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Ok I have seen varying opinions on this. I will be bringing a grill and a couple rectangular coolers. For drinks and whatnot we were planning to fill a cooler with wet ice. Our meat we had planned to put in the dry ice cooler so that it stays frozen until we want to cook it. Any potential problems with this?
Post by sillygreen89 on May 15, 2012 9:27:48 GMT -5
We plan on bringing dry ice also this year and from the discussions on this board I've come up with a sort of plan, dry ice on the bottom of one of the bigger coolers then several layers of frozen water bottles then meat/some other drinks then keep that cooler mostly closed. Don't know much about using dry ice because I've never done it, but I have read up on how to best use it for camping. In the "That Tent" sub-board there's some dry-ice info if you search around.
Meh, I just buy regular ice each morning. Keeps everything frozen, and sometimes it's nice and refreshing to dump that ice cold water on you before you drain and refill with ice.
Yea, we did that last year and that is the reason we want dry ice this year. The ice run everyday sucked for us.
I love it. I also get up freakishly early and enjoy walking around before the temperature hits "melt human beings" status. People watching is fantastic, and watching people birth themselves from their tents while gasping for non-humid air is always good for a laugh.
We took dry ice last year and it worked great. We didn't put any food with it though because I read several places online that it makes your food taste weird. The only meat we took though was like hot dogs, bacon & kielbasa - no ground meat/chicken or anything like that. I honestly didn't want to play around with that because the last thing we needed was to get food poisoning while there. I felt ok about keeping what we had in the regular ice.
We had 3 coolers, a big 70 qt one and two 50 qt ones. We put the dry ice in the big one and it just had all frozen water bottles in it. Sounds excessive but you really need that much water. The other coolers we used reg ice and had one with food and the other with other type of drinks.
We bought the dry ice at home before we left here in OH on Wed and it lasted fine until Sunday. Make sure it is covered well (ours was with newspaper) because it can crack your cooler or put a thin towel on the bottom. And try not to open the cooler a lot.
We also didn't have a problem getting regular ice there. We were in Pod 11 so we were by the road and people that lived there would sell us ice at the fence cheaper than the ice truck but we did buy from the ice truck once.
The dry ice is good because it keeps things frozen longer then if you took them out of your freezer and put it right in with regular water ice. To warn you though it will not stay frozen the whole time, it will probably last sometime between 24-48 hours, at which time you will have to switch to water ice. Also dry ice likes to be compact with no space around it, which means the cooler you use will have to be packed tight (you can use fillers like paper or water ice). But as you cook things the cooler will become less dense and the dry ice will melt faster.
We use it and there are a lot of plus's to it just might want to read up on some of the ins and outs.
One other thing, if you use water ice as a filler in the cooler make sure that the dry ice is in sealed bag, or you will end up with a smoke machine on you hands. (I usually just stay away from the water ice till the dry ice is gone)
Bottom line is it helps but by sometime Friday you are still going to be running for ice. We use it more for the fact that we have a 13 hour drive and want to at least get there with the food still frozen.
Post by purplefuzzystuff on May 15, 2012 10:40:47 GMT -5
I swear by dry ice. (There are only two years I didn't use dry ice and I don't know how I survived) We get it on Wednesday morning and the stuff in our coolers is still cold on Monday, it is kind of magical.
We just buy two big chunks of it at the grocery store and put one in each cooler. We also freeze at lease one or two of the gallon jugs of water, and any little water bottles we put in there and that helps keep everything cool once the dry ice is gone.
We've never really had a problem with our food tasting funny or being fizzy perhaps we just wrap everything extra well, I don't know.
From a cost/benefit perspective, what we found was that $20 worth of dry ice bought ahead of time offset the need to buy $10 worth of ice on Saturday afternoon and another $10 on Sunday morning…but since we don't have dry ice available near our house, it added a pre-Roo hassle that just wasn't worth the exercise. And more so since we quit bringing so much food into the festival with us. When the beer's gone, we don't need any more ice. That simple.
