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Recommend: Cooler to hold ice cream?

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Sr. Member
Apr 23, 2008
675 posts
99 upvotes
Toronto

Recommend: Cooler to hold ice cream?

I am looking to purchase a cooler that can hold ice cream for a day, if not more, during our family summer outings or camping. I hate to pay $5 per piece every time for an ice cream (Nestle drumstick) when I can purchase it for about $1 (Costco sale) and carry it in a cooler in my car. Any recommendation on a cooler that can do the job?
19 replies
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Dec 16, 2007
3906 posts
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Toronto
i have a few Yeti Tundra coolers. Use them for camping, hunting, day trips etc. keeps ice frozen for over week.
IMO the best money can buy

Although, if youre just looking to save a few bucks on an ice cream cone, this cooler may not be for you
Deal Addict
Sep 20, 2008
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Calgary
hitman_24 wrote: i have a few Yeti Tundra coolers. Use them for camping, hunting, day trips etc. keeps ice frozen for over week.
IMO the best money can buy

Although, if youre just looking to save a few bucks on an ice cream cone, this cooler may not be for you
This would be my recommendation, but I think they are well over 100 bucks each, but they are a fair size.
Deal Fanatic
Jan 5, 2003
5068 posts
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Toronto
Even the cheapest hard cooler with thick insulation will be fine to keep something frozen until the afternoon/evening. You just need to surround your box of ice cream cones (or the cones themselves) with ice packs, etc. rather than putting in only the cones. I like to freeze juice boxes to use as ice packs, so even if they very slightly melt by the end of the hot day, it's a nice slushee, plus it keeps the other cooler stuff cold.
Deal Fanatic
Oct 27, 2009
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Ontario
Would the 12 can insulated soft cooler bags from the Beer Store work well if enough freeze packs were inserted? $11.99 at my local store.
Have new cookbooks but am not cooking anything new yet.
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Feb 22, 2016
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smehmood wrote: I am looking to purchase a cooler that can hold ice cream for a day, if not more, during our family summer outings or camping. I hate to pay $5 per piece every time for an ice cream (Nestle drumstick) when I can purchase it for about $1 (Costco sale) and carry it in a cooler in my car. Any recommendation on a cooler that can do the job?
Wouldn't dry ice be the best option to keep ice cream frozen for a significant length of time?

Anybody with recommendations on the best place to get some in the GTA?
Deal Fanatic
Mar 21, 2002
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Manitoba
0°C will freeze water and turn it into ice and pretty much maintain the ice. Try using that temperature for ice cream and you'll end up with milky slush. Ice cream needs to be kept at a temperature well below 0°C in order to stay in a solid state. I'd guess probably about -5°C to -10°C at a minimum. At -5°C it will probably be a bit soft. The problem is that those blue "cooler" packs you buy are not designed for cold temperatures. They're intended to keep your beer "cool" and not your ice cream "frozen". They do not provide a cold enough temperature to be useful.

Home made freezer pack: Take an empty 4 liter vinegar jug, wash it out, fill with warm water 3/4 up. Add half a cup of common salt. Close. Shake. let stand for a couple hours. If the salt is completely dissolved add more salt and repeat. Keep adding a little bit of salt until no more can be dissolved. When you've reached the saturation point of the water you will have a salt water mixture which will freeze solid at about -20°C. Hopefully your freezer will get down that low and it may take a day or two to happen. When done you have a block of salt water ice which is at -20°C and it will keep your ice cream nicely solid. How long depends on your cooler. If you have a cheap cooler only a few hours. if you have an arctic type cooler then somewhat longer. It also depends on other factors like the temp where the cooler is stored. If it's in the sunshine or in the trunk of a hot car then the salt water block won't last long and when it's all melted then there goes your ice cream.

There are a number of sites which will tell you exactly how much salt has to be added to a fixed amount of water to achieve that optimum freezing point to eliminate the experimental trial and error method of adding a little more salt at a time. Once you have made one of these freezer jugs you can use it over and over again.

Dry ice is even better for keeping ice cream frozen since it has a temp of about -78°C. However it would be expensive to buy and you would have to keep buying it over and over again and it probably won't last long in a cheap cooler.
Deal Expert
Mar 23, 2004
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Yeah the problem with ice cream is basically what woof said, above. Water freezes at 0C but the salty sugary milky stuff that makes up ice cream? Not so much. You may be able to keep it from turning into inedible liquid/goo by using a cooler but in the end is it really worth it? By the time you buy one of those Coleman Extreme coolers, fill it with a crap ton of ice/ice packs, etc. and have it basically keep your ice cream a few degrees below where it liquefies, you'd probably have spent over $100...to save $3-4 lol. You could also get one of those active coolers which plug into your vehicle's 12V but after you turn the car off, you're subject to it just being a regular cooler from there on maybe giving you a couple hours at most to keep the ice cream from going south. Plus there's all the effort you have to put into it, the cleanup that will be involved (dumping the cooler, cleaning it out, etc.) to seriously make this, IMO, a penny-wise and pound-foolish operation.

