Going on fishing trip to Saltstraumen Brygg Norway, Taking frozen bait and assortment of food, can anybody please tell me how long food will stay frozen.
The makers say five days but I am not so sure.
At home, lob in some frozen bottles of water 72 hours before you go. (1 to 2 litre bottles, the bigger the better, and the more the merrier!).
They will pretty much thaw overnight, but swap them for more frozen bottles in the morning, which will take 24 hours or so to thaw. Swap once more, and they'll likely still be 80% ice when you are ready to load up and go. You now have a very cold box to load up, as opposed to loading up into a room temperature box!
Where possible, load up with as much cold/frozen stuff as is practical.
5 days is a realistic claim for a box of this quality, with the above approach.
Works with various quality passive cool boxes, of which the Igloo is reputed to be one of the best (If this forum is to be believed).
This method worked very well with our Coleman Xtreme box, (before we went electric!), and it could be argued that the Igloo is even better.
I bought my IGLOO 40L Coolmate about 15 years ago and it has travelled everywhere with us in the caravan over the years.
At present it is plugged in and working in the house stocked with White wine, orange juice, butter etc., (in order to create a little more free space in the kitchen fridge during hot weather).
My Igloo Coolmate is not a refrigerator, simply a powered coolbox and will only cool items down to approx 15° to 20°C below ambient temperature.
For example; Outside temperature today is +30°C, Temp inside of my house is currently +21°C. Temp inside the Igloo is reading +6°C.
Without the motor running, I don’t think the contents would stay cool for more than a day in these current conditions.
Vin Blanc
------------- Now retired from active caravanning. - really miss it!
With respect Vin Blanc, those items of yours have not been pre frozen in a conventional freezer first, and neither has the inside of the box you have put them in.
There's also talk of Norway, albeit no dates/season mentioned, so there may be a difference in ambient temperatures too?
With my aforementioned approach to "priming" the box, and loading with large frozen blocks (stews/chillis in food containers/1.5L drinks etc), we've still had more ice than liquid in our bottles 4 days later, in ambient temps comfortably into the mid to high 20's.
Obviously it's best to limit the number of times you open the box!
Just keeping drinks nice and cold in the South of France (admittedly only in September) requires no more than swapping a 1.5L bottle of frozen (solid!) water every 3 to 4 days (and re-frozen in the campsite freezer, ready for the next swap in 4 days time).
Even a bag of 1" ice cubes take a good 24-36 hours thaw.
And by all accounts, the Igloo box is even better than my Coleman Xtreme?
I'd say yours is a whole different scenario to the one the OP is referring to... in my opinion.
Are plug in coolers as well insulated as the high performance passive coolers? They don’t seem as heavy.
I have an Icey Tek, and second Mucker’s pre cooling advice. Mine will keep stuff frozen for 5 days with pre-cooling, filled with frozen stuff and opening the lid as little as possible.
Those plug in coolers have air vents, and work like a fan by circulating air around the inside of the box. When they’re not plugged in, they have some insulating properties, but wouldn’t be as good as a comparable ‘passive’ cooler box which is more air-tight.
Please don’t misunderstand my post folks, I agree with everything that has been written but one particular thing keeps nagging in the back of my mind.
If the interior of the box and its contents have been pre-cooled down to a very low (below zero) temperature, all would be fine until the box is switched on.
I am inclined to believe that the box might then begin to slowly restore the interior temperature back up to its normal working temperature of around +6°C ??????
If my theory is correct, then using a powered Coolbox would obviously defeat the whole purpose of the exercise and it would therefore be better to use a conventional (non powered) Coolbox filled with pre-chilled contents.
All theories welcome
Vin Blanc.
------------- Now retired from active caravanning. - really miss it!
Quote: Originally posted by Vin Blanc on 25/7/2019
Please don’t misunderstand my post folks, I agree with everything that has been written but one particular thing keeps nagging in the back of my mind.
If the interior of the box and its contents have been pre-cooled down to a very low (below zero) temperature, all would be fine until the box is switched on.
I am inclined to believe that the box might then begin to slowly restore the interior temperature back up to its normal working temperature of around +6°C ??????
If my theory is correct, then using a powered Coolbox would obviously defeat the whole purpose of the exercise and it would therefore be better to use a conventional (non powered) Coolbox filled with pre-chilled contents.
All theories welcome
Vin Blanc.
Totally agree, Vin Blanc.
But I was under the impression that the OP was referring to the non-powered version of an Igloo box.
I could be wrong?
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Topic: Igloo cool box.
via mobile 22/7/2019 at 11:58am