With a little luck, you run out of beer right as you run out of Roo.
We do dry ice and it works well. We have experienced the "strange taste" to the food as it made our fresh fruit taste as though it was carbonated. Make sure you wrap the dry ice in a towel or something and keep it in the bag it came in. We freeze a few 20 oz water bottles to put on top and then food. With a 5 day cooler it really does keep things cold (not frozen) for 5 days.
Post by natedagreat on May 15, 2012 11:10:41 GMT -5
I put dry ice in the bottom of my largest cooler and then cover the dry ice with a couple of towels. Then normal ice on top of that. I still do an ice run everyday but, it only takes one bag to keep the beer cooler cold and put a new layer of fresh ice in the big cooler. I also add salt to my coolers periodically through out the weekend, especially the beer cooler. I've never tried to keep my beer in my dry ice cooler but I don't think it would hurt. I take a 30 rack in the morning out of my car, dump a little ice followed by salt and then pack the beer in there tight with a top layer of ice and more salt. It only takes about 10-15 minutes after that for the beer to be ice cold.
You can buy dry ice in Nashville at continental carbonics they will have plenty. However trying to cook a steak frozen solid as a rock may present you with some difficulties.
Post by Claytonator on May 15, 2012 11:32:24 GMT -5
Throw the dry ice (still in the bag) in the bottom on top of a towel. Then throw in as many PRE-FROZEN bottles of water as you can fit in there. Last year I froze all the water bottles beforehand, and the bottom layer was still frozen when I unpacked at home on Monday. Put another towel on top of the water bottles, then add whatever you want to keep cold on top of that. If you do it right, you'll have a solid block of ice, which your cooler should keep frozen for a while on its own, plus the dry ice underneath it continually keeping everything cold. Open the cooler as little as possible.
Works like a charm. Only bought bags of ice for the beer cooler.
Like others have said, though, anything not wrapped in plastic or sealed up in bags or containers is going to get "fizzy." It's not pleasant, but it isn't bad if you're really hungry. Not sure I'd eat much of it though, it's probably not too healthy.
Post by well behaved antelope on May 15, 2012 12:09:02 GMT -5
This is what I've done the last 3 roos and countless other camping and outdoor events and its cheap and it works well. Buy a box of gallon sized ziploc bags (not store brand) and a box of quart sized ziplocs (again, not store brand, they are likely to leak). Fill several bags with water, tepid is probably best, just don't use ice mixed with water because you want the bag to freeze uniformly. When you fill the bags only fill to about 70-80% of the total capacity of the bags and suck out the remaining air and seal bag. Gallon sized bags may take up to a week to freeze completely and if you are doing a lot of them plan ahead. However if you have an additional freezer its not too much of a hassle.
I usually keep one gallon bag in each cooler plus a quart bag or two and take one extra cooler that contains only bags of ice. And replace the food you eat, drinks you drink with new bags as space opens up. Every year the gallon sized bags do not completely melt and it takes the quart bags (which are just space fillers really) a day or two to melt and keep things cool for at least a half day after that. And the best part is nothing in your cooler has to get wet (like sensitive items ) and everything stays nice and cold and dry and having separate bags keeps the meltwater from melting the new ice. Remember, whenever you are draining your cooler that is just wasted energy that it took to get it cold in the first place. It may sound like a lot of hassle but i haven't bought ice since roo '06 and I'm celiac so I pretty much have to take all the food we eat (and we eat WELL) and all of my/our beverages as well, sadly my girlfriend and I cannot participate in any of the beers in Centeroo so we have to be pretty well prepared.
