General Thread for cool shit
- Thread starter Wild
- Start date
Yeah. That's what I do.
I use empty Listerine bottles because they fit my cooler nicely. 4 of them keep the entire cooler cold for a weekend. No ice needed. I usually add a 5th one to the very top and I use that one for my drinking water as it will melt first.
Am I the only one who just freezes water bottles. You don't need to empty anything either. They just expand with the water
He's hoping for extra alcohol to leach out of the Listerine bottles into the water, his name is hauler for the love of god.
That works, definitely done it.
I like a bigger jugs, they don't thaw as fast.
I don't like how thin the plastic is with water bottles. Had a couple of them get holes in them when I was fishing around for beers like a drunken camper.
That's when I switched to Listerine. Gatorades work too. I like the thicker plastic.
When I was backpacking the Smart Water bottles were pretty good for filtering water. Had one I'd use to get water from the creek, and another that I'd drink after filtering. Those were pretty durable and would probably work pretty well for freezing.
Those cranberry juice big rectangle bottles are tough as shit. Wrap some duct tape around em and they're about bulletproof.
Agree with
@Hauler on the thin water bottles. They don't last long before leaking if your cooler gets knocked around much (which they all do if you're using them right, lol).For hunting/game coolers I take 3 big coolers. 2 empty and the best one in the fleet (old monster yeti) is completely full of frozen gallon Gatorade jugs of water.
Will last over a week if you don't open that cooler.
Also, since we're on about coolers...
Rafters and hunters obsession with coolers/cooler management knows no bounds. So, I'm pretty much a SME here.
ProTip- The general concensus is to never drain your cooler, which seems counter intuitive and is definitely yucky if you're using it for days and days.
However, draining them reduces volume which will need to be replaced.
Unless you're dumping fresh ice in to replace said volume it will be replaced by air, and unless the outside air temp is colder than the interior of your cooler you are just warming it up inside.
The rule is that if you HAVE to drain, do it at dawn when it's coolest outside.
Other wise you're better off just letting the cooler soup be. It will only make your remaining ice melt faster.
In that same thought line, if you're winter camping and using a cooler to keep things from freezing (beer, bread, lettuce, etc) make sure the drains are closed. Or at least understand that your temp control comes from how often you open it and when.
We do 7-10 day completely self contained river trips. If it ain't on the boat you don't have it and can't get it, so this is where good coolers and knowing how to manage them really matters.
On my boat I run 2 coolers. The big ass mother cooler, and a small day cooler.
My big cooler only gets opened once a day, in the earl early morning. From there i pull my daily "allowance" of beers and the food we'll need that day and evening. Usually some of that food is in seal a meal bags and frozen solid at the beginning of the trip, that's my day cooler ice. Big cooler isn't opened again til next morning when I repeat the above and pull breakfast out.
This system works really well if you stick to it.
Also- put leftovers in day cooler 1st to bring temp down before putting in the mother cooler.
Other ways to stretch your ice include pre cooling your cooler the night before you leave. Put the cooler in the coolest place you can (basement, etc) and drop in a "sacrifice" bag of ice that will be pitched out when you actually pack the cooler for the trip. If you're lucky your bro works somewhere with a walk in. Leave your empty OPEN cooler in there for a couple days pre trip and put good ice in when you pick them up before even pulling the out of the walk in.
A wet towel over your cooler will make a swamp cooler effect, works great. I have some burlap bags I got at Murdocks that work great, just keep em wet when you can and you'll notice a big difference.
And lastly, if you're bringing a bunch of food/beer that requires multiple coolers because you are going for multiple days unsupported, set up a cooler like I described above and put the stuff you won't use until day 5 or whatever in there. Run duct tape around the outside of the lid and body to close that air leak and don't cheat by opening it on day two.
And for the love of Crom DON'T put a warm 12 pack in a cold cooler, the temps will meet in the middle and take days off your ice. Pre cool that shit too! Even if it's just putting it in the creek for a few hours the difference matters.
You CAN freeze beer, it's just a process. I've gone on week long trips where the bottom of the cooler is a layer of frozen PBR, if you do it right it works. If you do it wrong you're defrosting your freezer to clean up the disaster.
Now you are all experts in cooler management theory.
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I love this but I cant sleep without a fan. And by fan I mean juan on my ceiling blowing gentle kisses and another one directly into my ear guaranteeing me an infection by morning.