Quote:
Originally Posted by Dink
I'm leaving Thursday morning on a trip. Should I already be "precooling" my chest?
I just don't know how much lead time cooling it needs to be properly ice sufficient.
HELP!!!!!
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Pre-cooling the ice chest is a trick we only bother with if we need the ice to last a looooong time or we need to keep the (filleted and bagged) fish frozen as we travel two days back to the house from an extended fishing trip. Space permitting, an easier trick is to pack the bagged fillets in a styrofoam airline fish box and then put that box inside of a 100 qt ice chest. Putting a number (as many as fit) of frozen water bottles in the 100 qt chest (outside the styrofoam inner box) will keep the outside of the styrofoam box at or near 32 deg F until all the ice has melted in the water bottles. The fish in the inner box (styrofoam) does not even begin to melt and stays well below 32 deg F.
Another point to consider is pre-cooling the beverages. A few dozen sodas or beer will melt a lot more ice cooling down from 90 deg F or 70 deg F than if you pre-cooled it in a fridge to 40 deg F. Warm soda melts a lot more ice than the same mass of warm ice chest (water has a much higher heat capacity than common cooler materials).