlink just fine.
I had a feeling you may use more than one. I must say I’m a little envious. I have always wanted to build my own power station. But I’ve never got around to it. Being able to move the components from one trailer to another has been a real blessing for our family as well. We got to try out star link a couple times with our friends last summer and this summer. It was a really neat experience. Sitting there using Internet, while watching Elon musk’s satellite train go by overhead.
Good video. I have been doing most of all of things for many years. Except two coolers and towels in the main cooler. The only time it is opened when I am cooking. I drink from SS water bottle. Back when I had a chest freezer I would put the RTIC 45 in it for several days with the lid propped open. And as others mention frozen water in two soy milk waxed cartons with cubed ice on top. Those go into a one of those hotel waste baskets, which I cut down the height and it fits perfectly, keeps the rest of the cooler dry. The cartons counts as drinking water and they can be used as tinder to help start a fire..
I have some nice high-end coolers. The 5 years ago I bought a snowmaster 66 12 volt fridge freezer and never look back. It's nice being able to have ice cream camping.
Good advice on draining the cooler, especially if you have some non-sealed food containers. I find draining my food cooler into my beverage cooler is a great way to keep drinks cold while prioritizing ice for the food. For larger and longer trips I may have a 3rd cooler just for Ice that only gets opened to replenish. Frozen bags or metal containers of water also work well because you just end up with ice cold water at the end.
One method to keep things colder longer is to put a cooler inside a bigger cooler. Additionally, heat is transferred through the bottom of every cooler. Best to try and keep it off the ground or place on something like wood to insulate the bottom. Or even on an air pillow or air mattress. Blanket? Etc. Throwing a blanket over your cooler can help insulate too.
Holy crap -- your video, info, and production are FANTASTIC! Within the first minute, I knew I'd actually learn something from you (even though I thought I knew it all, LOL). I am going to use this in my homeschooling/unschooling (if you don't mind!). Seriously, I'm old, and have watched millions of videos -- yours is among my top 10 favorite ever. I'm now going to follow you and watch a bunch more while I do dishes. Thanks so much -- seriously, good AND useful stuff!
Love seeing someone get excited about these videos! We just entered the homeschooling world as well. We have been educators in the public and private sector for the past 20 years. But, for the last two years, we have jumped into the world of homeschooling. So amazing!
Nice information!! I am about to purchase one of those expensive rotomolded coolers for winter travels. The 2:1 ratio, how to layer and why will really help me to pick an appropriate size and make the best investment that will meet my needs. Thank you so much!!🖤🖤
Another thing I didn’t really talk about due to time limitations in the video was the two cooler system. I mentioned the drink cooler and the food cooler. But many people just carry two separate coolers, regardless of what they put in it. This has a couple of advantages. The first is that while you’re using one cooler in the field, you can have another cooler hiding in a cool space. The second which is probably the most important is using two coolers to minimize your dead air. Space. Mid trip, once your coolers start getting lower, you can consolidate them to fill in all the gaps. I also find two coolers easier to pack sometimes than one large cooler. And much easier to carry. Glad this information was helpful Joanne.
@@PlayingwithSticks great points to consider with a two cooler system. I really don't care about cold beverages, so I had sort of discounted a second cooler. Seems like there could be some good reasons to employ that system.
We are kind of different like that as well. We are not a cold beverage family while camping. At home drinks are pretty popular. But for camping we keep it pretty simple.
Great tips. I've been on many week long house boat & rafting trips. We had Ice through the entire trip. We used 128 coolers with only block ice in them & we would duct tape each cooler shut. As far as staging our coolers; we would pack each cooler each morning for that day (food). Key here is NOT opening coolers AT ALL, until food for that stage is ready to be used. Rafting trips we would put beer and other drinks in a netting and drag them in the water, bring them in through big rapids.
Love these tips! I'm realizing I should have put more emphasis on the block ice in the video. Yes, you can follow all these tips. But if you just did the block ice and open the cooler less your retention would probably double.
This is probably the best video I have seen you make. It relate more to me all types of campers. Trailer guys, overlanders, car campers, etc. I would like to add that if you are on a long trip freezing, half of your drinks really helps the ice to last. I have frozen beer, water, and soda. Sometimes the cans deform a little bit but not always.
@@PlayingwithSticks honestly I’ve never had it happen, but I usually only freeze for a day or so. The worst I’ve had are cans that expand, and are hard to set down.
Holy smokes, great vid and great comments. I'm investing in a really good cooler and I want to do all the things right. Long time outdoorsmen but I've often gotten away with the small time coolers.. time to step it up. Cheers all!
TY I learned alot had a bad storm this last summer and electric was out for 4 days! Tried to save freezer full of meat but lost it because didn't use these tips! Now I know and not going to loose $ 400 of meat had lots of charcoal and cooked alot!
I keep two -three coolers depending on the trip. 1)drinks 2)veggies, frozen drinks, snacks 3) meats & frozen foods that we use later in the trip. I pre cut everything & freeze whatever I can. I pre cool, frozen blue ice on the bottom, then lots of ice. Beverage cooler gets water added to it. I always wrap and cover my coolers. I’ve spent a lot of time hiking & camping in the south west, my coolers do really well. I live in TX (the country) and rely on my coolers when I have to take a longer drive to particular stores. Fun story.. When I was in Cambodia, about 20 of us went to the lake for the day. I showed up to the meeting spot with a bucket w- lid and ice that I bought at the store on the way. When I showed up, everyone was teasing me about my cooler. I said “This is how we do it in America”, and guess what they learned? That’s how you have cold beer all day! My little shit cooler was the hit of the party. I still keep in contact with many people from my trip, and they all have coolers now. 🎉
This is incredible! Reason why I started watching this channel. Keep it up. Ponding if an electric cooler for the mean bean is necessary, but will try your techniques first with my traditional cooler.
In my opinion, I think an electric cooler is a great pairing with the Mean Bean if are doing more than four nights in a row. But four or less, an ice cooler can get the job done well. You may end up being like us in the future and take out both an electric fridge and a cooler. I am finding that to be a really good combination, and wish I did it sooner.
I'm kind of outside the demographic for teardrop camping with a family of six and big dog, but a lot of these tips will also translate to other kinds of camping, boating, or horse packing. With our recent summer heatwaves, if I had the opportunity, I'd be up in the high elevations with horses and mules with my kids, enjoying the cool breeze and fresh mountain springs. Oh well. I really like your channel. Informative, no fuss, and straight to the topic, rather than do the influencer ramble with loud background music, and 20 minutes of unrelated "look at me be cool" footage.
Glad you are finding some value in this. My boys and I are always watching the horses and mules on the trail. Some of our favorite fishing holes are on creeks frequently used by folks riding horses. It looks like such a fun time. We traded in the horses for four wheelers years ago on the ranch. I still regret that.
@@PlayingwithSticks I still have neighbors who use horses on their ranches. Talked to a lovely gentleman last year who was two days short of 88 and was returning from a solo hunting trip on horseback. My husband doesn't really care for horses, so it's possible he'll get a side by side, and we'll go up with a mixed crew. Good equines do cost a lot of money. If I want a cheap horse, I need a green horse and the time to train them. If I want a trained horse, I'm easily in the five figure price range. So... replacing a leaky house roof comes before hooves.
I have heard of the wet towel method but also heard of layering newspaper between food. Like you said planning your daily meals between towel and ice make last longer. That steak you want on day 3 will be fine frozen toward bottom. Thanks for your tips.
Thanks so much for this. There were a few things I didn't do...One tip I have is freezing 1l water bottles and use them as block ice and then drink them as they defrost. Lasted for days in a quality cooler
You nailed most of it. Even a cheap Igloo you can make much more efficient, with closed cell foam adhesive door weather strip, putting a gasket around the cover! The same way you hear the ocean in a conch shell, is actually air moving in a closed shell, think an unsealed cooler lid, the hot ambient air changes per hour? Buy only white color coolers, keep in the shade, if water is available, cover cooler with a wet towel, keep it wet, by pouring lake or stream water on it, for evaporative cooling, freeze your bottled water at home, and use as ice loading! Great to take on a hike, melts as go, stays cold! Do not freeze milk jugs as your ice source! The ice melts, the water around the ice is a lie temperature insulator! Most important as you point out, combination of block and cubed ice, fill cooler 100% with ice! Every nook and cranny, this is the #1 cooler failure! Keep kids outta the cooler! Everything in the cooler MUST BE pre chilled or frozen! Put ALL FOODS AND MEATS, in pint, quart and gallon zip lock freezer bags, avoid meat juice ice! Sick how people throw steaks and hamburger packaged right from the store in their cooler! Actually downright disgusting!!! Adopt a "waste cold recovery", and drain your main cooler water into a cheap cooler, to chill warm melons, beer, water and soda, there was not room for, or as it's consumed! A cooler is NOT a refrigerator, never put warm items into it in the field! I've kept a high quality cooler almost full of ice, after almost 2 weeks at lake Powell, using these methods! Buy the most expensive cooler you can, it pays!
