Rule #1, no warm beer goes into this cooler on multiday floats.
Cooler/Ice Chest recommendations
- Thread starter Gary Knowels
- Start date
Aw hell naw! If there’s any beer that is not chilled, it goes in a mesh bag and in the river.
I have tried bags, and I don’t like them at all. Hard to clean, don’t stay cold. Not what I want in my boat.
I'm not sure about all their products but the cooler I got from Orca is made in the USA, and less money than made in the Philippines YETI cooler. The quality is excellent.
I got this one
grey-58-quart
I got this one
grey-58-quart
Final trip for the old cooler. Slapped together a quick reflectix liner to boost performance. It's ugly, but hopefully it works.
I bought a RTIC a couple years ago. They have pretty good sales online from time to time. I pulled the rubber feet off so it slides better. Damn things are heavy!
et64
Smolt
I've been happy with my Lifetime 55 cooler so far. I had it at a BBQ yesterday full of beer and wine and 2 1/2 bags of ice. It was opened a lot, never latched, and it still has ice in it. It also still had ice in it after a six day fishing trip to Idaho last fall. Note that I've been pre-chilling the cooler before hand. I've also had fairly good luck with an older Colman Xtreme cooler too.
How was your rotomolded cooler experience?
It arrived yesterday, it hasn't had a maiden voyage yet.
The reflectix lining really improved the cheap Coleman though.
wanderingrichard
Life of the Party
I've got that same model Coleman cooler with me right now. Does not keep ice longer than a day and a half in 80-90* heat.
Initial load was all the food plus 3ea. 8 lb bags of ice, followed by 1 bag every other day and now two bags every other day. Told the wife today I'll spend more on ice than food on this trip at this rate.
Gonna go the Reflectix route, then find the budget for one of the 55 qt Lifetimes.
I must have missed the Reflectix discussion. Do you attach it to the inside somehow? And what exactly is the science behind its use? Always looking for colder beer.
The lifetime cooler is orders of magnitude better than the Coleman. I put 1 8 lb bag of ice in as a test and left it in my dinning room and checked it once per day. Still had a little ice 4 days later.
I find that making my own ice blocks works better in all of my coolers. I lined the front box of my drift boat with closed-cell foam and put a large block of ice in the middle of the cooler. We’ll still have a little ice left at the end of a five-day trip in hot weather. It helps to drape a beach towel over the cooler to provide shade when the boat is parked. I’m with @Old406Kid; no warm beer goes in the cooler. It either is loaded in early morning or after chilling in the river.
Some thoughts on coolers. My 70 qt Coleman XTreme is still in service and is very good albeit with some changes. I first wrapped the outside with Reflectix to keep the surface from capturing the ambient heat. This was a huge improvement as indicated by a laser thermometer on an 80 degree day. Pointing the thermometer at the bare blue plastic on the outside of the cooler showed about 120 degrees in full afternoon sunlight. Two inches away on the Reflectix the surface temp was 82 degrees. Now we know why it is called Reflectix!
But it still had the issue of water inside when ice is used. I got rid of the ice and the water altogether by buying a product from Snapware that was a 40 cup food grade plastic container that could be sealed and had a convenient handle on top. Fully filled it makes an ice cube that is 10'' x 8.5'' and 9.1'' high. This cube weighs almost 20 pounds and last for days inside the Coleman. The inside also caught my attention and since water was no longer an issue I lined the inside with Reflectix as well. Using the excellent 3M 3550 silver tape and the skills I learned in kindergarten with blunt nosed scissors and colored paper, I was able to carefully fit and tape the reflective material to the inside and have it stay in place for several years now. The Snapware container is listed on Home Depot at $15.73 right now. It won't take long to spend $15.73 on ice so I think this thing is a helluva bargain. The double Reflectix and the dry cold allow the Coleman to stay cold for many days longer than the stock model. Bags of ice cubes have a lot of air in them and air is a big enemy of ice so getting rid of the air and replacing it with hard ice instead seems to extend the life of the cold.