I'm sure you can make it work if you put in enough effort and resources if you're really that mad that vendors/amusement parks/etc. charge $5-10 for an ice cream novelty, but I don't think you'll be doing anything but costing yourself more money in the short term, and more headaches/labour trying to make it all work. I mean good luck to you and all, but personally I'll stick with buying the $5 ice cream or just waiting until I get home.
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Oct 22, 2007
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woof wrote: Home made freezer pack: Take an empty 4 liter vinegar jug, wash it out, fill with warm water 3/4 up. Add half a cup of common salt. Close. Shake. let stand for a couple hours. If the salt is completely dissolved add more salt and repeat. Keep adding a little bit of salt until no more can be dissolved. When you've reached the saturation point of the water you will have a salt water mixture which will freeze solid at about -20°C. Hopefully your freezer will get down that low and it may take a day or two to happen. When done you have a block of salt water ice which is at -20°C and it will keep your ice cream nicely solid. How long depends on your cooler. If you have a cheap cooler only a few hours. if you have an arctic type cooler then somewhat longer. It also depends on other factors like the temp where the cooler is stored. If it's in the sunshine or in the trunk of a hot car then the salt water block won't last long and when it's all melted then there goes your ice cream.
This is brilliant. I think that I will make a few of these, and let them freeze in the winter, and put them in my chest freezer to take up space when it's emptier... and use them whenever I need an uber-ice-pack. I'll use some of the sidewalk salt that I still have in the garage too.
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Sep 27, 2009
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If coolers were capable of keeping things frozen for long they would be called freezers.

:)
Sr. Member
Apr 23, 2008
675 posts
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Toronto
Any deals on Yeti Tundra coolers? Which store/website would you recommend to purchase from? Thanks
Member
Oct 2, 2014
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New Westminster
Your other option is to use a portable freezer. It is not cheap, probably take many years to recover the cost from the $5 ice cream savings.

On the plus side, you are not limited to ice cream, you can use the freezer for other food as well, and you can sell some ice cream of your own to recover the cost of the portable freezer.

2.8 cu.ft AC/DC Portable Refrigerator/Freezer
http://www.costco.ca/Unique-2.8-cu.ft-- ... 70876.html
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Dec 3, 2009
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That's why there is so much money in the convenience of ice cream.

An alternative is to have a cooler full of freezies. It doesn't require the lower temperatures of ice cream and it can afford to lose a little bit of structural integrity if it melts, opposed to Popsicles. Not quite the luxury of an ice cream bar on a distance summer excursion but it should work.

Otherwise get that portable freezer from costco and bring extra bars to sell to the other beach-goers or campers nearby to cover that purchase cost....just don't get into any merchant trouble...lol
Remember to be an RFD-er and NOT a degenerate.
Sr. Member
Apr 23, 2008
675 posts
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Toronto
inkjoy wrote: Your other option is to use a portable freezer. It is not cheap, probably take many years to recover the cost from the $5 ice cream savings.

On the plus side, you are not limited to ice cream, you can use the freezer for other food as well, and you can sell some ice cream of your own to recover the cost of the portable freezer.

2.8 cu.ft AC/DC Portable Refrigerator/Freezer
http://www.costco.ca/Unique-2.8-cu.ft-- ... 70876.html
Can this fit in a car?
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Apr 21, 2004
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smehmood wrote: Any deals on Yeti Tundra coolers? Which store/website would you recommend to purchase from? Thanks
https://www.rticcoolers.com/ But they're in the US. Good thing is pop in a few soda's inside and a bag of ice in them and you won't have to pay duty.
Sr. Member
Apr 23, 2008
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Toronto
alanbrenton wrote: https://www.rticcoolers.com/ But they're in the US. Good thing is pop in a few soda's inside and a bag of ice in them and you won't have to pay duty.
Thank you! This begs the question which is better Yeti Tundra or RTIC cooler?
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Apr 21, 2004
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smehmood wrote: Thank you! This begs the question which is better Yeti Tundra or RTIC cooler?
Based on slickdeals discussion, they are the same. RTIC group came from Yeti and Yeti is trying to sue RTIC but Yeti seems not to have defensible patents.
Sr. Member
Apr 23, 2008
675 posts
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Toronto
alanbrenton wrote: Based on slickdeals discussion, they are the same. RTIC group came from Yeti and Yeti is trying to sue RTIC but Yeti seems not to have defensible patents.
Thanks again. I don't plan to cross the border anytime soon. Is there any courier service/postal box that handles shipments from US to Canada?
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Apr 21, 2004
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smehmood wrote: Thanks again. I don't plan to cross the border anytime soon. Is there any courier service/postal box that handles shipments from US to Canada?
A RFD mule is probably your best bet seeing how you are in Mississauga or cost might double. :)

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