Iceytek prep - and will it last on 24 hour ferry?

[OrangeSunset]

Taking new iceytek to Spain this weekend. Have started the chilling process, and it'll be loaded in to the van around 11am on Sunday. We'll arrive at campsite around 5pm Monday.

I'm chilling it with ice and blocks at the mo - do I just refresh the ice and take it over like that? Don't really want to take food with us bar the odd bit of milk, fruit.

I've got 2 big freezer blocks. Once we've shopped do I just ditch the ice and just use the freezer blocks to keep the stuff cold?

I would freeze a few bottles of drinking water, enough to fill the Icey Tek, and put them in, along with a frozen pint of milk, before you set off. With your frozen ice packs.

When you arrive and shop, remove water bottles as needed for space and drink in due course. Everyone likes some ice cold water to drink in Spain!
Keep your freezer blocks frozen in relays if you can freeze at the site, or add ice as required.

Don't keep opening and closing the box, or leave it open for long periods. Keep in shade, possibly with a wet towel over it.

Ok, thanks. We have the 40L so that'll be quite a few water bottles, not sure I'll be able to freeze them all in one go.

It's half full with ice and some bubble wrap at the moment. Fridge ice maker ran out of puff before I could fill it

Oh, I see, yes 40l is massive!

Ice/ freezer blocks / bubble wrap will be fine. Travel with all that in.

Hmm, it is rather massive. Have added peas to the bubble wrap. Now worrying about how I'm actually going to keep it cold whilst we're there

Just chuck in a bag of ice from tne supermarket every few days. Or the site may have freezers for your ice packs?

I have an Igloo 5 day coolbox, I think it is 70cl. I freeze at least 3 square 2ltr squash bottles and a couple of square 1ltr bottles at least a week before I go camping. The concentrated ones are best. The depth of the ice makes it stay frozen for much longer than ice packs.

I put some frozen burgers, bacon, and first couple of days cold food with a 1ltr or 2ltr bottle of milk to use . I then fill with as many frozen bottles as possible. They are short enough to stand or lay down on top.

As long as you put refrigerated or frozen food in and keep it as full as possible, then it will last a good few days even in very hot temperatures. If I can refreeze I will and swap a bottle daily, or I borrow ice packs or buy ice for the remaining days. We generally buy meat each day towards the end of the week depending on the weather.

In June when it was 32 degrees for most of the week, we kept the contents cold for 5 days without buying additional ice and keeping it out of direct sunlight.

I have the 40l one too. We put three frozen 2l bottles of water in the bottom and they were still frozen at the end of our three day trip (rainy England not sunny Spain!). The rest of our food was still nice and chilled and our ice packs were melted but cold.

Right it's sat in the kitchen for days with ice and so on.

Now en route and its got 6 frozen water bottles, 2 frozen milk bottles and 2 Aussie ice packs.

Will see how we go!

I've taken an Icey-Tek to France and Spain both times it's been over 35 degrees and my wine has stayed perfectly chilled for days. Campsites often sell bottles of frozen water as well so you can keep it going. Packing mine up on a Weds night and expect to have lovely cold things when we arrive at campsite on the Friday. They are amazing things. The less you open the lid the better once there too.

I don't have an icey tec but need to find an electricity free way to keep food safe while camping (UK). Is all the hype really true? If I were to take 3 days worth of food, mostly frozen in an icey tec and opened and closed the lid every time we want a meal or a cuppa would it keep the food safe for 3 or 4 days, maybe adding new ice half way through? A lot of reviews seem to be based on how long a coolbox will keep ice frozen without taking off the box lid ...not exactly what I'm looking for! Thinking about 25 or 40l for 2 of us.

Well the 40l is massive so would say for 2 of you is maybe a bit too big?

It's still cold, though. We've topped up with blocks of ice from the supermarket for €2 each. Plenty cold enough for milk, cheese etc. Don't think I'd keep chicken in it for any length of time, although we could make it colder with more loose ice.

We open it at mealtimes, before and after, and that is fine.

cricketbat - we have a 40l and it's the perfect size. I don't even need to replace the ice for just a 3/4 day trip if I've cooled it down enough and often have to take things out to make sure they defrost in time!

I have often found if I put a frozen milk in it on Friday morning before we leave it's still frozen on Sunday when I need it for my cuppa!!

Thanks for the updates, sounds like they do a great job. Will wait for a sale !

What may be a stupid question here:

I currently have a reasonable but low tech freezer bag - I am contemplating a hard sided box and wondering if the icy-tek is worth it.

And, if I took a smaller icy-tek but kept my bag, would that be a slightly better idea (as in, today's milk, butter and other bits in the bag, and whatever needs defrosting, rather than constantly opening the lid - only needing to open it a couple of times a day)?

I had 2 days camping last week but DD and DSis constantly left the bag open between them, and we weren't able to re-freeze the blocks well due to timings. (There were a few things went wrong with the trip!). So I think I need a better solution before I start thinking farther afield.

And yet if I pay up for the bigger one, it would be good for Cub camp too (again, keeping todays' milk in a fabric coolbag as there would otherwise be constant opening of the lid for cups of Leaders tea!).