How did handle the dry ice, pack the cooler and did it keep your stuff frozen...what about ice cream bars will it keep them frozen....how long did it last. Taking a long trip to remote area and would like to pack some frozen stuff that will stay frozen. Once we get there we have freezers. Just the matter of the 8-10 hour car ride.
What kind of store...place sells dry ice?
Meijer sells it.
I used it but not for frozen food just in lieu of ice since we were travelling far - I thought I'd try it. It was funny. It carbonated the fruit that I had cut up in a ziploc container! It was actually yummy like that.
I need to pack a cooler in dry ice to transport parts of a wedding cake, since there will not be time to bake and decorate my cake once I arrive at my destination. The cake forum I belong to suggested dry ice and sent me to this website. http://www.dryiceinfo.com/camping.htm I was assured by several who have used it, that the ice will keep a cooler frozen for about 24 hours. I hope they are right because it's a 20 hour drive for me.
Meijer sells dry ice. Like others said, were gloves when handling. A little goes a long way. It is great for ice cream because you cannot let regular ice melt on that. We have used the milk jug thing for pop and refigerated food.
Having worked at Baskin-Robbins back in the day many moons ago, we sold dry ice--though the second one I worked at didn't--so it was kind of hit-or-miss. Some Meijer stores still sell it and there's an ice cream store downtown Batavia that still does, too.
Always handle with gloves. Stick it in a large paper bag in the cooler. Whatever you want frozen goes into the bag, too. But it will get REALLY cold. If you can find a piece of styrofoam (like packing foam) to put between the bag and anything else in the cooler, that should help prevent/insulate other stuff from getting frozen. Kind of like making a cooler within a cooler.
Any other water-based ice will only be just at or below 32 degrees, which won't keep ice cream (nor anything else) frozen. Cold, yes. Frozen, no. Freezers are supposed to be at 0 degrees for a reason and only dry ice can get you there.
Have fun on your trip!
cousin did - huge cooler w/drinks for reunion - but he used a very small piece to get the cooling started and refilled w/regular ice that day.
you can buy it at some WalMarts around here - probably other stores, too
We go camping and do 8 hour drives on the first day. We do not use dry ice - but we take milk jugs - rinse them out - and fill them with water and freeze them - takes about 1 day in a chest freezer. When you arrive at your destination - your food will still be cold and you will still have ice in your milk jugs.
When on the road - we buy block ice - it takes 2-3 days to melt in a cooler.
We had Frozen meat, but we put 2 bags of dry ice into each cooler and there was still dry ice left when we got back home. 10-11 hour drive, plus we had the meat and dry ice in the coolers, in the trunk of the car all night prior to leaving in the morning.
Ice cream would be different of course, but should work with a bag or 2.
Depends. We've used dry ice (our grocery store sold it) to keep meat frozen on a trip. It worked the first year we used it, the second year it was much hotter outside and the regular ice melted/refroze around the meat (no kidding we had to use an ice pick to remove the ice from around the meat)... the meat thawed but was cold when we made it to our destination. If you bought the dry ice prior to your trip and then purchased the ice cream closer to your destination you may have decent luck. Of couse, use oven mits when handling the dry ice--even though it is packed in paper.
I'm sure it works great, and this might be obvious, but in case you didn't know (I did not!) if you take an ice cream bar out of dry ice and put it in your mouth it will rip the skin off your lips! Oh man that hurt. I mean, thinking about it NOW it totally makes sense but I didn't think about it at the time. Just keep that in mind. :)
I too thought this was a good idea.
I purchased dry ice at a Baskin Robbins to use to put in a cooler for a camping trip that was about 5-6 hours away.
Once we got there and were parched -- looking for a drink, I opened the cooler --- everything turned into dry ice. The cans of soda,beer,etc were all rock hard solid of ice. The meat for grilling -- same thing. Rock solid.
There was no ice left - but everything inside the cooler froze solid. We did not have any drinks on a deserted island for camping (washington island in wisconsin) and had to take a ferry back to land to get drinks and food instead.
I would not do this again.
Use "Blue Ice" packs.
Not dry ice.
And use an insulated bag/cooler.
Get SEVERAL blue-ice packs.
some grocery stores sell dry ice , our Kroger does