Very good tips. Most of which are new to me. I laughed at the end about the black roof trailer...The Bruder is all black so we'll see how that works out...and yes I thought about it when I ordered it. Cooler packing isn't something I've ever given thought to and your tips are very helpful.
We never really gave thought to this, until we were forced into using a cooler again. The last couple of years we’ve hit the threshold of our 12 V fridge. And we found a combination of cooler and fridge works very well for our family. That’s interesting with the Bruder. It makes sense for your side of the country, but where the Bruder is coming from that’s like sun central. But those guys think of everything. So they must have some efficient ways of mitigating the heat transfer.
I was taught by the scouts to use a baking/cookie sheet as a barrier from warm air between those items you want frozen and those that just need to remain cold. I nice bit layers their own ice pack. Cold air travels downward so theoretically the colder air will remain on bottom to preserve the frozen state of food longer.
We have 2 grizzly coolers, but planning on getting a third. We have 1 big one and one medium one, planning on getting a second bigger one. Once we do that we can obey the rules with ice more since we're a family of 6 and 2 coolers really isn't enough. I'm saving this video too cause my wife will want to see it. the big rule I've always broke is draining water, but the other issue is I don't pack things properly, like with raw meat just keeping it in it's original package instead of putting in gallon freezer bags.
We are in the same situation as you right now. Our family is outgrowing our cooling ability. This is why I put the video together because it’s something we’ve been dealing with the last year pretty extensively. We are currently doing a hybrid model of 12 V fridge and a separate cooler. But, I just found this new cooler I’ve been experimenting with, it may be joining us as well. If it tests as good in extreme temperatures as it’s been doing in these mild temperatures, I will definitely put it on the channel at some point. I’m a little envious of your big family. it always sounds fun to camp in a big family group like that.
@@PlayingwithSticks I do love camping with my family, but eventually having the 3 coolers and us doing tent camping means if we camp close to home, we need to take 2 cars, if we camp far away then I need to rent a UHaul trailer. I really would like a smaller camping trailer to replace my wife's and my tent, but we live in an apartment and have nowhere to store one, so for now we're looking at changing out big tent to a tent with multiple rooms so we don't need as many tents.
I live in Connecticut but have lived in other states and other countries. The only place I’ve ever seen block ice is in movies set before residential refrigerators were in common use…Where are you buying the block ice??? I don’t have much space in my freezer, typically to make block ice
I use a cooler within a cooler as a mini freezer, outer cooler is the fridge. And I use frozen 500ml water bottles...ice blocks with no mess and you drink them when they melt❤
I still have a couple of ice chests that I love but after getting a DC powered cooler with separate zones, I am never going to buy a regular cooler again. You can place room temperature drinks in the freezer compartment before you transfer them to the refrigerated side. The one I picked up for about $500, you can fit a case in there with room to spare.
I've saved this for future reference. It's so hot here in Texas right now. I'm plan to stay close to home and the AC. Thanks for these tips. Of course I was doing it wrong. 😁
I was just talking with Charles down in Dallas. I think yesterday he said it was like 109! Yep, that’s hot. Charles is the guy who’s been working on our teardrop trailer. This summer he says he hasn’t been spending as much time in the garage with these temps
Yes, with all that aluminum that’s like a greenhouse! We can kind of relate. We spent four months in our cargo trailer last summer and a few of those weeks we’re over at 100 the whole time. But, unlike you, our nights got really cool because we were in the mountains. We wouldn’t have been able to make it in the flatlands, we’re kind of wimpy like that.
Excellent video, many good comments, too! I always put a reflective car window shade over my cooler. I've also put a big piece of ( scavanged) foam packing material on it, figuring every bit of extra insulation helps!
We used 1 quart plastic milk jugs. Filled them with clean water and froze them. They made great block ice. And you can drink the water on the last day of your trip. But these days we've given up on ice and bought a 12v ice chest shaped fridge that plugs into a cigarette lighter. It even has wheels. If you plan on bringing a lot of frozen food, bring 2 or get a larger dual zone, as it can be a freezer, too.
Longtime camper here. Cover your cooler with a heavy blanket. An old tattered comforter is good. When you get into the cooler, please don't remove the blanket. Instead, open the lid under it, and get out what you want. This lets in less hot air into the cooler. another thing that you can do is get the blanket wet. " Evaporative cooling.". Happy camping.
Your the best. Great tip!
Wet towel has gotten me 2 extra days.
Another tip I've learned: Add 1/4 cup table salt to 2 quarts water & shake to dissolve (use old juice bottles, & use enough to line the bottom of your cooler). Freeze these 24-48 hrs. before use. Pour your ice over the sealed frozen bottles. It will extend your ice for 1-3 more days. You can refreeze these bottles for future use.
Also, adding cushion foam to fill the air space (as your ice melts) will slow down the ice melt.
Overall best tip and should have been in the video.
I fill gallon zip lock freezer bags with water, like half full and freeze it flat and use that to line the bottom and top
I learned a tip from Randy Newberg. When doing your pre-chill at home use old milk jugs or soda bottles cleaned out and filled with water as your block ice. It’s reusable, has a lot of mass, if you used gallon water jugs it’s drinking water as well.
Good idea. Using loose ice cubes is probably the least optimal way of pre-cooling a cooler.
Use em as ice too.
Except most experts tell you not to drink water from frozen plastic bottles. Unless it's an emergency.
@@terretulsiak Why?
I learned from Randy Newman...
If you've got troubles, I've got 'em too
There isn't anything I wouldn't do for you
We stick together and can see it through
Cause you've got a friend in me
You've got a friend in me
RIver outfitters often use reflectix as an inner cover over the top of food and ice inside the cooler so it is the first thing you see upon opening. This holds the cold air in when opening the cooler and also can be used as a sunshade when opening during the day. Never let the sun shine inside your cooler. Also, wet burlap over the outside of the cooler will assist in evaporative cooling and works wonders. And covering the cooler during the day with sleeping mats will help to insulate it. And then there is the idea of freezing bottles of water and using those as your ice. I use gallon and 1/2 gallon bottles for this and they melt slowly and keep the cooler dry.
Wow, great comment here. Thank you so much for sharing this.
OOh good idea -- use your sleeping bags during the day to cover the cooler
I have a cheap cooler, covered with reflectix and blankets..tried the reflectix inside as well it makes no diff..if it's 75⁰ or higher my ice doesn't last more than 24 hours..I keep my food in a bin and dbl wrapped in silicone bags so it doesn't get soaked..I keep my cold water til I get new ice..20 bucks+ a week is nutz..for frozen water🤬🤬🤬 keep drinks in a cooler bag but it's even worse...
Yes! The half gallon juice containers, frozen is my go to along with the blue Ice packs.
Yes! This. No more ice for me. Gallon jugs frozen. As they melt you get cold water too.
40 years ago, in our river running days in the hot American Southwest, we could do a 7 day river trip and arrive at takeout the last day with a bit of ice left!
We did everything you talked about plus a few more.
Precooled cooler with crushed ice. Precooled all food.
Our own ice blocks in 2 Tupperware containers. No loose ice.
Frozen food as much as possible. Precooked some food.
Only opened cooler twice for lunch: food out, food in.
Visualized food we were getting out before opening cooler.
Always kept cooler out of sun except when on river.
For breakfast and dinner kept cooler opening to a minimum.
Only one person accessed cooler; the cooler captain!
Wrapped cooler w/2 insulate pads, then covered w/space blanket & bungee cord.
Reusable ice pouches on top. I liked your tip of wet towel.
