Dry Ice Question

In article <[email hidden]>,

RoR said:

I'm trying to figure if I can keep a lot of meat frozen for 12 days in
varying temperature
weather with dry ice, better than regular ice.

I tried looking up info on the web and found I'd need 10 - 20 pounds per day.
Yikes! That
seems a lot.

Does anyone have experience with dry ice in coolers?

Yes.

Quoted message said:

The cooler I want to use is a Coleman Extreme measuring 12" x 24" x 12"

LOTS and lots of insulation will make it last a lot longer.
Newspaper is good for that.

Quoted message said:

The meat to be frozen will start out frozen - I just need to keep it frozen.

10 to 20 lbs. per day I think is too much.
But yes, do use a smaller cooler.

And lots and lots of newspaper.

Quoted message said:

Other coolers are available, especially another Extreme cooler but it's a bit
smaller.

A smaller cooler will help actually. The smaller the space to be kept
cool, the better it'll work.

Quoted message said:

Weather is expected to be 72° daytime and 35° - 40° at night.

If I start with all frozen and use dry ice to keep it frozen (opening cooler
once each day
only, will it keep things frozen for more than a day or two?

Obviously, I have no experience with dry ice.

TIA.

Why so long?
Camping?

Quoted message said:

--
Om.

"My mother never saw the irony in calling me a son-of-a-[censored]." -Jack Nicholson

"RoR" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

I'm trying to figure if I can keep a lot of meat frozen for 12 days in
varying temperature
weather with dry ice, better than regular ice.

I tried looking up info on the web and found I'd need 10 - 20 pounds per
day. Yikes! That
seems a lot.

http://www.dryiceinfo.com/shipping.htm Seems about right from what I've
seen here.

Quoted message said:

Does anyone have experience with dry ice in coolers?

The cooler I want to use is a Coleman Extreme measuring 12" x 24" x 12"

You can get better result with a larger cooler and adding more insulation.

I worked on a project some years back that involved shipping medicines to
desert areas of the world. Testing showed that a 6" thick foam insulated
container was more efficient than more dry ice in larger and thinner walled
containers. Beyond 6" there was little gain. If need be, you can buy sheets
of foam and make your own container.

On Mon, 26 Sep 2005 21:28:26 -0500, OmManiPadmeOmelet <[email hidden]>

Quoted message said:

Why so long?
Camping?

Yes. Well, actually, a deer hunting trip. Hunting, not killing, for me at least. I just
like the excuse to get out into the wilderness, roam the woods at will, and cook some
really appreciated dinners for the hunters. It's amazing what all day hunting can do to
your appreciation of someone else's cooking. :-)

And I feast on the compliments.

Thanks, I think I can keep things frozen better this year. I had to adjust the menu last
year because I was beginning to fear we were too warm in the coolers.

I vowed to not have the same problem this year...we shall see.

In article <[email hidden]>,

Edwin Pawlowski said:

"RoR" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

I tried looking up info on the web and found I'd need 10 - 20 pounds per
day. Yikes! That
seems a lot.

http://www.dryiceinfo.com/shipping.htm Seems about right from what I've
seen here.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

The cooler I want to use is a Coleman Extreme measuring 12" x 24" x 12"

Something's wrong with the math here! Each 10 pound block is 10" X 10"
X 2". For 12 days, at 10 pounds a day, that's 24 inches. That leaves
two inches on each of two sides for the food!

The other thing is that the food is going to stay quite frozen for a
long time after the dry ice is gone. We're talking 100 degrees F below
zero!

The best I can offer is that I was once sent a gift of elk and bison,
UPS second day air delivered on a Friday packed with dry ice in a heavy
foam cooler. I had no idea it was coming, and was away until the
following Monday afternoon. Everything was still rock solid and there
was dry ice remaining, that's at least 4 1/2 days.

Jessica

"RoR" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

I'm trying to figure if I can keep a lot of meat frozen for 12 days in
varying temperature
weather with dry ice, better than regular ice.

I tried looking up info on the web and found I'd need 10 - 20 pounds per
day. Yikes! That
seems a lot.

Does anyone have experience with dry ice in coolers?

The cooler I want to use is a Coleman Extreme measuring 12" x 24" x 12"

The meat to be frozen will start out frozen - I just need to keep it
frozen.

Other coolers are available, especially another Extreme cooler but it's a
bit smaller.

Weather is expected to be 72° daytime and 35° - 40° at night.

If I start with all frozen and use dry ice to keep it frozen (opening
cooler once each day
only, will it keep things frozen for more than a day or two?

Obviously, I have no experience with dry ice.

TIA.

Dry ice doesn't play nice with plastic coolers. The plastic will freeze and
shatter.

In article <[email hidden]>, RoR
<[email hidden]> wrote:
(snippage)

Quoted message said:

Thanks, I think I can keep things frozen better this year. I had to
adjust the menu last year because I was beginning to fear we were too
warm in the coolers.
I vowed to not have the same problem this year...we shall see.

Did you have a thermometer in there to either support or quash your fear?
Have fun!
--
-Barb, <http://www.jamlady.eboard.com> Updated 9-26-05

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

I'm trying to figure if I can keep a lot of meat frozen for 12 days
in varying temperature weather with dry ice, better than regular
ice.

I tried looking up info on the web and found I'd need 10 - 20
pounds per day. Yikes! That seems a lot.