Also, the Coleman coolers were hard to open because the lid tended to be tight enough to lift the entire cooler unless it was really loaded. To solve this issue I built a lever arm with a cam lifter that allows the lid to be popped open with one finger. This has performed flawlessly for almost 5 years now and should be standard equipment on all of the XTreme models. Some solutions are so simple I wonder how the hell the engineering staff of a large company can miss them.
These days I am also using a Set Power electric 53 qt compressor fridge that runs off of the Jackery in the Casa or a 12v outlet in the Subaru. The size is about right for the trips I go on and coupled with the Coleman, I can make the round trip to Costco with both keeping frozen stuff in the Set Power and regular cold items in the Coleman, the best of both worlds.
Reflectix is cheap, try some out and you might find some other good uses for it other than just coolers. In my case, I have bursitis in my right bicep/shoulder after having the shoulder broken in a logging accident in 2014. Sometimes it hurts like hell and I won't take pain killers to relieve it. But I have found that moist heat can relieve the pain to some extent and to that end I use Reflectix for some relief. I have made a sleeve of the material that fits tightly on the arm right up to the armpit. Wearing the sleeve over a tee shirt with another tee shirt on top causes the area to heat up, the sweat moistens the shirt against the skin providing the moisture and the Reflectix holds the moisture in and provides comforting heat. It works, a self propelled heating pad as it were!
But it still had the issue of water inside when ice is used. I got rid of the ice and the water altogether by buying a product from Snapware that was a 40 cup food grade plastic container that could be sealed and had a convenient handle on top. Fully filled it makes an ice cube that is 10'' x 8.5'' and 9.1'' high. This cube weighs almost 20 pounds and last for days inside the Coleman. The inside also caught my attention and since water was no longer an issue I lined the inside with Reflectix as well. Using the excellent 3M 3550 silver tape and the skills I learned in kindergarten with blunt nosed scissors and colored paper, I was able to carefully fit and tape the reflective material to the inside and have it stay in place for several years now. The Snapware container is listed on Home Depot at $15.73 right now. It won't take long to spend $15.73 on ice so I think this thing is a helluva bargain. The double Reflectix and the dry cold allow the Coleman to stay cold for many days longer than the stock model. Bags of ice cubes have a lot of air in them and air is a big enemy of ice so getting rid of the air and replacing it with hard ice instead seems to extend the life of the cold.
Also, the Coleman coolers were hard to open because the lid tended to be tight enough to lift the entire cooler unless it was really loaded. To solve this issue I built a lever arm with a cam lifter that allows the lid to be popped open with one finger. This has performed flawlessly for almost 5 years now and should be standard equipment on all of the XTreme models. Some solutions are so simple I wonder how the hell the engineering staff of a large company can miss them.
These days I am also using a Set Power electric 53 qt compressor fridge that runs off of the Jackery in the Casa or a 12v outlet in the Subaru. The size is about right for the trips I go on and coupled with the Coleman, I can make the round trip to Costco with both keeping frozen stuff in the Set Power and regular cold items in the Coleman, the best of both worlds.
Reflectix is cheap, try some out and you might find some other good uses for it other than just coolers. In my case, I have bursitis in my right bicep/shoulder after having the shoulder broken in a logging accident in 2014. Sometimes it hurts like hell and I won't take pain killers to relieve it. But I have found that moist heat can relieve the pain to some extent and to that end I use Reflectix for some relief. I have made a sleeve of the material that fits tightly on the arm right up to the armpit. Wearing the sleeve over a tee shirt with another tee shirt on top causes the area to heat up, the sweat moistens the shirt against the skin providing the moisture and the Reflectix holds the moisture in and provides comforting heat. It works, a self propelled heating pad as it were!
I keep my cooler in the shade. I throw a wet blanket over my ice chest and have no issues keeping ice for the 3-4 day trips. I wet the blanket each day from the lake or river water.
I use block ice( frozen jugs of water).
Or i could buy a $400 cooler, not have enough interior space and need 2 $400 coolers and wish i kept the $800 and used my wet blanket method.
I use block ice( frozen jugs of water).
Or i could buy a $400 cooler, not have enough interior space and need 2 $400 coolers and wish i kept the $800 and used my wet blanket method.
Rob Allen
Life of the Party
Lifetime cooler at Walmart. 100 bucks and will hold ice several days in summer weather
That's what I'm rocking!