I pop a car sun reflective window screen over the cooler,
We tent camp regularly for a week at a time, we’ve been doing this for over 30 years and have learned a few things that work well for us… The main thing is that we have a large family with a lot of kids, so we use two coolers. The first cooler is used as a “deep freezer” of sorts, and is for foods that absolutely need to stay completely frozen as long as possible, for safety reasons like keeping all our meat items frozen long term, for some of the perishable lunch & breakfast food things that are planned for eating later towards the last half of the trip so they also need to stay frozen long term, and a lot of extra frozen water bottles (instead of ice). This cooler is “stop sign red” lol, it’s kept in the coolest shade possible with blankets under/over it, and everyone knows that nobody is allowed to touch it except mom or dad. We do our best to only open this one rarely, if it’s absolutely needed, and we check in with others to see if anything else is going to be needed from it for the rest of the day so that we only open it once for all… we try to plan what we are taking out before we even open it (so we can be quick about it), and usually the goal is to take out things that will refill the “regular” cooler. The regular cooler is more like a fridge than a freezer, and this is one that everyone can access as needed-but we do ask them to make sure of 3 things: clean hands only, be quick about it, and make sure you close the lid all the way (little kids think this rule is amusing, but it works: “always sit on it to double check” 😆). This fridge cooler has frozen water bottles at the bottom, then I layer stacking shelf organizer bins to keep things easy to move around in bulk (you can pick up two bins to reach the bin at the bottom, pick up one bin to reach the bin in the middle, etc). We try to combine matching items in bins, for example sliced sandwich options all in the same bin, with deli meats in one gallon ziplock and cheeses in another gallon ziplock, mayo, mustard, sliced pickles all in the same bin. I also try to separate produce from meats as far as possible so if I have the deli meats etc on the left side, the produce bins will be on the right side, and the dairy/other things will be in the middle. I pre-bag individual servings of snacks like grapes, carrot sticks paired with individual serving of ranch, etc. so the kids can just easily grab a snack bag and go. I also pay attention to the layers in the sense of, things that need to stay coldest and can be wet (without getting soggy) should be closest to the frozen water bottles at the bottom. Things that need to try to stay dry and don’t necessarily need to be “cold” can be towards the top of the cooler, like breads. We don’t bring anything that has a paper carton type package because it will just fall apart in the shuffle of the wet cooler and get soggy bits of paper all over everything. I add a bunch of frozen as well as just pre-refrigerated juice pouches all around the sides, middle, and top, for some added coldness. When we notice this one is starting to not feel quite as cold as we like (usually around end of day 2 or beginning of day 3), we move some more frozen things over from the deep freezer cooler…. and then we keep doing that as needed for the duration of the trip. We usually somehow end up bringing home things that are still very frozen lol. 🙌🏻
This is awesome info
The most important thing I've learned; heat rises, cold sinks down.
Dont set your cooler on a hot surface, like concrete or asphalt. The heat goes up into the bottom of the cooler.
I bring a 1 1/2 inch thick piece of rigid foam insulation, foil faced, to set the cooler on. Doesnt take much room and really extends ice melt time.
The best thing we did was to precook and freeze most of our meals. My dad always froze gallon milk jugs and used them as his block ice. He was a master ice chest packer!
Great suggestion on pre-cooking and freezing meals. Somebody taught us that early in our journey, and we attribute that moment to being one of the major game changers in our camping experience. It just gets you off on the right foot, saves a bunch of space in your cooler, adds extra insulation. And at the time we found our camp meals were better with it. Today we’ve kind of changed our style a bit and do a lot more home style cooking out at camp. But even with our big camp meals, we still do some pre-cooking. We had another person mention the gallon milk jugs earlier. And they said the gallon milk jugs actually pack better than block ice. Essentially the shape of it fits better in the freezer with the items. I have always been an awful chest packer. I strive to be like your father. One day, one day. I must admit though I’m way better than I was five years ago.
By the way, I’m starting to notice a trend on the channel. It looks like we have a lot of nurses in the community. Makes me think nurses as a group are some adventurous people. Everybody always thinks I learned my outdoor skills from my father. However, most of them came from my mother, who is a nurse and then the rest was filled in by my grandpa and grandma. You kind of struck a chord with the comment about your father. I love how camping brings up those nostalgic feelings. I’m always brought back to those moments with my grandpa and grandma with their Stanley cooking equipment and their little well organized picnic baskets.
My dad froze his cleaned trout in milk cartons and they doubled as ice and dinner. We had the old wooden, sawdust and tin lined Coleman cooler. Ice lasted days in that thing.
I just spent 5 days in the desert. I was not camping in one single place. After loading my coolers in the back of my pickup I used my chair as a way to create an air space and used a heavy canvas tarp to cover the entire coolers and chairs. I had my ice last the entire trip. I used containers like milk jugs for my ice in my food cooler and the loose ice and block ice in my drink cooler. Really appreciate the tips for future trips.
Just returned from a 2 week trip where we violated all these rules. Soggy food. Lots of ice runs. Now we know. Thank you!
You are most welcome Michael. I think I can speak for others by saying most of us have been there.
“Ice runs” conjured up images of eskimos after eating Taco Bell.
@@rabbi6225😂
We used dry ice .
@@rabbi6225 Um..Taco Smell
This is a GREAT video. I live in Texas and just throw stuff randomly in a cooler. I've learned a lot and thought I knew everything there was to know. I was WRONG.
My number one tip is salt. While having some air as insulation for veggies to prevent freezing is preferred; meats, drinks and frozen foods will benefit more from a really cold brine. Liquid water can fill in all of the gaps and takes up less space than frozen water. At the same time, a brine solution is much denser and resists changes in temperature even better than fresh water. Finally, a brine can reach temperatures much lower than fresh water as well, allowing you to keep frozen foods frozen much longer.
Personally, I also add a bit of distilled vinegar to the mix as well. The acidity along with the salt helps fight the growth of bacteria and slime mold. While this isn't a problem if you clean your cooler and let it dry out completely for a week or so between use, I have a cooler that is used nearly 24/7. Every day I add 1T vinegar, 2T salt and about a pint of fresh ice and once a week I siphon off about a gallon of brine and use it as weed control around my firewood stacks, deck and firepit.
Good idea! 😃
This was so so helpful thank you. After hours of researching different videos, you’re one video answered so many of my questions for me!
Ahh, memories of hand crank ice cream freezer
Salt makes ice melt faster. You use it in an ice cream freezer to make the temperature lower. We use in a cooler to make our food stay fresh. There is no benefit to having the food a few degrees cooler. But when camping, there is great benefit in not making as many trips to refresh your ice.
@@NotMe-st8qc You can get a liquid brine colder than solid water and it resists change in temperature better than pure water as well. This gives more of a buffer and allows you t keep frozen foods frozen for longer. Aside from the buffer, I am more after the anti-microbial properties of the salt, as my cooler is never given the chance to completely dry.
It's like you didn't actually read my original comment before posting a response.
For weekend outings we'll bring frozen boil-in-bag meals made with a Seal-a-Meal in individual servings since it helps keep the cooler cold, and we eat them directly out of the bags (supported by a bowl) so there's no clean-up except for spoons or forks. And we use the left over hot water from boiling them for washing the spoons/forks. We'll seal favorite leftovers, like chili, or stew, or if we don't have things in stock we'll repackage frozen meals from Stouffers.
That's the best way to cook eggs, imo. I'm a professional chef and always make my scrambled eggs in a sealed bag.
ProTip: Instead of a towel as a barrier between ice and food, cut an old yoga mat and use that instead. It doesn't absorb as much water, it provides better insulation, and it's easier in general to move around. Can also place another yoga mat on top of the food for extra insulation.
Great suggestion here. Thank you.
Exactly.👍
I Cut a excasise mat up and use it in layers between the ice and food and top and put a thermo blanket over it and add salt helps.👍👍👍 from Australia 🇦🇺
Me fighting with 6 other people and kids on what not to do with the coolers sounds exhausting
I just bought a 12v camping refrigerator and hooked it up to my 400w solar panels and power station. It can freeze or refrigerate in the field for as long as necessary. I like this video though. It brough back memories :)
When I retired my 10-day car camping trips became 10-WEEK car camping trips. Cooler with ice no longer cuts it. I want to be able to stay out in the field as long as possible without re-supply, so having to get ice every other day is suboptimal. 200w solar panel + 1800W LiFePo battery bank + 12V 45W 20qt refrigerator + the sunny western US = two-week supply cycle.
If you have access to a chest type deep freezer (maybe in your basement or garage - perhaps even over at you parents or in-laws place) I suggest putting your cooler right inside the deep freeze at least overnight before you leave on your trip. If the deep freezer is a bit too full, take the frozen foods out and place them directly into your cooler, then place that now full cooler back into your deep freeze. This also saves on what might otherwise have been wasted ice.
