HD Coolers
- Thread starter 97TJGUZZY
- Start date
I've been doing some homework on cooler and ice maintenance.
I tried some rock salt on my last 2 day canoe trip. Not really happy with the results. But if you needed to cool drinks down really fast and consume them in a short period its great. It actually raises the temps over time.
I think alot of folks never really consider keeping their ice on multi day trips cause usually there is a store around every corner. Most just throw hot drinks in a hot cooler and get pissed and think they have a crappy cooler when the ice is gone in a few hours. You just asked that ice to cool down everything and last for days. No sir. The cooler should be primed where it's a cheap or expensive cooler, everything going in it should be as close to frozen as possible. The life of the ice will greatly increase. Another thing I like to do is put food and solid ice in my Icy-tec ( pre-yeti ) cooler, it was about $350 years ago. Drinks in a cheap cooler and supplement ice from the good cooler to the drink cooler as needed. Room for 2 coolers pending.
I looked at smaller yetis very hard and decided that it's really not practical unless your spending multiple days in the back country away from town. Which is how often, I mean even on a 26 mile paddle down the edisto i found ice.
For me personally I think the freezer from lowes had more cons than another high dollar cooler. Think about the ice you getting from the store. It's designed to melt period. I mean it's got a freaking hole in the middle, so I am collecting every ice trey I come across and making my own ice. It's cubes are bigger and rock solid to the core. Plus it double as a freezer through out the year. I'll post results of the cube ice Ina cheap cooler on my next trip, I have a feeling that's where it's at.
I tried some rock salt on my last 2 day canoe trip. Not really happy with the results. But if you needed to cool drinks down really fast and consume them in a short period its great. It actually raises the temps over time.
I think alot of folks never really consider keeping their ice on multi day trips cause usually there is a store around every corner. Most just throw hot drinks in a hot cooler and get pissed and think they have a crappy cooler when the ice is gone in a few hours. You just asked that ice to cool down everything and last for days. No sir. The cooler should be primed where it's a cheap or expensive cooler, everything going in it should be as close to frozen as possible. The life of the ice will greatly increase. Another thing I like to do is put food and solid ice in my Icy-tec ( pre-yeti ) cooler, it was about $350 years ago. Drinks in a cheap cooler and supplement ice from the good cooler to the drink cooler as needed. Room for 2 coolers pending.
I looked at smaller yetis very hard and decided that it's really not practical unless your spending multiple days in the back country away from town. Which is how often, I mean even on a 26 mile paddle down the edisto i found ice.
For me personally I think the freezer from lowes had more cons than another high dollar cooler. Think about the ice you getting from the store. It's designed to melt period. I mean it's got a freaking hole in the middle, so I am collecting every ice trey I come across and making my own ice. It's cubes are bigger and rock solid to the core. Plus it double as a freezer through out the year. I'll post results of the cube ice Ina cheap cooler on my next trip, I have a feeling that's where it's at.
Ive started making my own ice for my yeti as well, big difference. Something i would like to try is those silicon trays that they use to bake in, Some of those have some pretty large holes(might be shaped like a christmas tree), i would think up to a certain point the bigger the chunks the longer it would last.
My Yeti is starting to look beat to hell.. Guess its time for a Bigger one 
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Just picked up one of these. I put 5lbs of dry ice in the bottom then 5lbs of loose ice on top of that. All you have to do is set the beer in the cooler and it will get crazy cold, like on the verge of freezing. The ice is still froze solid without a drop of water in the cooler after 3 days.
