Refrigeration for food during extended trips?

For me, one of the crappier parts of living in a car is the massive reduction in food options compared to living at home. So I was thinking of ways to allow for food that required refrigeration. Obviously there is the cooler route. But another option is to buy a 12V freezer such as this one:

adventureparents.com/blog/d…

The downside is you have to worry about electrical concerns and the thing costs about $600. So what do you think is better, a cooler or a $600 12v fridge/ freezer? What does a bag of ice go for in the western US, and how long does it last in a hot car in the summer?

I've camped out of my truck for work every summer for the past 6 years and given this problem some thought. If you have a good cooler and get block ice (not cubed which melts quicker) in cooler temps (40-60 and cloudy) I have found the ice can last 4-7+ days. In warm temps, especially if the cooler is in a camper shell or back of the car this can be reduced to 2-3 days. If you drop money on a really good cooler like a yeti, ice will last a lot longer but you might end up spending a few hundred dollars anyway. Ice in small towns can be expensive, $5+ for a 10 lb block $7 for a 20 lb bag of cube. If you want to spend money a solar panel, RV or marine battery and that fridge looks like a sweet set up.

Personally, unless it is 80+ degrees I just do with out ice in the cooler now. Veggies like carrots and peppers will last without refrigeration for most of a week. Hummus and broccoli will last 3 or more days, hard cheese also lasts as well. Unless you eat a lot of meat I find it is just easier to go into town once a week and buy food instead of worrying about the logistics of buying ice and keeping the food out of the accumulating water in the cooler. Before you drop a bunch of money you might want to explore how long foods keep without refrigeration, I have been surprised and haven't made myself sick yet.

Get two gallon plastic milk jugs, clean, fill with water, and freeze. This eliminates the problem with the swamp at the bottom of the cooler.

Also take along a bunch of plastic grocery bags. Use these to fill empty space in cooler. This slows down heat transfer, especially when it is open.

Wrap cooler in sleeping bag during the day.

This usually gets me thru at least 4 days in the summer.

As dan said..block ice is the way to go.I use a coleman extreme cooler that holds a 8-10 lb block with quite a bit of beer/food for 4-7 days. use the melt water for face washing

12 v coolers use a lot of power and even with a solar rig, your going to go warm.

Ice and a great cooler... Make sure its one where the lid is filled with insulation. Those 8 day coolers are usually a great way to go.

Yeti coolers are probably the most advanced technology out there. They cost a lot. We freeze liter or gallon water bottles for up to 5 day trips and use dry ice which you place on top of the goods in the cooler...or on top of the block ice. With added sleeping bag on top we get about 4 to 5 days with an Igloo cooler.

there are propane refrigerators out in the market place but no solar power ones I know off that are efficient yet.

Get a Yeti cooler, handsdown. No need to worry about electricity or things going wrong. All you need is ice and you're good to go for a very long time. They even have one that is certified bear resistant. They have footage of a grizzly wrestling to get into the cooler. Yeti Coolers

20 kN wrote:For me, one of the shittiest parts of living in a car is the massive reduction in food options compared to living at home. So I was thinking of ways to allow for food that required refrigeration. Obviously there is the cooler route. But another option is to buy a 12V freezer such as this one: adventureparents.com/blog/d… The downside is you have to worry about electrical concerns and the thing costs about $600. So what do you think is better, a cooler or a $600 12v fridge/ freezer? What does a bag of ice go for in the western US, and how long does it last in a hot car in the summer?

For short term or infrequent use, you're likely better off with a cooler and a block of ice ala frozen gallon jugs. They'll get you through a weekend. I use a Coleman extreme to add extra beer capacity on my back patio for get togethers. Full of ice and beer they'll make it 3+ days in the TX summer heat after the party. Blocks of ice likely to last longer.

Frankly, I don't get the love fest for the Yeti/Pelican etc über coolers. I can see their utility for river guide services where the cooler also has to function as a gear box and take a beating. There's a reason they're basically insulated Pelican Cases... BUT for 1/10 the cost you can get an Igloo that will do the same thing in the back of a car. Maybe not quite as long but long enough for MOST. The Yetis are also HUGE for the space you get inside. Not great when the back of the Subie is already cramped for space.