Pre-cooling my cooling my cooler in the freezer works great! Be sure to remove the items inside the cooler before lifting the cooler from the chest type deep freezer. One time I forgot to do this and the handle of my cooler cracked. I learned this lesson the hard way!
Hey Drew I love your Channel. I have an additional tip for you when cooling down your cooler. I use reusable gel packs that I got from a meal prep company. I freeze them very flat and I can line the inside of my cooler with a base on the bottom. I also put a small Rack in my cooler to put the real cold stuff underneath the rack cover it with another ice pack and then put my fruits and vegetables on the top of the rack. That way I can lift the whole rack out to get what is below the rack without digging
That is a great tip! One of the issues May and I have is getting our fruits and vegetables in the right location. A rack would really help with that
I keep the gel packs in resealable bags. Sometimes they puncture or leak and the bag keeps the gel from getting onto other items.
Living in very hot, humid Japan and having typically 4 to 5 hour drives to a campsite, I ditched my cooler-box for a dometic three-way fridge (looks like a cooler) years ago. Nevertheless, the same essential tips apply even to that fridge. I always pre-cool it on AC before packing it. Even though in the car I can use a DC connection, that only serves to maintain the achieved temperature. I also put those plastic re-useable ice blocks in and on top. At the campsite, if there is an electrical connection available, then I use the AC, otherwise I use the gas function (It uses one of those easily found gas canisters) and that does a fantastic job of not only maintaining the temperature but cooling the fridge and even ice forms too around the cooling element!
i fill gallon jugs at home and add about half pound of salt. this lowers the freezing temp and lasts about twice as long as store bought ice.
How does that not make it melt faster?
@@ElleListicyes, this comment is not accurate. The freezing point doesn’t matter, the heat capacity does. Heat capacity is basically how much energy it takes to raise the temperature of a volume of liquid.
In this case, dissolving salt into water _does_ lower the freezing temperature, but this only means you’d have to freeze the salt water to a lower temperature, it does *not* mean it retains this coldness any longer. In fact, adding salt lowers its heat capacity (again the amount of heat it takes to raise a volume in temperature) compared to fresh water. This means the higher heat capacity of fresh water will last longer than saltwater because it takes _more_ heat to melt it and bring it to ambient temperature than if you add salt.
@Jabari-q4d I have been so confused on the subject. I’m hearing both sides of the argument here every day in multiple comments. Thanks for shedding a little light on this side.
@@PlayingwithSticks it's more complicated than that. Saline has a lower heat capacity than pure water. Which is being addressed above. But, ice has about half the heat capacity of liquid (pure water or brine). The brine above is about 6% salt. It has a melting temp around 25 F and around 86% the heat capacity of pure water. If it and pure water are frozen to the same temp, they will both deliver similar cooling to 25 degrees. The brine will undergo phase change (become liquid) at 25 degrees. The water will undergo phase change at 32 degrees. So from 25 degrees to 32 degrees, the brine is providing about 170% the cooling as the water. Does that make up for the reduced heat capacity? That would take math at 2 AM and knowing the starting and ending temps.
I like to have ice in my coolers (32F) when I get home so I suspect that the brine would edge out the pure ice.
But yeah, that frozen brine isn't "lasting twice as long" as it's melting at a lower temp than pure ice and has 86% of the heat capacity at each state.
We won't even look at the air temp above the brine that can cool to 25 vs ice that can cool to 32. Because you've got ice packs or insulation above your food, right? Right?!?
@@1dgrdgrso you are saying that adding salt is a good idea?
Yes I'm slow.
Wow. Patting myself on the back. I practice/implement all these tips/suggestions. Pre-cooling would be my #1. My Kong 70 went from 3-5 day retentention during summer camping to 5-7 days with pre-cool.
I love hearing success stories like this. That’s a big leap in ice retention.
I usually use dry ice wrapped in a paper grocery sack and then wrapped in a plastic bag, top with a small wire grate and then a bag of ice. Also freeze my meats and the ice in my cooler is still frozen 3 days later. I enjoy your video tips thank you
Had a friend do that, froze the beer but the CO2 turned the watermelon into fizzy fruit, was great. I just plumbed mine in, installed a drain under a second basin with a hose going out, never have to drain it again.
The wet towel is a really cool idea. I will try that. I saw another RUclipsr keep wool blanket on top of his cooler to keep the cold air in. I’ve been doing that & it is true it keep the cold in. Thanks for sharing.
5:33 made me giggle... Cows weren't effing around, they hauled beef to shelter. Really great info in this video but never forget kosher salt.
Have been living in a shelter for over five years (senior on pension; apartments very expensive). Not allowed food in our rooms - bugs, etc..
I'm not very good at following rules, even if they make sense. I keep all my imperishables in air tight containers and keep those containers in a plastic tote. As for the perishables, all I have is a very small square igloo cooler. We have access (two hour time limit daily) to a kitchenette with a full size fridge/freezer combo, microwave, and large sink with hot and cold water. The kitchenette is glorious!
I purchase various juices in 1.89 L bottles. I saved four, cleaned them well, filled them with water, and froze them. They fit perfectly in the cooler. I buy a bag of ice and decant the ice into an air tight container and put that container into the cooler to pre-cool it. Then put the frozen containers, my cereal milk and any other perishables into the cooler. Once half or so of the water has thawed I start drinking it and it is so cold and refreshing! I then freeze extra containers and keep the cold recycling.
It most certainly isn't an exact science but, under the circumstances, it's better than nothing!
P.S. I keep making my cooling system better all the time.
Hi, loved this video. Reflectix lined cooler, vacuum sealed frozen meal kits, layered by day of use, with block ice in each layer. Each layer is covered with a sheet of reflectix to keep cold in and make food easy to grab. Up to 4 layers per cooler = 4 days of food. 2nd cooler same program. 3rd cooler reflectix block ice but just for drinks. Froze all the non carbonated drinks beforehand so they counted as ice. Pre-cooled the coolers indoors with sacrificial ice 24+hours before departure. And lastly....kept coolers inside a bear locker, with a pop up shade canopy to keep the bear box cool.
This was a very cool video! I got chills from all the good information being shared. I kind of feel like an ice hole for all the cooler mistakes I have been making. Looks like I need to chill out and do better in the future by following these guidelines.
I’ve been breaking these rules for years. I’m just getting around to packing a cooler by the guidelines. Even sometimes I cheat a little.
😂😂😂. I like the humor.
After Garrett responded, I had to count how many puns there were. 4!
🤣
Puns are a great way to break the ice.
Precooling was the rule I break the most. Precooling does work! I have gotten better about it. I have run a food and separate drink cooler for uear. That definitely helps. Only remove the cooler water when you are replacing it with ice. Good tips!
We used to break pre-cool a lot because we don’t have a large chest freezer. We only have the smaller freezer above our fridge. But lately I’ve just been using the ice packs. They take up less space in the freezer and they are always there. I know some people precool up to two days. But I find even pre-cooling for an hour or two the morning you go out makes a big difference. Good point on the water, I should’ve mentioned only dump it out when adding ice.
@@PlayingwithSticks Sometimes for us it was more of a time thing. You schedule your trip around work and next thing you know you are gathering up your equipment at the last minute. Ideally I would and like to do about a day of pre-cooling. But, like you mentioned, even a couple of hours help. Much better than throwing in the food and ice in a "warm" cooler because then your ice is "working" to cool down the cooler and then maintain.
Half gallon OJ containers make great ice blocks. Their shape lends well to packing other items.
The sun is the main killer. This can be a challenge with teardrops because how you might orient your outdoor space often puts the galley in the sun. Closing the hatch often isn’t enough to protect the cooler.
That’s a good point about the sun and the galley. It would be fun to do some controlled temperature tests on different galley hatch insulation properties.
@@PlayingwithSticks oohh! That would be a good test!
If your trailer is high enough, out the cooler under it, or if your camp is safe, put it under a tree or bushes.
Great ideas, and I have to admit to feeling stupid that I never thought of precooling the cooler. Going to add that to my trip prep checklists right away! As for the other tips, I can see the cold retention value of packing everything in ice and food layers, but it seems to me I'd spend extra time with the lid open having to dig down through all that to get to the thing I needed which might be on the bottom. Maybe this system is for the ultra-organized who have their menus all planned out and can pack the cooler with meals for the last day of the trip on the bottom. I am not that person. I'll have to cogitate on how I can apply some of these principles in ways that work for me. Thanks for a great video!
