Whether you’re heading to the beach for the day, away camping for the weekend, or spending your afternoon at a backyard barbeque – an icebox is a must-have for keeping your fresh food and drinks chilled.
Not all iceboxes are made equal. Many look nice on the outside but have inefficient insulation on the inside. In this article, we’ve put together some pointers on choosing the best icebox for your adventures.
Choosing Your Icebox
Make sure you buy an icebox from a reputable icebox manufacturer, such as Evakool or Dometic. This will ensure you get the most out of your icebox at your next barbecue, or on your next camping trip.
When deciding on your model, it’s also important to consider how functional the size will be when it’s jam-packed with food and drink. It might be better to have two smaller boxes that you can lift easily, then one that’s larger, less manageable.
Now that you’ve selected the right one, here are our very best tips to help you make your ice last longer in your cooler…
1. Prepare Your Icebox
Spread a layer of crushed ice around your icebox the day or night before you use it. By cooling down your icebox and the internal air inside in advance, you’re doing half the job for the ice you’ll add in later.
2. Use Block Ice
Crushed ice is full of air, which means there isn’t a lot of solid ice. This means it melts quickly, leaving you with an icebox of cold water. On the other hand, block ice is a solid mass. It will keep your icebox as cold as crushed ice, but won’t melt as quickly.
You can buy block ice in both soft and hard packs that make handling and packing easy, or as icepacks like those available here. Alternatively, you can make your own using ice cream containers or juice bottles, remembering to only part-fill them to allow for expansion.
Frozen ice blocks – they can be old bottles or ice cream containers if you want – are better than crushed ice.
3. Add Salt to Your Ice
Adding salt to the water before freezing lowers the freezing temperature of the water, which means your ice will actually be colder than frozen fresh water. Using seawater will work even better.
4. Cool Your Food and Drinks First
Your icebox will perform at its best if you cool down the contents to go inside first. Place your food items in a fridge for a few hours first, then put the cold contents into the icebox. This way, you’re saving your ice from having to cool the contents down, which in turn means the ice lasts longer.
If you don’t have room in the fridge, put your drinks in the crushed ice you’re using to cool the icebox down with.
5. Add the Beers!
If you’re putting drinks in your icebox, leave the crushed ice in (as described above), even if it’s already half-melted. The cold water will help slow your block ice from melting.
Always keep your Icebox away from the sun and under shade as much as possible.
6. Keep Out of the Sun
The sun is your worst enemy in preserving your ice… for obvious reasons. Keep your icebox in the shade as much as possible, and ensure there is good airflow surrounding the box. Sitting the icebox inside your tent or car is like putting it in an oven, as temperatures can often climb 10-20 degrees higher than outside.
You could even cover your icebox with a blanket or towel to shade it from the sun. If you’re at the beach, a wet towel will work even better.
7. Avoid Opening Too Often
This is obvious, but every time you open your icebox not only do you let the heat in but you let the cold out. Avoid opening your icebox too often, and do so gently when you need to.
Here’s a tip: rather than dashing to the main icebox every 10 minutes to grab another cold one, move enough drinks to a smaller icebox or a soft-sided cooler bag to get you through a session. That way, you’re only having to open the main icebox once (and you don’t go thirsty!).
8. Fill Your Icebox as Much Possible
An icebox packed to the brim will preserve its ice longer than a part-filled icebox of air. The more food or drinks you have in your icebox, the less air you will have – which would otherwise need to be cooled down and kept cold.
What do you do to keep ice longer in your icebox?
G’day! My name is Dave and there is nothing I enjoy more than getting out in the bush and enjoying the challenge and serenity of travelling around this beautiful country of ours.
After 6 years working as an Outdoor Ed Instructor, I’ve joined the team down at Snowys to help others get geared up and head to the outback!
As an enthusiastic photographer and freelance writer for 4WD Action magazine, I love to get out and capture God’s stunning creation and share it with the world.
After getting married at the end of 2010 and having our first child January 2012, I’m looking forward to seeing more of this beautiful country with my family.
I recently bought some reusable dry ice sheets, have now used them four times and found them very disappointing.
I have put five sheets in a tightly packed, good quality ice box (EvaKool) with an ice cream container of ice and covered with insulation. After 12 hours, and the box only opened a couple of times, they had 60-70% melted, while the ice had only melted 20%. They also have a slimy feel when they have completely melted.
