Ice box question

[jlwuk]

Hi.
We are planning our first 5 day trip along the Devon and Cornish coast and was wondering how much ice I would need for the ice box. 2 or 3 bags lasts a weekend. There will be a teenager mutiny if the morning sausages are off by day 4!
Any suggestions will be gratefully recieved

 

[James_Calvert]

Don't use bags of ice to begin with. Solid blocks last much longer.

We freeze it down in plastic bottles, old milk ones are good because they are quite square.

Put some of them at the very bottom of the box where they will last longer and one or two at the top to ensure the whole space stays cool.

And top up with bought ice as often as you can. As a rule of thumb, when starting from scratch, we need 5 litres/kilos of ice to get our box cool and then one or two litres every one or two days to keep it going.

If you can't top up, take as much as you can fit in along with your food. Of course you can also freeze things like orange juice and milk beforehand.

 

[James_Calvert]

The other thing to know is where you can buy ice.

Dartmouth in the Coop.
Salcombe at the butchers, but don't miss out on the chance to buy their excellent meat, cheese or pasties!
Newton Ferrers, don't know!
Plymouth at Marina offices or in the Barbican Coop.
Fowey in the fishmongers I think.
Falmouth, at supermarkets or wineshops.

Hope this helps.

 

[sarabande]

have you considered the use of dry ice (CO2) ?

http://www.dryiceuk.com/dry-ice-products/

The key is to make all the food as cold as poss before putting it into the ice box.


If there is any CO2 left at the end of trip they can have fun chucking bits into the sea, or even into a bottle of coke...


Usual warning about wearing gloves

 

[jlwuk]

Thanks for the tips.
I would never have thought of solid blocks of ice!
Starting off with frozen juice makes sense too
Thanks

 

[Spyro]

Also good to freeze food like sausages before you go. Pop them in the cool box and by the next day they will be ready for cooking and will have helped keep the beer cool in the process. Or invest in a 12/240 volt coolbox. Just back from an 8 day trip with one. It was brilliant.

 

[jlwuk]

Will need to look into dry ice. Never used it.
Sounds very scientific!

 

[NUTMEG]

Also good to freeze food like sausages before you go. Pop them in the cool box and by the next day they will be ready for cooking and will have helped keep the beer cool in the process. Or invest in a 12/240 volt coolbox. Just back from an 8 day trip with one. It was brilliant.

Spyro, can you tell me what model/make you used please. About to buy one.

Thanks

 

[abraxus]

Spyro, can you tell me what model/make you used please. About to buy one.

Thanks

Aldi have their one on offer again at £39.99. I bought one last year and it's a rebadged Waeco.

https://www.aldi.co.uk/en/specialbuys/thur-25-june/product-detail/ps/p/electric-coolbox-2/

 

[bedouin]

I can recommend using water bottles - we freeze down bottles of bottled water at home and they last much longer than ice cubes - and make sure everything that goes in is as cold as possible before you put it in.

However 5 days on just one load is pushing it a bit - so you wil probably want to stock up with more ice (not to mention sausages) on day 3 or 4

 

[bedouin]

Spyro, can you tell me what model/make you used please. About to buy one.

Thanks

If you want one of those for a boat make sure you go for one with a compressor - which will cost £200+. The cheap ones are very inefficient and not appropriate unless you have shore power or are running the engine.

 

[Spyro]

Aldi have their one on offer again at £39.99. I bought one last year and it's a rebadged Waeco.

https://www.aldi.co.uk/en/specialbuys/thur-25-june/product-detail/ps/p/electric-coolbox-2/

That's the one I have.

 

[Spyro]

If you want one of those for a boat make sure you go for one with a compressor - which will cost £200+. The cheap ones are very inefficient and not appropriate unless you have shore power or are running the engine.

Supposed to cool down to 18 degrees below ambient temp. I've had mine below zero so I'd say it does. Draws about 4 amps so if you are careful using it and have shore power now and again it works fine. When on shore power I can turn it down and leave on all night. If not on shore power for a day or 2 I run it when the engine is on and for a few hours at a time. As long as there is plenty in it, it keeps cool for a while. I'm happy with mine.

 

[aquaplane]

We freeze our milk and use it as ice packs for the cool box, we need some runny milk too because it takes a couple of days for all the slush to melt.

With that and freezing meals (chilli, curry, soup) and meat, the cool box would last a week easy. The last day or two everything would be defrosted but chilled, or not so chilled but not off.

 

[Wakatere]

have you considered the use of dry ice (CO2) ?

http://www.dryiceuk.com/dry-ice-products/

Are you sure? Where's the CO2 going? My ice box drains into the bilge. I wouldn't be happy with the idea of the evaporating CO2 rising up the saloon while I'm asleep.

The key is to make all the food as cold as poss before putting it into the ice box.

Yes, as suggested freeze milk/juice, it won't stay frozen long.

Charles

 

[jlwuk]

Thanks for all the suggestions
I now have a freezer full of frozen bottles of water!
They just have to make it down the M5 past Glastonbury tonight.

 

[davidpbo]

I bought one a couple of yeasr ago. Too power hungry at 12V without a mains hookup. We only have an 8HP Out board with a charging coil and a 10W Solar panel.

Box is good though because all the electrics are in the top so you can use ice in it as well.

On the model we had the handle disconnected very easily from either end which was a real problem lifting at an angle from the dinghy. I put a small nut and bolt through the centre at each end which seems to have cured the problem.

Can anyone tell me? When loaded with cold/frozen food and/or ice/freezer blocks is it better plug it in for the journey to the boat (2hrs) or use it as a passive cool box? In theory the box is sealed with the Peltier fan blowing air on either side of a heat exchanger, but I wonder whether it will increase or decrease trhe rate at which thinfgs warm up.

 

[bedouin]

These Peltier boxes really need to be powered on all the time - otherwise the device acts in reverse and the box cools down quickly. I think some are actually provided with two tops - one to use if you disconnect it. In terms of keeping the contents cool it is always better to have it turned on

 

[JumbleDuck]

Hi.
We are planning our first 5 day trip along the Devon and Cornish coast and was wondering how much ice I would need for the ice box. 2 or 3 bags lasts a weekend. There will be a teenager mutiny if the morning sausages are off by day 4!
Any suggestions will be gratefully recieved

My icebox melts between 1kg and 2kg per day, depending on how hot the weather is and whether the ice extends above the waterline. I use ice cubes because that's what I can get.

 

[JumbleDuck]

Are you sure? Where's the CO2 going? My ice box drains into the bilge. I wouldn't be happy with the idea of the evaporating CO2 rising up the saloon while I'm asleep.

The latent heat of sublimation for CO₂ is 571 kJ/kg while the latent heat of melting for water is 334 kJ/kg. On a hot day the temperature difference using ice will be around 20^o whereas for dry ice at -79^o it will be five times as much. Put these together and I'd expect to sublime about (334/571) * 5 times as much dry ice as I melt water. That's about 3. The specific gravity of dry ice is about 1.5, the usage rate by volume would be about twice as high for dry ice as for water.

So, overall, on hot days when I melt 2 kg (2 litres) of water I would expect to sublime about 6 kg (3 litres) of dry ice. Since the molecular weight of CO₂ is 44, 6kg is 6/44 = 0.14 kmol, so at 22.4 m³ / kmol, that's about 3 m³ / day. Or, to look at it another way, since the average human exhales about 1 kg of CO₂ per day, I'd need good enough ventilation to deal with another six adults in the cabin.