❄️ I had absolutely no idea I didn’t know how to pack a cooler! While I got a few things right it seems, after the many coolers I’ve packed, I would have discovered more of these great suggestions on my own! Thank you!
I love hearing that this is helpful Anne!
My dad is an absolute master at all of this! We have a cooler designated as the "freezer" with our meat frozen solid... you do not open the freezer, like ever lol. Once things thaw a bit we throw it in the "fridge" cooler that just has beverages and items that are just better cold but maybe not needed. This is a great video! He would agree! 😊
This was an awesome video! Thank you for all of the tips...which I violated almost all of them. However, I do use the two cooler system with drinks in the smaller cooler. The smaller cooler is actually a Alpicool C20 (liter) refrigerator. While driving the refrigerator is on and turns off when the engine is off. I need to pay better attention to the larger cooler, a blue Yeti. I bought the Yeti because it was the cheapest ($249) of the line. I chose blue over the lighter colors not thinking that blue absorbs more heat than white. I like the wet towel tip which goes into use tomorrow when I rearrange the contents. Great video!!
I always freeze large water bottles for my cool box. They hold a tonne of ice, don't dump water all over everything as the water melts, and also provide a nice refreshing drink towards the end of your trip.
If I can't keep my cool box out of the sun in a particular location I cover it with a wet towel so that the sun's energy is used to dry the towel and not heat the lid of my cool box.
Great tips here. Thank you.
Dry Ice ... when we camp we use 2 or 3 coolers. We leaned from our teardrop trailer family of which we have camped with over 100 teardrops at one time over the years. Northern Califonia. Putting dry ice on top of a cooler that you will not open until you get to destination..We use block ice in the bottom and bag ice and bag ice.
#1 cooler s for end of trail block ice in bottom frozen foods and loose ice and dry ice on top sites in a 5 day cooler sites in trailer or trunk where is is cool
#2 is mostly loose ice holds drinks and snacks sits in the back seat and gets opened a lot, we cover it with towel or isolation so car windows will not over heat it. we add new ice at stops along the way with new snacks we find.
#3 Block ice bottom this cooler is for lunch and dinner or even breakfast. sits in a 2-3 day cooler sits in truck or teardrop we add ice at stops
I am building my second Teardrop trailer and plan to have a plug in freezer/ cooler.
You did a very good job on this video Thank you
I’m a wannabe van traveler and oh my god what great tips u have on the cooler. Thanks
I find freezing a few bottles of water and any type of juice pouches really helps with keeping the cooler cold and the ice tends to melt slower. I line the bottom of the cooler with frozen water bottles and I put the frozen juices towards the top. All the other waters and juices that’s aren’t frozen is kept in the fridge from the night before, so it will be cold before packing the cooler. I also prep all my meats that I will be cooking. I season them, put them in ziplock bags and freeze them. I also find keeping the cooler out of direct sun light also helps.
Great video. One other hint I always keep a wool blanket over the cooler to help insulate it from the heat when it's in or out of the vehicle.
Seeing the boys helping each other with the ice was great.
Well done. Great information presented in a fun way! Can't believe how big the boys are. Loved to see them helping.
Glad you enjoyed the video Mary! Yes, the boys are growing like weeds finally. East is so proud of those missing teeth.
Cut a excasise mat up and use it in layers between the ice and food and top and put a thermo blanket over it..👍👍👍
from Australia 🇦🇺
These are excellent tips for weekenders. When I was still using a cooler, one thing I did to prevent my ice from melting as quickly was put an upside down bin on the bottom which helped to keep the block ice out of the water. 🌞
We love making meals and freezing them in freezer bags for the cooler. Makes for easy cooking at camp. Also pack our blankets and pillows around it for insulation from heat/ sun
Another thing I've found makes Ice last a lot longer is when I buy ice from a vending machine. Many charge half as most businesses do. And the ice is often a square, solid shape that's free of air bubbles. I suspect that tubular ice is designed to give off it's coldness fast, which means it melts faster. But when I get the ice from a machine, I use a sturdy bag I know won't leak. This keeps the ice and melt water out of direct contact with the sides of the cooler. This very substantially extends the ice's lifespan.
This improved my experience when camping for a longer than normal time, new cooler, and overall enjoyment. I have not been "educated" on what it means to keep a cooler in peak performance and this allowed me to stay out longer without worry.
put all of your ice in bags (zip-lock) - it keeps everything dry. you can use smaller bags to be able to pack into smaller places. you can then have clean ice and clean water in the bags. you can also use empty bags filled with air to minimize the air flow/heat loss - keep the cooler full of air that won't flow escape.
I don't trust ziplocks, not jam jar type lids either, having wasted too much food in melt water. Water gets into everything, no matter what.
Also, plan and pack, last meal under to first meal top. 👍
1 litre platypus is what i use
@@FirstLast-ml7yf I thought the platypus was on endangered list--please use adults and not the little ones--thanks!!!!!!!!!!!!
You need two different classes of ice. There's sealed ice which you should use to make drinks, then free ice whose job is to melt into the water and provide cooling. Free ice will unavoidably pick up food nastiness and shouldn't ordinarily be used for drinks, particularly if you camp for a week or more.
Another consideration is water quality used to make the ice. If you go through desert areas, the ice you buy could contain a lot of salt. If you go through areas with lots of iron or calcium in the water, the ice will be hard just as the water was. Make sure to preserve the ice made with known good water to prevent off tastes in your drinks.
This was so informative and interesting, thanks for making my upcoming camping trip a lot better, last year I really was frustrated having to go get ice, drain the cooler, and repeat every day, the closest store was 15 miles away!
Couple of things. Those freezer packs are good for maybe 1 day but you can't refreeze them if your out in the woods. If you have a cheap cooler, one way to further insulate them is to drill 1/4 inch holes in the top of the lid and squirt in foam insulation because the lids aren't usually insulated.
This was tested and debunked. It didnt help 😣
Non-moving air is insulation so the lids are insulated. Squirting foam inside of it generally doesn't work because foam needs air to bubble.
Don't try this at home folks. You're better off gluing some XPS foam on the outside.
I did this, and it helped a lot! I learned to hold the lid against the sun or a very bright light to be sure that the space in the lid was completely filled by the spray foam. Cheap lids often crack a tiny bit and then have no insulation because the vacuum seal is lost.
I did this and it ruined the cooler lid. Bad idea.
What
Great tips, l do separate drinks from food in 2 coolers, and also consolidate after 5 days or so. But l also cover my coolers with blankets, and leave them in the truckbed!
Great info Drew, I like to freeze some water containers as well so that as it does melt, I have extra drinkable water. Definitely enjoy these types of videos. ✌️
I am seeing the number one comment right now is freezing water in containers. Sounds like this is something we are going to have to adopt. Thanks for sharing this. As always great seeing you on here.
@@mikeh.1408 I have an upright but the bottom is also full of frozen water bottles 👍
DO NOT FREEZE DRINKING WATER IN WATER BOTTLES OR OTHER PLASTIC DRINK CONTAINERS...
DO NOT DO THIS.....
REFREEZING PLASTIC DRINK CONTAINERS RELEASES ..
.BPA.. AND BPB MOLECULES..
i.e. The chemical that breaks down into synthetic ESTROGEN... .!!! CAN YOU SAY MAN BOOBS??. don't believe me.. Do your own research... You'll learn some disturbing things.
Number one source of BPA chemical containing item......
PAPER STORE RECEIPTS.....
then paper is BPA plastic coated and a laser prints your receipt... DON'T EVER TOUCH YOUR STORE RECEIPT S...
the more you know.. 😮
Good ideas. I had started using the 64-oz squared-off juice bottles to freeze water as "block ice", stacking 3-high by 2 wide in the cooler. Benefits: longer-lasting coldness and clean water to drink (ie not purchased} When they melt after 3+ days, we have water to drink, and have had to purchase less ice. Sometimes we stay where we can re-freeze them (or some) Down side? Empty bottles to toss, or find a recycle place along the way.
So...very timely. I'm on like 13 generations of ice in my Yeti in the back of the truck/jeep right now. I have a freezer that will freeze the ice blocks to -15 deg F and i swap those out along with the ice. But I can tell you I can barely even put my hand in there to get drinks out. Don't drain the water!!!!! At least not all of it. Love the tips and channel, as always.
