Keeping ice frozen in the ice chest

[slosurfer]

Personally, I don't agree with draining the water theory. It takes a lot of energy to change the temperature of water and that ice water is at 32.2 degrees, same as the ice. The sun has to heat up the mass of the water and the mass of the ice. If you dump the water then the sun only has to heat up the mass of the ice.

That does make sense. I have noticed that my ice keeps longer if I am able to keep the water out of it from the beginning, this is on my main ice chest that also usually has things in it that I don't want soggy. However with my small chest that I use for drinks and snacks, I leave the water in till I am able to get more ice. It does keep pretty cold, especially for drinks and stuff that doesn't mind the water.

[Robinhood4x4]

Yeah, keeping things dry is another story. I made a 2" elevated platform to keep things from falling into the water.

[BruceTS]

The water is a far better conductor than air. If your doing an expedition type run where you moving to a different camp each day the water sloshing around in the cooler will melt the ice quite fast. Without the water, everything sits tight and the ice can last quite a while. I used to think leaving the water in the chest was better, but from experience, draining the water made the ice last longer.

[Robinhood4x4]

I asked this question on an engineering forum that I frequent where the best and the brightest in Heat Transfer could analyze this problem. After days of analysis the consensus is: Drink the beer before the ice melts.

http://eng-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=193500&page=1

Basically, they don't really know either but they seem to be erroring on the side of draining the water. I'm going to run some experiments over the weekend and see what I come up with.

[wifesaysimadumbass]

i've always done ice blocks with dry ice as the regular ice melts the dry ice will refreeze it the main thing i know that works well is to keep your cooler packed as you take cold stuff out put other stuff into replace it so that the cooler is always full seems to work well on long surf trips

[Texas Jim]

You could also make your own block ice. Take old milk jugs that you haven't recycled. Freeze water in them and use them for blocks. Each gallon jug of frozen water will weigh 8lbs. TJ

[surf4runner]

my cooler will keep ice(w/water) for 5 days in the heat w/ frequent openings (kids) doing what was suggested.

maybe try a better cooler(w/thicker insulation)
a seperate cooler for stuff thats not necessary to access 10X a day also helps