Any special tips on using dry ice in a cooler?
Don’t let any fish you catch or any body part come in contact with it because it will burn. It will also freeze beverages and make them explode.Keep it dry or it will create a fog. On the other hand it’s really fun to put it in your drink and watch it boil and smoke!!
Thx. I was thinking more along the lines of putting it in the bottom of cooler and tossing ice on top of it to make the ice last longer
No. If ya put the dry ice in the bottom of the cooler and regular ice on top, when the ice melts and gets the dry ice wet your’e gonna have cold steam pouring from your cooler…cool effect, especially for halloween, but not for food/fish storage. Since cold air falls most of the people I knew that used it put it in large zip locks and kept it on top of the ice,but not in direct contact with food,etc.
duh. now why didn’t i think of that
Jeepers! If you want to make your ice last longer and lower the temp, add rock salt to the ice. Have you ever made home made ice cream? Same principle!
…dont they add rock salt to the ice to melt it off the roads??
Yes but it’s a different application. Salt melts ice however it makes the water colder. Salt water freezes at a colder temp than fresh water. So, you can have a colder temperature in the water than actual frozen ice. The idea is to have a slurry of it in the bottom and it will keep all your stuff nice and frosty!
Umm, you gonna eat that?
Thousands have died to save my freedom. Only one has died to save my soul!
put ice in cooler or fish box and place 2 or 3 lbs in a brown paper bag on top it will hold ice bait chum for a day or so longer that usual
Half Mine II/ TEAM GEICO
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If all you are trying to do is make the ice last longer just freeze some 2 liter bottles full of water and put those in the bottom of your cooler. Cut the bottle and add dump the blocks of ice to the cooler before adding your ice.
Adding salt to the ice won’t make it any colder and I seriously doubt it would make it last longer. It will however cause the ice to melt and create sub-freezing temperature water. Awesome for getting something ICE cold quickly because the water will be AS COLD (not colder as a result of adding salt) as ice and covers the entire surface area of the target whereas ice will have air pockets - touches less surface area therefore less/slower heat transfer. I have my doubts about whether it will keep things cold longer in a cooler. Sounds like a fun experiment.
The question is - which keeps longer in the cooler, sub-freezing temp. water or ice?
It ain’t no mystery…this beer’s history!
Blue Runner! Do the experiment and report the results back to us!
I would but I think it would take too much time…and cut into fishing. 
After the post, I did some reading on the subject. Plenty of folks have experimented with this so we don’t really need to…
Here is an interesting post on THT:
http://www.thehulltruth.com/boating-forum/38882-proper-ice-brine.html
This post seemed to make the most sense to me. He suggests using an ice/seawater concocction to chill the fish faster, THEN place the in the hold on plain ice. I disagree with his assertion that adding rock salt makes it COLDER tho…it can’t make it colder. It may seem that way because “ice cold” water is going to cool the fish faster than ice alone.
quote:
After spiking, bleeding and gutting, we put our tuna in a slurry for about 15 to 30 minutes. Gutting makes the fish cool much faster and conserves our limited abount of ice. Once they are hard we switch the fish to a cooler with regular ice. Pulling them from the slurry reduces water absorption, and frees the slurry up for the next few fish. I add a few cups of rock salt to my slurry- seems to drop the temp by a few degrees. Gives great quality fish compared to bleeding and icing alone- you can really taste the difference.Only problem with gutting on a long live bait stop is that it attracts Blue and Mako sharks, so we don’t always gut right away (we don’t shark fish).
It ain’t no mystery…this beer’s history!