-15. Nice! I can’t even imagine what that feels like.
This is, without a doubt, the most useful video I’ve ever seen that I didn’t look up specifically as a how-to. SUBSCRIBED. And, nice job, algorithm.
Some tips I use regularly, most are common sense things that I’ve just never thought of. Bravo
Great info as always. Back in my Cooler Days I always pre-froze all my ice with Tupperware. That way no water got all over my food. When the ice melted I used my Berkey water filter to filter the water and then drank that water. No waste. I recently bought a Explorer Bear DC refrigerator for a fantastic fee and it has baskets, internal light, and incredible solid build and quick cooling and very little energy need. It's a fantastic product and worth your attention. I know, it has nothing to do with your review, and that's why I'm here...Just to annoy you. Ha!!! Nice work, and I think Shakespeare would be proud.
Explorer Bear DC that’s new to me. I will definitely be checking it out. I am a huge fan of efficient fridges. So far I haven’t found anything that beats my mid ICECO, but I am always open to trying others. I think that new one from Ecoflow would give it a run for his money as well, the one with the ice machine built-in.
That explorer bear already has my attention with a lid that can come off both directions. That’s one of the things that has been attracting me to some of the newer fridges out there. There’s many times that we stick our fridge in our car. Using the 12 V socket makes us have the fridge open in the direction that is not useful.
The Explorer Bear is probably more for guys like me on an extreme, SS only, budget. Compare prices per performance and I think the Bear comes out in good shape. Luckily there are lots of options for many budgets.@@PlayingwithSticks
Great Video! Another option, buy a portable refrigerator and battery for food, just have the Ice cooler for drinks. And since portable fridges and Portable Battery Generators are getting cheaper and cheaper, it is SO worth it. Of course this only works if it is in the budget, if it is way out of budget or the money spent vs how often you will use it doesn't make sense, then spend a little more and get the best quality cooler you can afford. For me, having a cooler a medium sized battery and a small portable solar panel, I can have almost unlimited food storage. Mine can even split into a fridge/freezer setup. But it makes sense for me, I go on extended weekend trips almost once a month, and usually some extended trips 2-3x a year. Be well
We realized this too after wasting wayyy too much money on ice and ice trips. Cooler for drinks. Dc fridge for food.
One more tip: if you make the ice yourself, add salt to the water. This way, the resulting mix will freeze at lower temperatures than water alone. Hence: a) the temperature inside the cooler will be lower, and b) the ice made that way will stay frozen for a longer period.
I was wondering about that if it would help make the water colder too.
Like when you added rock salt to the ice around an ice cream maker in the good old days.
I am very skeptical of this tip. Salt just lowers the freezing point. It doesn't cause the ice to reach cooler temps. Also the salt will cause the ice to melt at that same lower temp. So I don't think this tip is correct about either point.
@@lexpox329 Hmmmm, if the water freezes at a lower temperature, then the resulting ice is also at a lower temperature. Otherwise it would be melting
Thermal dynamics101,if your wanting a cooler use ice,the water will be 32° f till the ice melts then temp rises,if you use thermal bags -i.e. from prescription freezey bags they last longer . And if your buying ice find a dry ice retailer ,1lbs lasts a long time and can keep frozen stuff frozen . refrigerator cooler ice / freezer cooler dry ice.
@@pedroagonzalezfoto What does melting point have to with temperature? Ice in a freezer will be the temperature of the freezer. You wouldn't say that alcohol in the freezer is warmer than ice only because it's melted.
Excellent !! Got 3 week adventure I need to stock real food for. You answered many basic questions ice blocks, wet towels, pre cooling, ice to food ratio w frozen food counting as ice…etc. So helpful.
Glad to hear this was helpful Chris.
I solved all 9 issues….bought a 12 volt fridge!!🥶
Haha love it!
Me too... I actually bought a metabo (actually hikoki) one from Japan, it uses tool batteries, charges when attached to 12v and are easily removable so if you want to run longer just bring a few extra batteries
That Makes total sense! I'm taking 2 coolers from now on! I definitely pack frozen food! Plus I put hummus, dips, and items that can get ruined in soggy water from the cooler, into a larger sealed plastic container. No more water dogged cheese and lunch meats.
the 1st mistake you made is thinking we're Vanderbilt's and have money for "sacrificial ice"
Your video is very good and you hit most of the points!
As someone who's done a lot of dessert camping, (Lake Powell for example 102F or higher) I kept ice for weeks!
You nailed it, ONLY buy a white cooler, and always keep it in the shade! You might think "well if it's in the shade, it can be black!" Wrong any LIGHT is absorbed as heat, on a dark colored surface!
You nailed it on never put anything in the cooler not already chilled, it's not a refrigerator!
Place all food, in sandwich, pint, quart and gallon zip lic freezer bags!
It's sick, 90% throw their steaks and hamburger in the store package into the cooler, blood ice, cooler water in your steak and burgers!
Use as stated a combination of block and bag ice both and 100% fill the cooler, all empty space with ice!
Buy the best cooler you can afford, Igloos are junk!
As stated you need a cooler about 3 x's bigger than you think, because 2/3rds is going to be ice!
Granted we are talking camping, not day picnicking!
But even an Igloo or similar cheap cooler can be made much more efficient by buying closed cell foam self adhesive door weather strip, not too thick, 3/8" wide and put around the lid! Opening top cover portion, as if you put it on the cooler lip it will get damaged, torn! A harware store bail snap down latch can be added too, pop rivited on, to clanp seal the lid diwn tight on your new gasket!
The same way you hear the ocean in a conch shell, that's air moving inside a closed shell, the high end coolers have a gasket, (as your home refrigerator does) and strong cover latches!
An Igloo you get 12 air changes a minute through the unsealed lid!
Where I disagree is with the freezer paks, a total unnecessary waste of money and space, after all its basically just more ice only in plastic, they are junk! Fill this space eith cube ice i stead! Also putting a towel inside the cooler, no!
Putting plastic over the ice, insulation no!
Lid is sealing properly a total waste!
Put it (the beach towel) over the top, outside the cooler and keep the towel wet with lake or creek water, for real evaporative cooling!
(Note: this only works in low humidity arid climate)
This goes a long way, to holding ice in the cooler for the long term,
I disagree in that the cooler MUST BE, kept drained!
Ice is at freezing, water is unfrozen ice, therefore warmer, and will ONLY CAUSE, any ice it contacts to melt faster!
This is where your WCRS, comes into play!
WCRS = waste cold recovery system!
This is a cheap Igloo, or even a 5 gallon pail, put your melons, fruits, warm beverages, anything needing chilled fast, into one of the above, THEN DRAIN YOUR COOLER WATER INTO IT!
Draining it onto the ground, is wasting cold energy (BTU's)
Another thing missed is pre freeze 500ml bottled waters at home, this counts as ice, plus pack it with you hiking, and you always have refreshing ice cold water to drink!
Makes no sense to put it in the cooler refrigerated but unfrozen taking space, freeze it!
Your other good point don't keep opening the damn thing!
When camping in the desert with other families, they thought I was an ass!
Their kids would run over and open the coolers, look in every 2 minutes then run off!
I got on them about it, and the parents thought I was crazy!
People really can be stupid!
Buy a 12v compressor fridge and live life to the fullest ;)
I've been a camper for over 60 yrs. Used all of your tips except for the wet towel. Now I really love my 120/12V refrig. A real frig/freezer, not the inexpensive heat exchanger type. Another hint is to put a rack on top of the base layer of ice & then partially drain the cooler every now & then. Ice water gets into everything.... Keep your food out of the water.
So what ur saying is.... stop buying coolers. Buy 12v Fridge/Freezers instead. You can get as much food & drink in a small 20q 12v fridge, as you can a large 60q (100+lb filled) ice cooler using the 2:1 method. I dont think I'll ever use a ice cooler again
So while camping you're bringing your own electric grid or generator to "save money"? Lol. Stay in your rv.
Great video is always hope you are doing well, missed you. For years I have been freezing 1 gallon water jugs, and flat Tupperware containers. Also, using the wet towel method. And I also have a small cooler four drinks to be used that day. Thank God for the 12-volt refrigerator I have now. Although even my last camping trip last weekend, I took a ice chest full of ice to make Daiquiris and have a Cube or two in my whiskey.