Has anyone else had any success with them?
Regular water freezes at 0°C while saltwater freezes around -2°C. As saltwater needs to be colder than regular water to remain frozen, it will melt faster than regular water.
There is an argument that if you have an ice box of regular crushed ice, you should add a couple of plastic bottles of frozen salt water. The salt water will melt first but the water will be colder than the regular ice (- 2°C as opposed to 0°C) and stop the regular ice from melting.
As has been pointed out, the best way to prolong ice is to have your container well packed with no spaces, insulated, kept in a cool spot and opening kept to a minimum.
I would also reinforce the importance of freezing you ice as cold as possible – if a freezer can go to minus 20, the ice will be minus 20 and will take longer to reach 0°C and start melting. I turn our freezer to maximum cold and leave my ice containers in there for at least two days before hitting the road – but it does make the ice-cream bloody hard!
Hey Chris, thanks so much for this insight – great tip about the frozen salt water!
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Great blog, would love to read more in the future.
https://www.irl.co.in/products/slurry-ice.html
Thanks for the feedback, Elvin!
Very helpful tips thank you
Two additional things I find helps push the cold further.
1/ Buy an ice blanket. These are a large semi-flexible ice packs like this one. https://www.snowys.com.au/gel-ice-pack-large
Put your must keep cold stuff in the bottom alongside the ice blocks, then put the blanket over the top of that stuff, with drinks, sandwich fixings, etc. on top of it. The whole unit won’t leak cold as much when opened. For added value, put another one on top under the lid so you fold it out of the way to get at stuff.
2/ Cover the icebox with one of those cheap but effective flexible reflective windscreen shades. This keeps sun off it better and helps keep it colder for longer.
Fantastic tips AJP, thanks mate!
Very interesting discussion – makes you wonder what is the most important : what you use to keep your your icebox cool, the type of icebox you use, how you pack your icebox or your maintenance of the icebox; not opening it all the time, keeping it in the shade etc.
I am beginning to think that an expensive icebox is not going to solve all your problems.
Yep Chris, smart management definitely plays a key role in how efficient your icebox is going to be and even the fanciest one ’round won’t perform well if it’s managed poorly!
Recently returned from camping in the Little Desert. Left at 8 am Tuesday. In the car fridge was beer, meat , two frozen 1.25 lt. bottles of unsalted frozen water and four Tri-Large Gel Ice packs, any empty space in the fridge was filled with “Wool Cool” insulation ( something I found at work that was packed around frozen meals) Fridge temp. was set at minus 5
Car fridge was switched off when I got to the Little Desert at midday and not turned back on, left in the shade and lid opening kept to a minimum. Temperature in the Little Desert was 21-27 degrees. Returned home Friday 4 pm, Gel packs had completely turned to liquid, but both bottles were still 1/3 frozen. Last two beers ice cold.
Awesome Chris, thanks for sharing your experience. I recently discovered that ‘wool cool’ insulation in a food order I received and thought it was terrific! Cheers mate
Thank for sharing these great tips!
Cheers mate!
I do pre cool my cooler overnight and make sure all food and liquids to go in it are as cold as possible. If I don’t have enough food or drinks to fill my cooler or there are lots of gaps due to different shapes and sizes I fill them by placing bubble wrap in the cooler. I use frozen 3/4 full 2lt bottles of water as my ice blocks, you can also make your own ice bricks out of pvc pipe. On top of everything I place a car windscreen sun reflector cut to size. At camp I place my cooler in the shade, moving it around with the shade. Never keep it in your tent as tents get very warm. I also place it on a stand so air can circulate around and I keep it covered with a thick towel or a blanket or both and try not to open it too often.
Brine (salted water) has some advantages but is harder to handle.
The single most important thing, which most people do not understand even those selling ice, is the ** actual temperature of the ice**.
The colder it is the longer it will last.
A lot of people think ice is ice. No.
Water freezes at 0C but can be cooled down to any lower temperature.
Ice at -10C will last days longer than ice at -4C.
I only buy ice from shops that have a temperature gauge on their freezer, otherwise the ice might only be about -4C and won’t cool for very long at all.
The best shops (supermarkets, bottle shops) cool ice to about -14C to -20C. Try to find these.
If no temperature gauge then only buy ice:
(1) that feels like it is “burning” your skin – if it doesn’t feel like it is burning then the ice won’t be very cold.
