Baseball, cookouts, and camping; all of these things are right around the corner with the arrival of the Memorial Day weekend. If you are excited and want to do some preparations for these events in advance, one of the things you can do is buy a portable cooler and make it really cold. Here are a few tips and tricks to get your cooler extra cold and ready for use.
1. Stick Your Cooler in Your Freezer Chest
This may sound like a crazy idea, but it works. If you have a big enough freezer chest, put your entire portable cooler inside the freezer chest. It will cause the special lining in the cooler to freeze up, making the cooler maintain a colder interior temperature a lot longer. You should not, however, leave your cooler in the chest freezer indefinitely. A few hours to a single day prior to use works best. You can also use this approach in conjunction with lunchbox ice packs to maximize the cold effect.
2. Use Lunchbox Ice Packs Under a Layer of Regular Ice
The frozen lunchbox ice packs prepare a hot cooler for the cold ice that is coming. These packs will help reduce the interior temperature of a portable cooler by as much as ten to twenty degrees. (You can test this by placing a thermometer inside the cooler and closing the lid for a few minutes, then reading the warm interior temperature before placing the ice packs in the cooler. Take the temperature again after twenty minutes, when the ice packs have had time to chill the cooler's interior.) Then pour your regular ice over the top of that. The only way to get your cooler even colder is to use dry ice.
3. Put a Block of Dry Ice in the Cooler
Dry ice is the coldest substance on the planet. Order a small block of it prior to the day and time you intend to use your cooler. Place the piece of dry ice in the bottom of your cooler, and then pour regular ice over the top of that. The dry ice will prevent the regular ice from melting for several hours -- no joke. Then put your drinks and whatnot on top of the layer of regular ice. You will be able to open the cooler to ice-cold drinks, even if you place the drinks in the cooler when they are warm.
