We have the Igloo ice cube on wheels. It's a great bit of kit. I line the bottom of the box with normal ice packs and then add a few frozen refilled platics bottles .. like water bottles.. amongst the food. Food keeps cold for a long weekend as long as you do not leave the lid open.
HTH
------------- Christine
2014
April -
BunRoy Fort William 3 sleeps
April / May
Invercaimbe Arisaig 4 sleeps
Bleatarn Brampton tbc July
Pre-cooling might be an idea if the box is empty and has been in a warm/hot location immediately prior to filling. If it is around room temperature I wouldn't bother.
I have always layered food from the bottom up and then packed as much ice as possible from the top down. From experience I've found that loose ice works much better than the re-freezable packs. I would never start with ice or ice packs on the very bottom. Cold air settles so there is no point of ice on the bottom of the box.
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All who wander are not lost...
layering ice packs on the bottom dosn,t do a thing COLD AIR DOSN,T RISE so you are wasting your time putting ice packs there inbetween food or the best method is layering along the top as cold air drops also if storing frozen food straight from the freezer at -20 DONT use any ice or ice packs as you are adding a heat source as ice is 0 degrees so wont actualy keep frozen food frozen longer hope this helps
I believe if the food and the ice were stored in the same freezer and the food is found to be at -20 then we would find the ice will also be at -20.
It is quite possible for the food to have been at -5 in one freeze and the ice gotten from another freezer where it was kept at -20. In this example the ice would actually be colder than the food.
I think what is important to consider is the mass and surface area of what we intend to keep frozen. Some frozen food has very little mass and a large surface area. Think how fast a frozen pizza will thaw compared to a couple of boneless pork chops!
There isn't a single situation where I would rely on using frozen food as the chilling source for a cooler. It is next to impossible to keep food frozen in a cooler for more than a few hours unless you are prepared to add tons of fresh ice. Lots of campers bring frozen food along in coolers recognizing it will thaw in the cooler and need to be consumed at camp and if not should be discarded and never refrozen.
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All who wander are not lost...
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Topic: igloo Cool Boxes - Freezer Packs?