(2) that is in with the icecream in a supermarket freezer – icecream has to be cooled way below 0C to keep it solid.
Ice ain’t ice!.
Snowy – you need to update you “Tips on Coolers” – starting ice temperature is the single most important thing.
Probably been done loads of times but here’s my take on a good cool box hack find yourself a plastic container box 3inch all round bigger than your cool box Measure the top opening cut a piece of quater ply to fit inside the rim now take that piece of ply mark round the cool box (lid removed) cut hole so ply fits snug around rim screw it on place now lower in larger box drill 1/4 inch holes 4 of one in each corner of ply and fill with expander foam can be bought on cans, leave to set meanwhile make a new lid basicly make a 2.5 inch box lid so u have air space to fill again with expander foam, use door draft sticky foam to lids bottom to seal lid and what I used as fasteners so lid stated put whilst driving was 2inch wide suspenders and clips they work great and all done on the cheep, on trail one 2 ltr bottle frozen water no food so air space bottle still frozen 20 hrs later, hope this gives u an idea of how to improve your cheep cooler, best rgds everyone, G
Baking your ice block. Learnt this in the Northern territory.
Once you have a solid frozen block,Remove it from container wipe down with a wet towel and place back in freezer by itself. This is the baking process.
I can’t find any more information on this baking process. What is the reasoning behind it?
Put a cold damp towel on top of your contents. This creates a thermal barrier. After you open the lid you only need to move part of the towel to get to what you need and you don’t expose all of the cold contents to the warm air.
IPAs are on the left, Lagers on the right, JD&Coke in the middle. (Soft drinks are on the floor behind the drivers seat.)
Got this super helpful tip from the Yeti web site.
I use all the tips offered by David, and here are two more from me and a tale. Firstly, in the bottom of my large cooler I put blocks of salted ice I’ve made in ice cream containers and frozen in my -18C domestic freezer. I sit plastic-coated plate stands over the blocks of ice. The size I’ve chosen leaves room for tall bottles (milk, wine etc). All the stuff that’s packed in water-proof wrapping/containers I put at the bottom, anything that’s likely to get wet goes on top. Then I add crushed ice around the items on the top layer. This works a treat. Secondly, I sewed a jacket for my cooler out of a space blanket, complete with flaps for the handles and velcro fasteners. It took a bit of effort, but was well worth it. It definitely stays cooler for days longer. And the tale: I was cook for a group of trekkers in Central Australia one April with day time temps between 30-35C. We took two large coolers. One contained our meat, packed and frozen by our butcher, the other had everything else that needed to be cooled. I needed to minimise people opening the meat one, so I put a sign on it saying, “The chocolate is in the other esky”…
Putting cooler and meat in freezer before trip. Packed w salt and ice kept in freezer. Drove 5 days to California, added ice and salt once on day 3. Meat and ice was frozen rock hard still at destination. Tall deep cooler is best w smaller lid, mine was 25$ Igloo
Don’t underestimate the keeping it full tip even when most of your food is gone. Lifting the lid lets the cold air out and the warm air in that then has to be cooled again.
I use Sistema stackable clear plastic food containers from Coles. Even by the end of the trip my Icebox is full of mostly empty sealed containers on the bottom layers. These are loaded into the pre-chilled Icebox pre-packed from the Freezer and Fridge just before we leave.I have an Up & Go container (don’t freeze) a Juice Popper container (freeze) a Cold cuts & Spread container a Salad container a Cooked Sausage and Boiled Eggs container etc. Sandwiches and snacks are made at breakfast time and go in the top container for quick and easy access and the empty container goes back to fill the air gap. For dinner the Raw Meat (initially frozen) and Salad containers come out grab what you need then straight back in.
The other beauty of clear plastic containers is that you can see what you have without opening them and letting the cold out. Also they are sealed and float so no more watery or spoiled food. End of the trip containers and lids go in the Dishwasher then stacked back in empty Cooler for provisioning next trip.
I use empty 1.25l soft drink bottles for my ice. They don’t deform as much as milk containers. When they melt you have home drinking water. If you are in a Caravan Park I keep 2 or 3 in the camp kitchen freezer and swap them out if not I go the Slushy option when they thaw.
