10 Tips On Keeping Food Cold While Camping

Crafting and eating outside when camping can be really fun, but bringing cold food with you can be quite a hustle. There’s always a risk that the ice in your cold cooler will quickly turn into a puddle. Here are 10 tips that will help you keep your food cold while camping.

1. Try to keep your cooler closed

When you open your cooler, just like when you open a fridge, the hot air from the outside can enter and warm the inside. But unlike a fridge, the cooler has a limited amount of ice that can keep the inside cold. That’s why you should about opening your cooler if possible.

Meats and dairy can spoil if not kept in the right temperature range. If you keep opening your cooler, the temperature can raise and ruin your food.

A cool tip is to bring 2 coolers to your camping trip. In one, you’ll store your cold food and things you only need to access occasionally. On the second one, you’ll store beverages and things you need to access more. The second cooler will probably heat up faster, but since your sensitive food is in the other cooler, that’ll be fine.

It helps if you remember where each item is located when you organize your cooler. This way, you’ll be able to quickly reach and grab food when you need it, without keeping the cooler open for too long.

2. Aim for a 2:1 ice-to-food ratio

The amount of ice you need to put in the cooler is actually way more than you’d think, especially if you’re planning a long camping trip. To keep your food cold, aim for a 2:1 ice-to-food ratio, meaning that you put twice as much volume of ice than food.

Frozen food can be counted as “ice” in the ratio since it helps maintain temperature as well.

If you’re planning a short trip, you can get away with a lower ratio. A 1:1 ratio is somewhat of a minimum, as small amounts of ice melt too quickly. It all depends on how long you need the cooler to stay cold and how good your cooler is at maintaining temperature.

3. Put the coldest items at the bottom

Place the foods that require the coldest temperatures at the bottom. You should freeze items you’ll be eating later because it’ll make them maintain low temperatures longer, and only bring food you’ll be eating right away unfrozen.

The recommended way to pack your cooler, step by step:

• Place a layer of ice at the bottom of your cooler.
• Add a layer of your frozen items, like meats.
• Add a layer of more ice.
• Place any sealed or packaged items or any items that don’t need to be kept as cold.
• Add any delicate items (like eggs) or anything else on top.
• If there’s any space left – fill it with ice.

If you pack your cooler properly, it’ll be able to stay cold for a surprisingly long time.

4. Pack tight and fill empty space

Air is the enemy of keeping your food cold. It can carry heat quite well, warming the cool up faster, and transferring the heat to the ice and food items. The more air is inside your cooler, the faster it will warm up.

Try to minimize the space between the items in your cooler. Packing the cooler tightly is essential. You should fill the space between your items with ice.

When you don’t have access to more ice, for example when camping and taking out food from your cooler, you can fill the empty space with a clean towel, to keep the temperature down.

Bigger isn’t always better: the size of your cooler should fit the duration of your trip. Use a cooler big enough to fit all your food and ice, but not too big.

5. Keep the cooler out of the sun

While it’s quite obvious that the sun can heat the outside of your cooler, the heat also transfers to the inside, warming your cooler up. Keep your cooler in a shaded area, where sunlight can’t reach it.

Don’t keep the cooler in your car – it tends to get hot when out in the sun. It’s better to put it under a tree, under a picnic table, or some dedicated tarp.

6. Don’t drain the cold water

When the temperature in your cooler starts to rise, the ice will melt and form a puddle of cold water at the bottom, slowly filling your cooler. It seems intuitive to drain the water, since they aren’t as cold as the remaining ice, but don’t do that.

The cold water is still good for keeping your cooler cold, and if you’ll drain them, they’ll be replaced with hot air from the outside.

If you’re worried about your food, you can wrap it in plastic wrap or a plastic bag before putting it inside your cooler.

7. Remove packaging and air from food

As mentioned before, you should reduce the amount of air in your cooler, as it helps heat transfer, and make the temperature raise faster. A lot of food items come in packages, and some contain a lot of air together with the food item.

It’s best to take the food out of these types of packaging and wrap it in plastic wrap, if necessary. This will minimize the amount of air in your cooler, especially around your food items.

8. Use frozen water bottles and ice packs

Using the right type of ice is essential when you’re trying to keep your food cold for a long time. The size and shape of your ice determine how fast it will melt. Aim to use big blocks of ice, since their surface-to-volume ratio is better, making them melt more slowly.

Frozen water bottles are a perfect solution. They’re pretty bulky and take a really long time to melt, and you can drink them when they melt. Water is something you need anyways, and utilizing the bottles as ice cubes is really efficient.

Of course, it’ll be pretty difficult to fill the entire cooler with frozen water bottles. You can also use ice packs to fill some of the space, as they last a long time as well. You can also use a big block of ice if you can get it. Fill the remaining space with ice cubes.

9. Prechill your cooler

If you put ice in a warm cooler, a lot of the ice will be wasted on cooling the cooler itself. If you pack your cooler after chilling it, it would keep your food much colder over time.

To prechill your cooler, you can live it outside or in your garage overnight if you live in a cold climate area. Alternatively, you can fill it with some ice a few hours before filling it. Let it chill, empty the ice water and then pack the cooler as you would with ice and food.

10. Only put already cold and frozen items in the cooler

Putting food in the cooler without first allowing it to cool down or fully freezing it in your refrigerator is a really common mistake. That wastes ice in cooling your food down when it could’ve been cold to right from the get-go.

A fridge is very efficient in cooling food off, so if you put your food in the fridge a few hours before packing, it’ll be ready when you are. This way, the ice will only need to maintain the temperature of your food, instead of being wasted on cooling it down.

You do need to remember that frozen food requires some time consideration when camping since you’ll need to take it out to defrost before you cook it. So consider which foods need to be frozen, and which can simply be kept cold.

Final thoughts

Organizing and maintaining your cooler the right way will make it stay cold longer, so you’ll be able to enjoy your food for a long time when camping. If you’re really into camping, I’d suggest getting a good cooler – it’ll make things much easier for you.

The tips presented in this post will make it much easier to keep your food cold while camping. Have fun!