best cooler?

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seattlepitboss

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We're on a long road trip. Just started week 7 of 8. We're living out of a cooler to hold meat, and similar things. I'm frustrated with this cooler. It seems to me that all coolers have the same design deficiencies. They are built like one featureless box, and you put ice in the bottom where it melts, so that your food has to marinate in ice water. Over time ziplocs leak, jar labels turn gooey, and it's just *so funky*. Why o why doesn't someone make an extra deep cooler with a nice rack that sits up above the ice to keep everything out of the water?

I got excited when I found out about Yeti coolers. Just looked at them. Same dumb aspect ratio. You can get them up to like 55" long but not deep. It's like everyone's copying a design from the 1940s.

I'm posting this in hopes that I'm wrong, that there is one out there. And coolers *are* on topic for BBQ guys. Who among us hasn't brought meat to a remote site to cook, or used a cooler to hold hot foiled smoked roasts to let their temp equilibrate?

seattlepitboss
 
I understand your frustration.

We just put stuff we don't want wet (like sandwiches) in sealed TupperWare containers.
We also may put a plastic "bin" over the ice to keep stuff in it out of the water without sealing.

A "work around" that fixes it for us.

Good Luck.

TIM
 
They are called Cambros. They work great to keep stuff cold too. Or you could buy one of those airling carts that have all the trays for cold storage. Its just a tall cambro though.
 
We rebag ice in gallon Ziploc bags. This greatly cuts down on the water in the cooler and seems to help cube ice to last a little longer.
 
I drop a stainless restaurant tray over the ice and place the food inside the tray. I also leave the drain open so I don't slosh water into the pans as I travel... although I realize the drain open might not be an option.
 
We use Crypopaks from Restaurant Depot. They are a reusable gel pack that work much better than ice, but we have found that they work much better when placed in a quart sized ziploc. The gel packs are susceptible to tears after a few uses, so placing them in ziplocs gives them a longer life span. These things get seriously cold, and last way longer than ice.
 
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Also use blocks of ice instead of cubes, less surface area so they melt at a slower rate.
 
What about using dry-ice? I've never used it. but it seems like it might be a good option. Also, you could get a travel refridgerator, they just plug into a power-port.

Matt
 
el_matt said:
What about using dry-ice? I've never used it. but it seems like it might be a good option. Also, you could get a travel refridgerator, they just plug into a power-port.

Matt
Click to expand...

Dry ice doesn't work in a sealed cooler. The off-gassing of CO2 will pop the lid open.

I have a Coleman six-day marine cooler that is big enough for my food, plus two gallon milk jugs of frozen water. It makes them into plastic wrapped ice blocks.

CD
 
This summer I delivered buffalo meat to clients around the midwest. I used a Coleman 200 qt cooler and dry ice. We started with 300 lbs of frozen meat and 15 lbs of dry ice. The dry ice lasted two days in the back of my pickup in ninety degree temps. The cooler top stayed sealed. I do not know if that is common, but I was hoping that the dry ice would last longer. For our three week trip we used close to $ 300.00 of dry ice.
 
Here's a couple more options:

OPTION 1
As already mentioned; get a thermoelectric cooler. These tend to generate temperatures about 30 deg. under ambient (or 40 deg. over ambient in the heating mode).

OPTION 2
Get a DC to AC power converter and use it to power a small 120-volt AC refrigeratir or chest freezer.
 
I don't have a solution, but I have had the same (frustrating) thoughts that you expressed.

It seems to me that there should be a "dry well" in the middle of the cooler. You fill *around* the well with ice, and put all your food in the middle. I have thought about trying to create something along those lines by putting a tall plastic box in the middle of my cooler - with clean bricks on the bottom to keep it from floating when the ice melts.

Haven't gotten around to trying it yet though.
 
We use Coleman Xtreme coolers cooler here in Florida in the Summer time and love em.
 
The plastic jug thing works great and if you use clean jugs and clean water, you end up with water you can drink at the end of the trip.
 
Check out the plastic coated wire shelf racks at Lowe's or Home Depot. Cut to length and elevated above the bottom of the cooler.
 
Another for Coleman xtreme. Ice has to melt eventually, these seem to do it the slowest for the price. Yeti are nice but anywhere from 5-8times the cost of Coleman.
 
seattlepitboss said:
We're on a long road trip. Just started week 7 of 8. We're living out of a cooler to hold meat, and similar things. I'm frustrated with this cooler. It seems to me that all coolers have the same design deficiencies.
Click to expand...

The nature of a portable ice based cooling solution is problematic from the beginning. It really is not as easy a problem to fix as it appears. Most folks put ice in the bottom first, then start loading up. Copule problems with that from an efficiency point of view: lids are usually less insulated than the bottoms and sides, and ice would be more efficient on the top. Of course ...... putting ice on top sure makes it harder to get to the food. Then there is the soggy-ness issue of ice melting over food....

Personally, If i needed to keep perishable food items in a cooler for extended time periods, this is what I would do:

  • Use an "igloo polar" or similar cooler. (Similar to Coleman extremes mentioned here). They are the most feasible value if you can not swing a yeti or do not want to kill your back with an obsenely heavey rotomolded style cooler.
  • Use predominantly larger blocks of ice/freezer packs/frozen liters for the bullk of the cooling.
  • trim a couple plastic grates (like milk crates to create small platforms to raise the food if needed.
  • use cooler trays to keep the stuff rasised that absolutely HAS TO stay dry.
  • Fill spae with cubes/smaller chunks
  • Use ice ON TOP of it all.
  • DONT drain the water until you "have to".
I make my own ice blocks that are sort of custom sized to my cooler and packing style. For example, I make "slabs" of ice that go on top (and often the bottom). This sounds un feasible for a multi week trip though.
 
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