The article tips plus this one have pushed my cold storage out from 2-3 days to 5-6 days. My next test will be doing the Cape with an Esky and Ice bought along the way rather than a $2.5k Fridge and Battery setup.
Never thought about freeze soft drink bottle, good tip
This is helpful! Maybe one about making an icebox out of recycled materials…..
See my post lol
Line / loosely the inside of icebox with a emergency thermal blanket. They only cost about $5 and you’ll get a couple trips out of them before they may rip. Also have two ice boxes. One for food which gets opened rarely and one for drinks which can handle warmer temp (food will spoil easy)
I don’t think we’ve heard that one yet, that’s a cracker Grant – cheers!
Great input. I cut to inside size of my deep icebox a car sunshade to lay over the top of contents and also have a small icebox I decant daily needs . Try and have system, knowing where things are in main box so I don’t let in to much warm air and as little rummaging as possible. It’s like a Fine Art system!. I fill square tall plastic containers with sea water and keep frozen in my house freezer. Square avoids air space .
Using salt or sea water only makes it melt faster. The ice cannot be frozen to a lower temperature than your freezer will go. My freezer is set to 0 degrees F. Sea water or fresh water will both be frozen to 0 degrees F in my freezer. Since sea water melts at 28.4 degrees F and fresh water melts at 32 degrees F, the sea water will melt faster.
Yes, but salt water is heavier, so as the water melts, it moves away from the ice. Conversely, fresh water that had melted (warmer) stays by the ice and melts it faster. I do this as an experiment for my students when teaching about convection currents in the ocean.
It is true that they freeze the same, but salt water melts slower. This is because salt water is heavier, so as it melts, it sinks away from the ice. Fresh water will melt and stay by the ice melting it faster. I do this as an experiment when I teach convection currents in the ocean.
Marco is 100% correct. People mistake temperature with the energy of a controlled adiabatic system. The total energy of the system remains basically constant with the addition of salt, but energy is required for the ice to change states (melting) and it lowers the temperature while maintaining total system energy. Adiabatic means no heat (energy) transfer occurs with the ambient surroundings and this is used as an assumption for most college heat transfer problems … but of course we do have heat transfer with the ice chest to the surroundings; so lowering the temperature of the box will actually REDUCE the time it takes to reach an undesired temperature because the temperature difference between the inside of the box and the ambient (surroundings) has increased and heat only transfers where a delta T (temperature differential) exists. This means heat will enter the cooler at an increased rate initially because of the temperature point depression of the solution. Lora you’re correct for your example in an extremely large system (the ocean) as energy is carried away from the localized system. But it’s really not applicable for the small confined system of an ice chest, since energy (heat) must be introduced from the surroundings to melt (change state) the ice. The Ice vs no ice in a cooler question is really just a total mass / specific heat of that mass, and what’s the heat transfer coefficient of the chest question. It takes significantly more energy to change states of a product, called the heat of fusion, than it does to merely change the temperature, so the system energy capacity is what we care about, not the temperature. With all that said ….. salt water has lower specific heat than pure water; so 10 pounds of pure water ice at 0 degrees will take longer to get to 40 degrees than 10 pounds of saline solution ice in an ice chest.
Don`t listen to this, Simply put frozen sea water is colder and lasts much longer!, 7 days no problem in my ice box versus 4 days using regular water in the same cooler.
You have got that wrong ??? Back to front
Fresh water freezes faster and at a higher temperature.
Whereas salt water takes longer to freeze and at a lower temperature.
So the fresh water melts quicker, and the salt water takes a lot longer to unfreeze because its colder to start off with. I always freeze heavily salted water in 3 litre milk bottles, I add 14 tablespoons salt to 2.9 litres water and freeze ready to pop into the ice box. I have tested this in 2 identical iceboxes the fresh water lasted 3.5 days and the salt water nearly 7 days.
KEN has things the wrong way around. In cold countries salt is used on roads to make it melt.
On adding salt to water (Brine) BEFORE freezing it….
When it melts etc. etc. is not very relevant. Just depends whether you want cold liquid or cold ice in your eski…..
Water containing a lot of salt (and other impurities) requires a lower temperature to freeze (brine freezes at -10C, pure water at 0C). But temperature is temperature – pure water ice at, say, -15C and Brine ice, at -15C are both at … -15C. The Brine will melt first in an eski but this is not relevant, both frozen Brine and pure water ice will move from -15C to 0C to 5C to 20C etc. as they warm, at roughly the same rate.
