Driving with frozen food

[Bruce W]

On one of our trips to Key West, we bought shrimp and fish from a fishery on Stock Island. They froze all the items for us ( obviously ordered before). We transferred to a styrofoam box from Publix and then loaded it in an older dufflel. Since our travel time was ( by air) less than 4 hours, we checked the bag. Well, for the only time ever, we did not get all of our bags upon arrival, and of course, the "fish bag" was one of them. We had the bags brought to our house the next day, and did not expect anything other than a smelly bag. It was still frozen as solid as the day we picked it up at the fishery. Bottom line, it is likely you will be fine.

 

[pedro47]

And if you want to take it a bit further, after you put the dry ice in the cooler, tape the lid shut with duct tape, especially along the horizontal gap edge where the lid sits into the base. Makes it essentially air tight, and your food will stay frozen much longer.

Dave

Now that is a good idea.

 

[sfwilshire]

We have two "9-day" Coleman coolers we got from the outlet store. We freeze gallon milk jugs and mix the frozen stuff with our refrigerated items in the cooler. The frozen stuff is at least partially frozen after a two day summer drive.

The outlet store never has these coolers any more, so I'm not sure if they are still made, but they are similar to others described above. The walls are thicker, so they hold less than a cheaper cooler, but they work very well.

Sheila

 

[dioxide45]

And if you want to take it a bit further, after you put the dry ice in the cooler, tape the lid shut with duct tape, especially along the horizontal gap edge where the lid sits into the base. Makes it essentially air tight, and your food will stay frozen much longer.

Dave

I don't think you want an airtight cooler when using dry ice. As the dry ice sublimates it expands and could cause the cooler to expand or explode. You want to try to fill in any empty spaces in the cooler with crumpled newspaper to reduce sublimation. I was reading recently about packing with dry ice as we were planning to drive with some frozen items to Florida and everything I read indicated to not try to make the container air tight.

 

[Loggie]

I have used one of the 12v coolers works great. It also has a reverse button on it to keep food warm.

 

[DaveNV]

I don't think you want an airtight cooler when using dry ice. As the dry ice sublimates it expands and could cause the cooler to expand or explode. You want to try to fill in any empty spaces in the cooler with crumpled newspaper to reduce sublimation. I was reading recently about packing with dry ice as we were planning to drive with some frozen items to Florida and everything I read indicated to not try to make the container air tight.

Ok. I didn't know that. Thanks for pointing that out. When we did it, I didn't notice any issues with the plastic coolers we used, and the food stayed frozen for several days. Maybe it wasn't as airtight as I thought? I know the dry ice lasted a long time.

Dave