I live by the Dry Ice.Do like it was said above. Dry ice on the bottom of your cooler. Then a layer of frozen water bottles, then your food. Do put cardboard or a towel around the dry ice, it will freeze what every it touches, even your fingers! Even your fingers if only touched for a second. Where gloves when handling Dry Ice. Keep your food wrapped. Dry Ice is code for Frozen CO2, carbon dioxide. It will make food taste bad, so keep your food sealed. Every time you open your dry ice cooler, you let cold air out. Only open once day! Make that your "Frozen" cooler and use the other cooler, your beer cooler as your cooler cooler. If things are frozen, let them thaw in the other cooler, if is is meat, let it defrost outside and not in the cooler, meat juice in you beer cooler is not a good idea. Dry Ice will not give you food poisoning, It might taste bad, but it only CO2, meat juices in your beer cooler, well, that could give you food poisoning or a very sick stomach. A cooler with Dry Ice needs ventalation. Do not leave that cooler in the car with you with the windows rolled up. That could turn out bad!
Post by bonnarouser on May 16, 2012 7:29:28 GMT -5
Last year we could not find any dry ice until we were 2 hours into our 12 hour trip. We were busy on the cells calling places ahead of us to try to find it. We struck out several times before locating some in an "off the path" industrial park plant that took us 30 minutes out of the way. Then, after loading it up and packing our food and drinks on top of it, the dry ice was gone after 36 hours meaning that Friday morning we had to start buying bags of farm ice. The dry ice costs us about $20. I'm just not sure it's all worth it but after reading some of the successful usage comments here, I may try again. Obviously our mistakes were that we opened the cooler too often, did not use containerized frozen water and did not wrap the dry ice properly. If we can find a convenient place to buy it, we may try it one more time.
Block dry ice works best. If you get the "pellets" aka chunks of dry ice, there is more surface area, which means quicker evaporation. not opening the Dry Ice Cooler too often is key.
Post by Dave Maynar on May 16, 2012 9:02:26 GMT -5
The Food City around here carries it. I don't know if it's in all of them though. For those traveling, Food City is a grocery store in Kentucky, Virginia and Tennessee.
The Food City around here carries it. I don't know if it's in all of them though. For those traveling, Food City is a grocery store in Kentucky, Virginia and Tennessee.
And if you can't find a Food City, I get mine at Harris Teeter, which has stores pretty much throughout the entire southeast.
Post by monkybunney on May 17, 2012 1:24:53 GMT -5
We must have done something wrong but I'm not sure what.
I got some chunks of dry ice at publix and kept it in the plastic bag. I wrapped the chunks in towels lining the bottom of the cooler with them. I put another towel on top of that and filled the rest of the cooler with standard Ice, bottled water, gator aid, and energy drinks. Closed it and headed to Roo on a Thursday.
The next morning I went to get some gator aids and found that the entire contents of the cooler was a solid block of ice that I had to savagely beat my energy drink out of with a tire iron.
I swear by dry ice. (There are only two years I didn't use dry ice and I don't know how I survived) We get it on Wednesday morning and the stuff in our coolers is still cold on Monday, it is kind of magical.
We just buy two big chunks of it at the grocery store and put one in each cooler. We also freeze at lease one or two of the gallon jugs of water, and any little water bottles we put in there and that helps keep everything cool once the dry ice is gone.
We've never really had a problem with our food tasting funny or being fizzy perhaps we just wrap everything extra well, I don't know.
And I've never had to leave camp to buy ice.
Maybe we're just lucky?
So how many pounds of dry ice is that per cooler you use?
We must have done something wrong but I'm not sure what.
I got some chunks of dry ice at publix and kept it in the plastic bag. I wrapped the chunks in towels lining the bottom of the cooler with them. I put another towel on top of that and filled the rest of the cooler with standard Ice, bottled water, gator aid, and energy drinks. Closed it and headed to Roo on a Thursday.
The next morning I went to get some gator aids and found that the entire contents of the cooler was a solid block of ice that I had to savagely beat my energy drink out of with a tire iron.
Maybe it was too much regular ice?? We didn't use any regular ice with ours. We froze like 30 bottles of water before and just filled the cooler with that over the dry ice. I think we may have had a box of popsicles in there but we specifically just used it to keep the water bottles frozen.