Temperature at each stage of warming is the same – only difference is whether you want a cold fluid (water) or a cold solid (ice). Cooling effect is roughly the same (although Keith is correct – there will be very slight differences due to different Specific Heat – not very relevant though).
All that really matters is getting the water or water ice or Brine or Brine ice as cool as possible initially, and whether you like a liquid or a solid in your eski (liquid is generally better as you can move things around more easily so Brine has an advantage there).
… Physicist RodM.
thank u for this infomation it was for my thermal energy outline
You’re welcome Tristan, glad that we could help. 🙂
My family loves camping but the ice in our icebox never seems to last very long. We have a pretty old icebox. Could that be the problem? That’s a really good idea to put ice in your icebox the night before so it cools down. Adding salt would probably definitely help as well. Thank you for your helpful tips!
Great input. I cut to inside size of my deep icebox a car sunshade to lay over the top of contents and also have a small icebox I decant daily needs . Try and have system, knowing where things are in main box so I don’t let in to much warm air and as little rummaging as possible. It’s like a Fine Art system!. I fill square tall plastic containers with sea water and keep frozen in my house freezer. Square avoids air space . Highly recommend a Dometic ice box. Brilliant insulation
Thanks for these cool tips!
pardon the pun….
All the comments about freshwater and saltwater are very interesting. However, when I mentioned this to the guys at Werevr 4×4 they mentioned that the corrosion factor would need to be considered. Saltwater being more corrosive than freshwater.
The Idea is that the salt water is contained in plastic bottles so it shouldn’t corrode anything 🙂
You’re wrong about using salt water. While salt water has a lower freezing point, the salt actually makes the ice melt faster.
Salt melts ice. That’s why it’s used in making home ice cream: the salt speeds up the melting and since ice melting is an endothermic reaction, it draws more energy in the form of heat from the ice cream mixture.
Yes your right David, if we think back to the days of high school chemistry if you add ice to frozen fresh water then yes it will melt, it will also lower its temperature (exactly as you said with the ice cream but instead of cooling ice cream we are cooling our food and drinks) and so instead of having ice at 0degrees you have water at -5degrees (hence why sea water doesn’t freeze easily) This does however work in our favor when using it with an icebox, as the whole point of these tips is to keep things cold. Weather the ice remains in a solid block or not is neither here nor there but keeping your food and drinks cols is the goal! 🙂
Using salted water means you can achieve a lower temperature than frozen fresh water and so whilst the ice may technically melt… it will still be bloody cold 🙂 this is why you should keep it contained within an old juice bottle or something similar.
If you read the ingredients on most ice packs you will find they are mostly saline solution, or a different chemical that is designed to lower the freezing temperature of the icepack, hence keeping your food and drinks colder for longer 🙂
Tip 3 adding salt to water will only lower the freezing point of the salted water when freezing at home if your freezer runs at -18c both salted water and fresh water will be frozen but the fresh water would have frozen at 0c salted water depending on dilution will freezer at lower temperature but both will be -18c so adding salt can’t make it colder than what the freezer is set to.
Hi Peter, you are completely right 🙂 I don’t think the tip is quite worded correctly now that I re read it.
Whilst ice can be taken down to -18 it wont melt until it hits 0deg – so the surface of the ice will only ever be 0deg (ice actually has a thin film of liquid water on it all the time unless being kept frozen by another cooling source like a freezer) But when the ice IS the cooling source, it will take heat from its surrounding environment in order to melt – which occurs at 0deg.
Salt water will do this process at a lower temperature, and so the salted ice will actually lower the temperature of the surrounding environment down to its melting point. hence the salted water will be colder when placed in the icebox. Whilst it may not stay as a solid as long, it should stay colder for longer, and also keep everything else colder for longer in the icebox 🙂
A lot of the freezer bricks or ice packs that are available are designed around the same principal 🙂
Leaving the cold water in the Ice Box will help to slow the melting process of the rest of the ice. Also the cold water will be helping the ice to keep your contents cold.
Em, I always leave the water in the Ice Box when I have drinks and sealed containers in the Ice Box, how ever, if you are putting fresh food into the Ice Box, I would drain the water out to protect the food from getting water logged.