Does anyone have experience with dry ice in coolers?

I just had an idea. Get 2 coolers. Pack all the frozen meat in one
cooler without any ice or dry ice. It will stay frozen solid for
several days by itself. Put about 5 or 10 pounds of dry ice, wrapped in
newspaper, in a seperate foam cooler. Don't open the dry ice cooler
until the meat in the other cooler is just starting to thaw a little
(several days at least, maybe a week) Then transfer the meat to the dry
ice cooler or vice versa.

The dry ice should keep a *lot* longer that way.

Bob

Kswck said:

"RoR" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

I'm trying to figure if I can keep a lot of meat frozen for 12 days in
varying temperature
weather with dry ice, better than regular ice.

I tried looking up info on the web and found I'd need 10 - 20 pounds per
day. Yikes! That
seems a lot.

Does anyone have experience with dry ice in coolers?

The cooler I want to use is a Coleman Extreme measuring 12" x 24" x 12"

The meat to be frozen will start out frozen - I just need to keep it
frozen.

Other coolers are available, especially another Extreme cooler but it'sa
bit smaller.

Weather is expected to be 72° daytime and 35° - 40° at night.

If I start with all frozen and use dry ice to keep it frozen (opening
cooler once each day
only, will it keep things frozen for more than a day or two?

Obviously, I have no experience with dry ice.

TIA.

Dry ice doesn't play nice with plastic coolers. The plastic will freeze and
shatter.

Very true, dry ice will maintain far colder temps than conventional
home freezers... if bumped the plastic liner will indeed shatter. The
hard plastic cooler liner serves no other purpose than making for easy
clean-up. Typical camping coolers aren't designed for frozen,
certainly not with dry ice, they're designed for refrigerated. For
keeping food frozen with dry ice the best type of cooler is those el
cheapo all styrofoam kind, those have no plastic liner... instead place
the food in a plastic bag. To use dry ice wrap it in many layers of
newsprint and place that inside a cardboard carton, then place that
inside the styrofoam cooler, it will last much longer, and you don't
want the dry ice to make contact with the food anyway, not with
yourself either. Then place the entire styrofoam cooler inside a
corrogated cardboard carton, and keep that entire package well shaded
from the sun. A ten pound chunk of dry ice treated as described should
last about ten days. Many years ago, more than I care to remember, I
spent a summer driving a Bungalow Bar Ice Cream truck (don't know how
many of yoose if any remember Bungalow Bar). The peaked roof was
simply the space where the dry ice was kept, in burlap bags... the
company supplied the dry ice but it was up to the individual drivers to
maintain the supply of dry ice inside the 'attic'... if your ice cream
melted you had to pay for it... it behooved me to learn how to handle
dry ice.

http://peter-marina.com/BungalowBarTruck.jpg

Sheldon

Dan Abel said:

In article <[email hidden]>,

Edwin Pawlowski said:

"RoR" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

I tried looking up info on the web and found I'd need 10 - 20 pounds per
day. Yikes! That
seems a lot.

http://www.dryiceinfo.com/shipping.htm Seems about right from what I've
seen here.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

The cooler I want to use is a Coleman Extreme measuring 12" x 24" x 12"

Something's wrong with the math here! Each 10 pound block is 10" X 10"
X 2". For 12 days, at 10 pounds a day, that's 24 inches. That leaves
two inches on each of two sides for the food!

The other thing is that the food is going to stay quite frozen for a
long time after the dry ice is gone. We're talking 100 degrees F below
zero!

That's the internal temperature of the dry ice itself, not the
temperature of the CO2 gas coming off the chunk, certainly not the
temperature of the air inside the cooler.

Quoted message said:

From much personal experience I know that dry ice doesn't work as

described on that website, something terribly wrong there. And what
makes you think a two inch thick slab of dry ice 10" x 10" will only
decay lengthwise... duh... before that slab's length/width shrinks
smaller than 6" x 6" it will be totally gone, all things being equal
all surfaces will decay equally... no differently from an equally sized
slab of water ice.

A ten pound chunk of dry ice would be substantially larger than
described above... for maximum longivity obviously you'd want a 10lb
block, not a 10lb slab... actually a 10lb sphere would last longest but
is not practical to produce.

Sheldon

Dan Abel said:

In article <[email hidden]>,

Edwin Pawlowski said:

"RoR" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

I tried looking up info on the web and found I'd need 10 - 20 pounds per
day. Yikes! That
seems a lot.

http://www.dryiceinfo.com/shipping.htm Seems about right from what I've
seen here.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

The cooler I want to use is a Coleman Extreme measuring 12" x 24" x 12"

Something's wrong with the math here! Each 10 pound block is 10" X 10"
X 2". For 12 days, at 10 pounds a day, that's 24 inches. That leaves
two inches on each of two sides for the food!

The other thing is that the food is going to stay quite frozen for a
long time after the dry ice is gone.

Actually food being essentially frozen water it won't remain frozen any
appreciable time longer than had you removed that food from your home
freezer... perhaps a few seconds at the most, depending on the
composition of the particular food. Haven't you ever bought ice cream
from the Good Human guy, his cooler is maintained with dry ice... his
ice cream melts just as rapidly as from your home freezer

http://van.hep.uiuc.edu/van/qa/section/States_of_Matter_and_Energy/Properties_of_Water/20020516171039.htm

http://tinyurl.com/awclb

Sheldon