It seems like everybody in the comment section is using the water jugs. I don’t know how we’ve overlooked this one for years. I’m excited to try this on the next trip. Like you, we take our cooler with us as well. Although we love our 12 V fridge, we find lately that we need a little additional cooling support. Great seeing you on here as usual. Hope you’re having some great adventures this summer. Ours has been a bit on the slow end. Our camping season is just ramping up.
Learned something new I've been breaking these rule for over 35 years; I had no clue. Much appreciated
I gave up on coolers. Bought an Iceco, plug it into my Jackery and it is so much less hassle and it just works. Ice seems to get more expensive every summer too and harder to find
When we got our Bean Camper it came with a crappy Coleman cooler. Our Yeti doesnt fit in the cooler spot in the camper so we keep that in the jeep. Since I now have two coolers, I started separating things. With meals in the Yeti and drinks in the Coleman.
Makes it handy when we hit the trail as we have all of the lunch food already in the Jeep. I only have to pop a few cold drinks on the top.
I did cover the BLACK Coleman cooler with some of that silvered bubble wrap. Have not been on a trip to test it yet.
Beyond that, I've failed most all of the other steps. I will hitting the dollar store or thrift store to find some plastic jug containers I can freeze for block ice.
Best video ever!
Cooler Master! Great comprehensive tutorial! Thank you
I buy mix up cordial in square 2 litre containers. I fill them and freeze them, then drink them when they defrost. One in each corner of my 12 volt fridge helps heaps. And a few smaller bottles floating around. Frozen meat and meals in bottom. And dont use loose ice. I like the wet towel idea. I use my cooler for day to day stuff
Great tip on the containers. We do this with our cooler, but I’ve never thought about doing it with the 12 V fridge. Thank you for this.
I finally took care of this age old problem by installing a solar panel on the van along with a battery and bought an electric cooler. I bought the Iceco and love it. No more need for ice.
Amen! Love hearing when someone finds something that works. I was always curious with all your restored trailers, which one do you take out?
@@PlayingwithSticks Right now I'm camping in the 69 Siesta. I also take out my little Dico once in a while and I have a 59 Deville that I will be using while the Siesta is being restored. I will begin that one as soon as the 54 Jewel is finished. Should have that one done in a few months. Busy here. I have folding solar panels so I can take my power with me no matter which trailer or tent I take out. I built my own power station and it runs everything including my starlink just fine.
I had a feeling you may use more than one. I must say I’m a little envious. I have always wanted to build my own power station. But I’ve never got around to it. Being able to move the components from one trailer to another has been a real blessing for our family as well. We got to try out star link a couple times with our friends last summer and this summer. It was a really neat experience. Sitting there using Internet, while watching Elon musk’s satellite train go by overhead.
Yep I did some live streams from some of my regular camp spots including Death Valley. Now that was fun...@@PlayingwithSticks
Good video. I have been doing most of all of things for many years. Except two coolers and towels in the main cooler. The only time it is opened when I am cooking. I drink from SS water bottle. Back when I had a chest freezer I would put the RTIC 45 in it for several days with the lid propped open. And as others mention frozen water in two soy milk waxed cartons with cubed ice on top. Those go into a one of those hotel waste baskets, which I cut down the height and it fits perfectly, keeps the rest of the cooler dry. The cartons counts as drinking water and they can be used as tinder to help start a fire..
I have some nice high-end coolers. The 5 years ago I bought a snowmaster 66 12 volt fridge freezer and never look back. It's nice being able to have ice cream camping.
Good advice on draining the cooler, especially if you have some non-sealed food containers. I find draining my food cooler into my beverage cooler is a great way to keep drinks cold while prioritizing ice for the food. For larger and longer trips I may have a 3rd cooler just for Ice that only gets opened to replenish. Frozen bags or metal containers of water also work well because you just end up with ice cold water at the end.
One method to keep things colder longer is to put a cooler inside a bigger cooler.
Additionally, heat is transferred through the bottom of every cooler.
Best to try and keep it off the ground or place on something like wood to insulate the bottom.
Or even on an air pillow or air mattress. Blanket? Etc.
Throwing a blanket over your cooler can help insulate too.
Holy crap -- your video, info, and production are FANTASTIC! Within the first minute, I knew I'd actually learn something from you (even though I thought I knew it all, LOL). I am going to use this in my homeschooling/unschooling (if you don't mind!). Seriously, I'm old, and have watched millions of videos -- yours is among my top 10 favorite ever. I'm now going to follow you and watch a bunch more while I do dishes. Thanks so much -- seriously, good AND useful stuff!
Love seeing someone get excited about these videos! We just entered the homeschooling world as well. We have been educators in the public and private sector for the past 20 years. But, for the last two years, we have jumped into the world of homeschooling. So amazing!
Nice information!! I am about to purchase one of those expensive rotomolded coolers for winter travels. The 2:1 ratio, how to layer and why will really help me to pick an appropriate size and make the best investment that will meet my needs. Thank you so much!!🖤🖤
Another thing I didn’t really talk about due to time limitations in the video was the two cooler system. I mentioned the drink cooler and the food cooler. But many people just carry two separate coolers, regardless of what they put in it. This has a couple of advantages. The first is that while you’re using one cooler in the field, you can have another cooler hiding in a cool space. The second which is probably the most important is using two coolers to minimize your dead air. Space. Mid trip, once your coolers start getting lower, you can consolidate them to fill in all the gaps. I also find two coolers easier to pack sometimes than one large cooler. And much easier to carry. Glad this information was helpful Joanne.
@@PlayingwithSticks great points to consider with a two cooler system. I really don't care about cold beverages, so I had sort of discounted a second cooler. Seems like there could be some good reasons to employ that system.
We are kind of different like that as well. We are not a cold beverage family while camping. At home drinks are pretty popular. But for camping we keep it pretty simple.
Great tips. I've been on many week long house boat & rafting trips. We had Ice through the entire trip. We used 128 coolers with only block ice in them & we would duct tape each cooler shut. As far as staging our coolers; we would pack each cooler each morning for that day (food). Key here is NOT opening coolers AT ALL, until food for that stage is ready to be used. Rafting trips we would put beer and other drinks in a netting and drag them in the water, bring them in through big rapids.
Love these tips! I'm realizing I should have put more emphasis on the block ice in the video. Yes, you can follow all these tips. But if you just did the block ice and open the cooler less your retention would probably double.
This is probably the best video I have seen you make. It relate more to me all types of campers. Trailer guys, overlanders, car campers, etc. I would like to add that if you are on a long trip freezing, half of your drinks really helps the ice to last. I have frozen beer, water, and soda. Sometimes the cans deform a little bit but not always.
Great pointer there. What’s your trick for not exploding them in the freezer? Just keeping an eye on the clock?
@@PlayingwithSticks honestly I’ve never had it happen, but I usually only freeze for a day or so. The worst I’ve had are cans that expand, and are hard to set down.
Holy smokes, great vid and great comments. I'm investing in a really good cooler and I want to do all the things right. Long time outdoorsmen but I've often gotten away with the small time coolers.. time to step it up. Cheers all!
TY I learned alot had a bad storm this last summer and electric was out for 4 days! Tried to save freezer full of meat but lost it because didn't use these tips! Now I know and not going to loose $ 400 of meat had lots of charcoal and cooked alot!
I keep two -three coolers depending on the trip. 1)drinks 2)veggies, frozen drinks, snacks 3) meats & frozen foods that we use later in the trip.
I pre cut everything & freeze whatever I can. I pre cool, frozen blue ice on the bottom, then lots of ice. Beverage cooler gets water added to it. I always wrap and cover my coolers.
I’ve spent a lot of time hiking & camping in the south west, my coolers do really well. I live in TX (the country) and rely on my coolers when I have to take a longer drive to particular stores.
Fun story.. When I was in Cambodia, about 20 of us went to the lake for the day. I showed up to the meeting spot with a bucket w- lid and ice that I bought at the store on the way. When I showed up, everyone was teasing me about my cooler. I said “This is how we do it in America”, and guess what they learned? That’s how you have cold beer all day! My little shit cooler was the hit of the party. I still keep in contact with many people from my trip, and they all have coolers now. 🎉
I also put 3 bags of dry ice on the bottom, then cover it with a thin layer of refletix insulation then the drinks and ice on top. Works great!
This is incredible! Reason why I started watching this channel. Keep it up. Ponding if an electric cooler for the mean bean is necessary, but will try your techniques first with my traditional cooler.