Gary, I wouldn’t drain the ice daily, rather i would add more crushed Ice as the Ice melts creating a slushy, icy mix that will keep your beers at the perfect temperature 🙂
For the fishing esky, the salt/seawater advice is spot on. If you kill your catch instantly and keep it in the ice slurry, the flesh will stay firm for much longer.
Should the melted ice (water) be drained from the container?
No, you don’t have to while you’re using it.
Unless you are DONE with the icebox, you should drain it or pour the water out so it doesn’t get moldy.
Howdy, had a talk with a fellow traveller, both ended up with wobbly boots on at the end of it.
ICE in block form in a 100ltr ice box. Does it keep ice longer buy draining water daily or leaving the water around the ice ?
Happy Australia Day.
Regards Gary.
Great question Gary, and I know why you had a long discussion of the pros and cons, because the answer will differ depending on the interpretation of the question. I believe that the simple answer to your posed question is that the ice will stay frozen longer if you continually drain the water off – and this would be fine if you were purely in the Australian Ice Block Race were the last cube standing wins, HOWEVER by managing your ice this way you would effectively wasting money in a camping scenario where your primary objective is to keep you food or drink cool. Sure your block might last longest but your food would not stay cold the longest.
You see the water in the bottom of your esky still has stored Coldness thus if you drain off your water every day, it is like throwing away the last third of your coopers beer in the bottom of the can – there is still some value left.
So if your question is ‘will it keep my food/beer cold longer by draining water daily or leaving the water around the ice? The Correct answer is ‘leave the water’. Of cause when you top up with ice at your next stop, this is the time to drain most or all of the water out of your esky for a fresh start.
Remember that Ice has to melt to keep your food cold. If you manage your ice well it will die for a cause, manage it badly and you are just pouring money done the drain.
If you just use plain block ice or crushed ice bag ice, then fold a blanket up put it in the bottom of your esky and as the ice melts it absorbs the water keeping your food dry but at the same time still expels the icey coldness. Pretty cool hey. Regards Ken
I freeze the long life milk cartons- they make great ice blocks which dont fill the esky with water once thawed and if you don’t end up opening them they go straight back into the cupboard when you get home.
Maybe just refrigerate one for the first days use though, they take a while to thaw in the esky.
At risk of sounding like a nerd, if you want to get the best out of your ice, you need to wrap your head around some physics principals. Remember the action of ice melting is what produces the ‘coldness’ – that is, when ice melts it uses energy, one of the most common forms of energy is ‘heat’ thus when ice melts it effectively ‘burns heat’ resulting in the atmosphere being cooled. Therefore ‘ice melting’ is not your enemy but rather your friend, the trick is harnessing that friendship for the benefit of what you are trying to achieve. Eg are you trying to chill those beers in a hurry or are you trying to cross the Simpson with meat for the BBQ on night 4. If you can comprehend this you’re on your way, if not read it again from the top slowly because it’s really important.
So what does this mean? Well as Dave has correctly alluded to, we know the size of the ice affects how quickly it melts. That is small ice melts quickly & large ice takes longer to melt, this is due to the different ratio of surface area vs volume of the cube. I can go into more detail of how that works but I will leave it there for fear of sounding too nerdy. Hang in there it will start making sense soon. So put simply the volume (weight) of ice will determine the amount of cooling power available (The size of your fuel tank) and the size of the cube will determine the speed of release (how far down you push the accelerator). Just tell me which ice to use, I hear you ask? Well as stated earlier it depends what you are trying to do. Let run through 3 examples.
Party Ice
As the name suggests if you are having a party (say 1-8 hrs long) the small ice is the go. Due to its high surface are it will release its magic power relatively quickly, bringing your beer and wine down to ‘Ice Cold’ quickly. You will notice that a lot of party ice is actually a donut shape (eg it has a hole in the middle), this is not so that you can thread it on to a necklace on a hot day to keep you cool, but rather giving the ice even more surface area. The additional tip here is that water is a better conductor then air this means that if you have water in your drinks esky your drinks will cool even quicker and stay colder, so don’t drain the water out. Infarct if you want really want to cool drinks quickly (ie you forgot to put the drinks in and guests are already knocking on the door) try pouring some water in the esky to make sure the ice can cool the beer quickly, your ice won’t last as long (due to having to cool the water as well) but your drinks will be ready when the BBQ is, rather than when it is time for everyone to go home. You can always make an excuse to duck down the bottle’o and grab more ice… serving warm beer – now that is unforgivable! Another benefit of water in your party esky is that when you return wine or soft drink bottles to the esky they will slide down between the ice easily keeping them cold, rather than sitting on the surface getting warm.