We must have done something wrong but I'm not sure what.
I got some chunks of dry ice at publix and kept it in the plastic bag. I wrapped the chunks in towels lining the bottom of the cooler with them. I put another towel on top of that and filled the rest of the cooler with standard Ice, bottled water, gator aid, and energy drinks. Closed it and headed to Roo on a Thursday.
The next morning I went to get some gator aids and found that the entire contents of the cooler was a solid block of ice that I had to savagely beat my energy drink out of with a tire iron.
My guess is maybe too large of a block of dry ice for your cooler? Same thing happened to us last year and busted some beer. However, we had the not so novel idea of putting the dry ice toward the top of the cooler. The whole cooler (and it was a big one) was like a solid block of ice.
Post by flymordecai on May 19, 2012 20:40:02 GMT -5
I've used dry ice a few times. Definitely need to properly gauge how big your ice chest is compared to your block of dry ice and cover it accordingly with cardboard/towels. I experienced the frozen block of ice my first year.
The other years yielded fine results. I'd buy the dry ice on Wednesday before leaving and we'd still have cool drinks on Sunday.
Over time Dry Ice will turn your cooler into a freezer and you should think of it that way. My Dry Ice cooler is like the freezer in my fridge. With dry ice in your cooler you must ask yourself, "If I put something in my dry Ice cooler, will it be okay if it gets frozen?" Now if you have Dry Ice in a cooler and it gets open every so often, you release that cold air, your cooler will have to "build" that back up, this kills your dry Ice, and will also stop your stuff from becoming frozen. If you leave that cooler closed the cold will continue to collect and increase and over time you cooler will now turn into a freezer and everything in your cooler will be frozen, which is good for frozen bottles and things that can with stand being in a freezer, but not good for can beer. If you are going the Dry Ice route, you really need two coolers. One for your Dry Ice, your "freezer" cooler and one for cold stuff, drinks, sandwiches, cold cuts, bacon, cheese, and such things. You can get by with one cooler, but your Dry Ice will not last long and it does take some planning and a little bit of work and ingenuity to get the most out of the Dry Ice. I have frozen bottles of water in my Dry Ice cooler and sub those over to my "beer" cooler every so often, it is like dropping large chunks of ice into it. I have my beer cooler half full with water or melted ice, cold Ice water will keep your drinks colder than just Ice alone. I do not let my cold cuts and cheese and Jello shots and such stuff sink into the water. I personally have a 3rd cooler for the cold food stuff. You do not need a third cooler, just do not let food stuff become submerged into the cold water cooler.
EDIT: Do not put RAW meat into your drink cooler! or anything that needs to be cooked before it touches your mouth or you will get SICK!
I put dry ice in the bottom of my largest cooler and then cover the dry ice with a couple of towels. Then normal ice on top of that. I still do an ice run everyday but, it only takes one bag to keep the beer cooler cold and put a new layer of fresh ice in the big cooler. I also add salt to my coolers periodically through out the weekend, especially the beer cooler. I've never tried to keep my beer in my dry ice cooler but I don't think it would hurt. I take a 30 rack in the morning out of my car, dump a little ice followed by salt and then pack the beer in there tight with a top layer of ice and more salt. It only takes about 10-15 minutes after that for the beer to be ice cold.
What's the purpose of the salt? I'm from the land of putting salt on ice to break it up thus my confusion.
) and everything stays nice and cold and dry and having separate bags keeps the meltwater from melting the new ice. Remember, whenever you are draining your cooler that is just wasted energy that it took to get it cold in the first place. It may sound like a lot of hassle but i haven't bought ice since roo '06 and I'm celiac so I pretty much have to take all the food we eat (and we eat WELL) and all of my/our beverages as well, sadly my girlfriend and I cannot participate in any of the beers in Centeroo so we have to be pretty well prepared. 