In my opinion, I think an electric cooler is a great pairing with the Mean Bean if are doing more than four nights in a row. But four or less, an ice cooler can get the job done well. You may end up being like us in the future and take out both an electric fridge and a cooler. I am finding that to be a really good combination, and wish I did it sooner.
I'm kind of outside the demographic for teardrop camping with a family of six and big dog, but a lot of these tips will also translate to other kinds of camping, boating, or horse packing. With our recent summer heatwaves, if I had the opportunity, I'd be up in the high elevations with horses and mules with my kids, enjoying the cool breeze and fresh mountain springs. Oh well. I really like your channel. Informative, no fuss, and straight to the topic, rather than do the influencer ramble with loud background music, and 20 minutes of unrelated "look at me be cool" footage.
Glad you are finding some value in this. My boys and I are always watching the horses and mules on the trail. Some of our favorite fishing holes are on creeks frequently used by folks riding horses. It looks like such a fun time. We traded in the horses for four wheelers years ago on the ranch. I still regret that.
@@PlayingwithSticks I still have neighbors who use horses on their ranches. Talked to a lovely gentleman last year who was two days short of 88 and was returning from a solo hunting trip on horseback.
My husband doesn't really care for horses, so it's possible he'll get a side by side, and we'll go up with a mixed crew.
Good equines do cost a lot of money. If I want a cheap horse, I need a green horse and the time to train them. If I want a trained horse, I'm easily in the five figure price range. So... replacing a leaky house roof comes before hooves.
@spmamabear that’s neat to hear about the solo hunting trip. It’s quite inspiring. And as for the roof versus hooves, I get you there.
I have heard of the wet towel method but also heard of layering newspaper between food.
Like you said planning your daily meals between towel and ice make last longer. That steak you want on day 3 will be fine frozen toward bottom.
Thanks for your tips.
Thanks, I learned a LOT! The 2:1 ratio makes good sense too.
Cut a excasise mat up and use it in layers between the ice and food and top and put a thermo blanket over it and add salt helps.👍👍👍 from Australia 🇦🇺
Thanks so much for this. There were a few things I didn't do...One tip I have is freezing 1l water bottles and use them as block ice and then drink them as they defrost. Lasted for days in a quality cooler
I used rock salt on my ice once worked great. Put a barrier between rock salt/ice mix and the stuff your packing
That changed my world!!Who would have thunk it! And funny too! Loved it! Thank you so much!
You nailed most of it. Even a cheap Igloo you can make much more efficient, with closed cell foam adhesive door weather strip, putting a gasket around the cover!
The same way you hear the ocean in a conch shell, is actually air moving in a closed shell, think an unsealed cooler lid, the hot ambient air changes per hour?
Buy only white color coolers, keep in the shade, if water is available, cover cooler with a wet towel, keep it wet, by pouring lake or stream water on it, for evaporative cooling, freeze your bottled water at home, and use as ice loading! Great to take on a hike, melts as go, stays cold!
Do not freeze milk jugs as your ice source! The ice melts, the water around the ice is a lie temperature insulator!
Most important as you point out, combination of block and cubed ice, fill cooler 100% with ice! Every nook and cranny, this is the #1 cooler failure!
Keep kids outta the cooler!
Everything in the cooler MUST BE pre chilled or frozen!
Put ALL FOODS AND MEATS, in pint, quart and gallon zip lock freezer bags, avoid meat juice ice! Sick how people throw steaks and hamburger packaged right from the store in their cooler! Actually downright disgusting!!!
Adopt a "waste cold recovery", and drain your main cooler water into a cheap cooler, to chill warm melons, beer, water and soda, there was not room for, or as it's consumed!
A cooler is NOT a refrigerator, never put warm items into it in the field!
I've kept a high quality cooler almost full of ice, after almost 2 weeks at lake Powell, using these methods!
Buy the most expensive cooler you can, it pays!
Great tips! Also impressed that you got 2 weeks out of a cooler. Nice!
Very good tips. Most of which are new to me. I laughed at the end about the black roof trailer...The Bruder is all black so we'll see how that works out...and yes I thought about it when I ordered it. Cooler packing isn't something I've ever given thought to and your tips are very helpful.
We never really gave thought to this, until we were forced into using a cooler again. The last couple of years we’ve hit the threshold of our 12 V fridge. And we found a combination of cooler and fridge works very well for our family. That’s interesting with the Bruder. It makes sense for your side of the country, but where the Bruder is coming from that’s like sun central. But those guys think of everything. So they must have some efficient ways of mitigating the heat transfer.
I was taught by the scouts to use a baking/cookie sheet as a barrier from warm air between those items you want frozen and those that just need to remain cold. I nice bit layers their own ice pack. Cold air travels downward so theoretically the colder air will remain on bottom to preserve the frozen state of food longer.
We have 2 grizzly coolers, but planning on getting a third. We have 1 big one and one medium one, planning on getting a second bigger one. Once we do that we can obey the rules with ice more since we're a family of 6 and 2 coolers really isn't enough. I'm saving this video too cause my wife will want to see it. the big rule I've always broke is draining water, but the other issue is I don't pack things properly, like with raw meat just keeping it in it's original package instead of putting in gallon freezer bags.
We are in the same situation as you right now. Our family is outgrowing our cooling ability. This is why I put the video together because it’s something we’ve been dealing with the last year pretty extensively. We are currently doing a hybrid model of 12 V fridge and a separate cooler. But, I just found this new cooler I’ve been experimenting with, it may be joining us as well. If it tests as good in extreme temperatures as it’s been doing in these mild temperatures, I will definitely put it on the channel at some point. I’m a little envious of your big family. it always sounds fun to camp in a big family group like that.
@@PlayingwithSticks I do love camping with my family, but eventually having the 3 coolers and us doing tent camping means if we camp close to home, we need to take 2 cars, if we camp far away then I need to rent a UHaul trailer. I really would like a smaller camping trailer to replace my wife's and my tent, but we live in an apartment and have nowhere to store one, so for now we're looking at changing out big tent to a tent with multiple rooms so we don't need as many tents.
I live in Connecticut but have lived in other states and other countries. The only place I’ve ever seen block ice is in movies set before residential refrigerators were in common use…Where are you buying the block ice??? I don’t have much space in my freezer, typically to make block ice
At ice machines at stores/gas stations..available in Maine
I use a cooler within a cooler as a mini freezer, outer cooler is the fridge. And I use frozen 500ml water bottles...ice blocks with no mess and you drink them when they melt❤
I still have a couple of ice chests that I love but after getting a DC powered cooler with separate zones, I am never going to buy a regular cooler again. You can place room temperature drinks in the freezer compartment before you transfer them to the refrigerated side. The one I picked up for about $500, you can fit a case in there with room to spare.
I've saved this for future reference. It's so hot here in Texas right now. I'm plan to stay close to home and the AC. Thanks for these tips. Of course I was doing it wrong. 😁
I was just talking with Charles down in Dallas. I think yesterday he said it was like 109! Yep, that’s hot. Charles is the guy who’s been working on our teardrop trailer. This summer he says he hasn’t been spending as much time in the garage with these temps
Just outside of Houston & 103°. Sixth week of triple digit temperatures & no rain. Watching horses sweat while they graze.
🥵
@@PlayingwithSticks that's where I am. It's just awful! I live in a toy hauler and between 4 & 7PM it heats up like a toaster oven.
Yes, with all that aluminum that’s like a greenhouse! We can kind of relate. We spent four months in our cargo trailer last summer and a few of those weeks we’re over at 100 the whole time. But, unlike you, our nights got really cool because we were in the mountains. We wouldn’t have been able to make it in the flatlands, we’re kind of wimpy like that.
Excellent video, many good comments, too! I always put a reflective car window shade over my cooler. I've also put a big piece of ( scavanged) foam packing material on it, figuring every bit of extra insulation helps!
We used 1 quart plastic milk jugs. Filled them with clean water and froze them. They made great block ice. And you can drink the water on the last day of your trip.
But these days we've given up on ice and bought a 12v ice chest shaped fridge that plugs into a cigarette lighter. It even has wheels. If you plan on bringing a lot of frozen food, bring 2 or get a larger dual zone, as it can be a freezer, too.
12v refrigerator is a game changer for us. But there is a need for a cooler sometimes. Great video
I almost feel down laughing when you said don’t put them on top of the table we have all done that 😂