Block Ice
Block ice is your long range ice – it has a lower surface area to volume ratio and thus will take longer to melt resulting in a slow and more economic release of its magic power. It will take longer to cool stuff down from room temperature and may not keep the environment at zero degrees (more likely around 2-4 deg, depending on the set up, which is fine for milk) but when looked after block ice will go the distance (note also Dave’s salt trick in tip 3 above). This long range is critical weather you are tackling The Old Tele Track or just base camping in the Flinders. It will get you through a number of days without visiting civilisation – and isn’t that what camping is all about?
Crushed Ice
At the other end of the scale to block ice, crunched ice is the supercharged gas guzzler of the ice world – It has lethal power but will be spent before you can say ‘who wants a cold beer?’ Scientists and instrument technicians used crushed pure water crushed ice solution to calibrate their instruments because it melt so quickly that when used correctly guarantees zero deg C temperature. Perfect to pour in your cocktail or the initial chilling of your esky, but it won’t even get your esky three suburbs before its magic has all been released.
My top tips for making ice last
I should start by acknowledging the top tips above which are all very good tips, especially keeping it in a cool shady place. Further to those tips I would add the following comments;
1 Put the milk/juice bottle/butter back in the esky as soon as possible. Pour you drink or prepare your breaky and put it away, this is because while it is out, it is warming up (especially during lunch on a hot day in Marree) when you put it back it will melt ice until to get rid of the warmth it has taken on. The longer it is out – the more ice you will waste (unless you’re camping in the snow… in which case, why are you reading this?).
2 Freeze as much as possible before leaving home. This includes juice, meat and pre-prepared meals. This adds fuel to your long range tank. Often once you get into the outback you can buy frozen meat when you stock up. Take advantage of this wherever possible.
3 As Ricky discussed – if you have 2 eskys or are traveling with a friend, dedicate one as an everyday esky and one as a long term esky. You would be amazed how long meat will stay frozen if you pack an esky full and don’t open it.
4 Let leftover cool down before putting them in the esky for tomorrow’s lunch.
5 Raw mince does not keep long once thawed out. We find that precooking our mince before leaving home and freezing it makes it last much longer. Just make sure you heat it up properly before consuming.
6 keep your chocolate in a sealed air tight container. This will stop it droning and keep you in the Ms’ good books (this goes for vegetables too).
Remember when you move up to a camp fridge / freezer or if you are already running one, all of the tips in this blog will help you save amp/hrs on your battery as well, meaning that your battery’s will last longer saving weight on carrying additional power cells. So get into some good cold storage habits and get out there and enjoy Australia.
Wow thanks for that Offroading,its great to see the science behind the tips and thanks for adding even more tips for using the ice to the best of its potential for every kind and every occasion!
Cheers, top article, top comments, thanks Offroading.
Of course like many reading this, I am dissapointed to learn:
“You will notice that a lot of party ice is actually a donut shape (eg it has a hole in the middle), this is not so that you can thread it on to a necklace on a hot day to keep you cool, but rather giving the ice even more surface area.”
Understanding ice as energy is an excellent explanation, cheers
Sorry Jeremy I didn’t mean to spoil your fun, I’m sure the Ice Police will not arrest you for putting a piece of string though your party ice, especially if you mix it up with some fruit loops for good messure.
Thanks for the novel…lol
Mr Leslie enjoys writing in detail. 😀
Thanks nice article am building a wine ice table with marble wine cooler inside would love any ideas ! Have polystyrene reinforced fibreglass tape and latex cement over the top then tiles and outside wood so 50 mm thick approx so want ice to last as long as possible think I have most information from your amassing post was easy to understand but can’t be sure you might have a tip for my frozen table !
Good question, Graeme. I’ve put your question to Dave, the bloke that wrote this. Let’s see if he has something to add.
Couple more tips:
1. Ive found that with space I use about a third ice to about 2 thirds food and drinks.
2. If esky is opened a lot often good to have a second smaller one with ice, food and drinks for the day when lid is opened a lot. Leave other one as main one which lid is not opened much keeping ice longer.
Thanks Ricky G! A couple more valuable tips for icebox users!