How to make the most of the Igloo Maxcold or any good quality Non EHU cool box:
. Start cold, stay cold: Whenever possible, chill or freeze your goods prior to packing them into your cool box. The ice won’t have to work as hard to get the contents cold – it just has to keep them cold, and will last longer.
Acclimatize your cool box: Cool boxes are designed for maximum thermal retention, both hot and cold. If you store an empty cool box in a warm shed, direct sunlight, or a hot vehicle, the heat absorbed from its surroundings is going to be retained by the cool box. When ice is added to chill the contents, it first has to defeat the heat trapped inside. So load your goods into an acclimatized cool box: If possible keep your cool box in cool conditions overnight before packing it. A good option is to add an extra bag of ice for use in pre-cooling your cool box which can help to improve its performance. On site avoid storing your cool box in direct sunlight – seek a shady resting spot.
Keep the cold, cold: As ice melts, cold water takes its place. Don’t empty that cold water – it’s almost as cold as the remaining ice, and works as an insulator. Plus, air is the enemy of ice so more water inside means less cold-robbing air. Keep in mind that frequently opening the lid reduces the ice retention and melts ice faster. Plan access so you open the lid as few times as possible. Close and latch the lid after accessing contents.
Melting rates of ice: Blocks of ice melt at a slower rate than small pieces of ice, so it maintains ice/cold longer. However, cubed ice will chill a cool box and its contents faster. Benefits of both sizes of ice should be weighed up for optimum cooling and retention. A top tip from this website is to use frozen bottles of water (and even milk). I use old 2ltr coke bottles which seem to work well. If I need to, I top up with bags of ice from a local shop or supermarket.
Twice the Ice . Fill your cool box with as much ice as possible: typically twice the amount of ice to stored goods is recommended. More ice limits the amount of air inside the cooler and less air means longer ice retention.
I would welcome any further thoughts or recommendations
For homemade frozen bottles, milk bottles are preferable as the opening is large enough to take the frozen ice cubes sold at supermarkets should you need to top it up. Pop bottles are too narrow for refilling.
------------- Yesterday is already a dream and tomorrow is only a vision, but today well lived makes every yesterday a dream of happiness and every tomorrow a vision of hope.
Great advice - also, if you're main purpose for having a cool box is to keep food fresh, and beers/drinks a secondary concern, then consider having a second cool box for drinks - this can even be a soft cool bag with some ice - cans and bottles can swim around in the melted water and they'll keep cool surprisingly long. The benefit of this is you're not constantly opening up your main cooler every time you reach for another beer.
And a warm can of drink can easily be rectified, raw chicken on the other hand....
looked at these - slightly worried by the fact that on their website they say Blacks, lakeland and Millitts sell them but looked on the shop websites and they are not found, also not fantastic reviews on here
I freeze milk, water and squash to use as late as possible at camp. Freeze water in containers ie takeaway plastics then take out of box and put in sealable bags. At camp leave in shade - outside main tent if possible - covered over with very damp big towel.
I do everything else that macguire6078 suggests. Last year I used a campinggaz standard 13 litre coolbox and after 3rd day still had some ice and frozen food. When towel dries out dampen it again.
------------- Mavis
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So as I have a physics degree (it was a long time ago) I have been wondering what the best material is for an coolblock. You need a material with a high specific heat capacity (which its ability to store heat or cold in this case), water has a good capacity but Ice is much worse. However the process of the ice melting takes heat out so the melting helps. So its true what they say about leaving the water in as this has a good ability to retain the temperature in the box. So salt water would work well if you just put enough salt in to ensure that when you take the pop bottle out of the freezer then its frozen. I am thinking that that would be better than just water but I need to think about it. There is another consideration in that you want dont want the coolbox to be too cold but just keep cold for the max time.
However it got me thinking that perhaps water is not the best anyway. I wonder if a block of copper in the freezer then put in a coolbox would work well. It would get cold very quick, so poping one back in the freezer campsite would only need a short time. I would think that you would then wrap it in something insulating when in the coolbox to slow down the heat transfer. If you look at some of the reviews of iceblocks they say they were no good as they melted fast, I "think" thats a good thing for cooling purposes.
So forget the idea of a block of metal, its the act of melting that has be biggest influence on taking heat out and water has a better specific heat than copper anyway. So my theory is that gel coolblocks are much better than a bottle of water. They may not appear so as they melt before a plastic bottle of water does but the idea that if you put in a bottle of water and its still frozen when you come home actually means that you didnt gain the benefit of the extraction of heat when going from solid ice to liquid water. Gel coolblocks are probabally the best, followed by frozen salt water or antifreeze but salt is better to put in a drinks bottle than antifreeze as its safer.
Due to the cheap price of those blue iceblocks and the fact that they are a square shape for packing I think I will stick with those.
Save your money, The gel blocks defrost rapidly and then all you have are blue blocks of no use what so ever, unless at a campsite with fridge available. Tried the salt water in bottles did not extend the defrosting period by much and again you still need a fridge available to refreeze. So Cheap and cheerful and reusable
2 X 4 litre plastic milk bottles frozen solid. First in the cool box night before trip to pre chill. Take it out pack other bottle with pre chilled food and go on hols. Should you be on a site with fridge use your next empty milk bottle as a replacement, If no facility available, fill the empty bottle with ice from the supermarket.
Should no supermarket be available you need a running stream and nick a pair of wife's / girlfriends tights. But that's a whole different means of chilling.
You should see what we can do with a woolly sock and a can of beer
------------- Yesterday is already a dream and tomorrow is only a vision, but today well lived makes every yesterday a dream of happiness and every tomorrow a vision of hope.
I agree about some storage for shop bought ice is handy but having just spent a reasonable amount of money on a coolbox I want to use the best cooling material. If you get proper ice blocks or board they have whats called a Eutectic material in them and its mostly water but with some other ingredients to help the process of keeping your stuff cool. They will have a melting point lower than 0C and this is why you say that they defrost rapidly -as they defrost at a lower tempature than ice. So if you go in your box and they have melted that doesnt mean the box is warmer than with ice, the actual box temperature is likely to be cooler. Infact it is the melting that is what keeps the box cool so you want them to melt. They also have seed material in them so they freeze more rapidly than just water. Water can be 0C and not yet ice and it needs some dust or dirt or other particles to form ice crystals. So if you do use water, dont use mineral water will take longer to form ice as its filtered.
These look good and not expensive, but I agree I will take some frozen milk or cartons of OJ and then I can put in shopbought ice, but I got a 5 day coolbox to avoid that. Having said that I bet its the total volume of ice or icepacks that makes most of the difference.
The wet woollen sock on the roof rack really works excellent for beers or pop. Even on sunny days. The longer/ faster you drive the cooler or becomes. Ah wind chill factor, nature goes both ways!
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Topic: Top tips for non electric cool boxes