Downsides of any of the above solutions include need for ice, prepping ahead of time for best performance (pre chill cooler etc etc) space taken up by the ice and for me, the huge kicker is uneven cooling. No matter what you do, some things in the cooler will be nice and cold right next to the ice but other things not so much. That can work in your favor but often it can cause headaches (not-so-cold milk, frozen fruits etc).

For longer term things I opted for a 12v Fridge. They are a bit more bulky than an Igloo but better shaped than a Yeti IMO for "back of car access". Things like an Engel or ARB are very NICE but also quite expensive. I think they play into the big spenders scene like a Yeti IMO. Check out WAECO/Dometic - They use the same compressor as the ARB and will save you several hundred dollars. I like the Dometic WAECO CF-050AC110 personally. Perfect size IMO for vehicle supported camping etc.

Power wise - you'll need to be willing to do a little engineering. I don't like relying on my car battery if I'm not driving so a secondary will be ideal. GoalZero products will work just fine or you can DIY with a battery box etc. I used an inline WattMeter to monitor charge/voltage needs but you can find this data online at places like Overlanding websites.

mattm wrote: Check out WAECO/Dometic - They use the same compressor as the ARB and will save you several hundred dollars. I like the Dometic WAECO CF-050AC110 personally. Perfect size IMO for vehicle supported camping etc.

Interesting... I have always looked at these options and wondered. I recently put in a solar/battery setup in a beach cabin I lease and was thinking something like this might be a great way to go but wasn't sure... even with a 125aH battery I decdied against them. What size battery and aray do you use to power yours?

You can also keep your cooler a bit cooler by adding extra layers of insulation. Without being too exotic - closed cell from home improvement stores will work, they also sell double reflective aluminized bubble wrap that might be easier to work with.

Morgan Patterson wrote: Interesting... I have always looked at these options and wondered. I recently put in a solar/battery setup in a beach cabin I lease and was thinking something like this might be a great way to go but wasn't sure... even with a 125aH battery I decdied against them. What size battery and aray do you use to power yours?

Had to dig into my notes a bit = "waeco cf50, Pre chilled to 33 on AC, 60% full with beer bottles, garage temp was ~73 degrees on ave for test. 13 hrs pulled 80Whrs with me occasionally opening the lid for more "realism". "

A 125Ahr bat run down to 50% = 62.5Ahr x12v = 750Whrs / 160Wr = 4.69 DAYS of cooling. I'd round down to 3 or 4 to be extra conservative.

Solar Panel Wise, lets say 200 Whrs / 4 "Sun Hours" = 50 Watt Panel MINIMUM. Lots of "it depends" on these rough numbers of course.

Sugest a good MPPT Solar charge control (I like GenaSun 10AMP model).

Cheap Crystalline panels are everywhere it seems. For truly portable use I Badly want a 60W PowerFilm setup (more efficient with variable light) but can't justify the cost just yet!

john strand wrote:12 v coolers use a lot of power and even with a solar rig, your going to go warm.

Not true. I went with a 50qt ARB fridge for my van build and the thing is awesome. It's well built, keeps nice and cold, and doesn't draw very much power at all. We're talking about ~1 amp or so average @ 12v to keep it 32 degrees when it's 90 degrees ambient.

I undersized my battery for my build and will likely upgrade or add another soon, just in case, but even with my 65Ah battery I haven't had it go dead on me yet when used with the 100W solar panel and alternator isolator (eg. battery charges when I drive). I've parked the van for 5 days without starting it and the battery was still pretty much full when I left. That battery powers my lights and vent fans, too (though I bought the most power-efficient products I could find). I might be in trouble if I park for a while and don't get sun, but the places I go usually have ample sun. Or, if there's not much sun, chances are it's colder out and the fridge doesn't need to use as much power to keep cool.

It's not cheap though, obviously. The ARB fridge + battery + quality solar setup costs about $1400.

Oh, one thing about the 12v fridges is that they aren't the most portable. I mean, technically they are, but when the fridge is 50lbs empty and you fill it up with another 30 lbs of food and beer, moving it around isn't something you'll likely want to do often.

I also needed a slide-out option for my fridge and didn't want to spend the $350 ARB charges for theirs, so I welded up my own with some 200lb drawer slides for about $60 and it's been working fantastically. I actually just posted a bunch of pictures of my build if you want to see it in action: mountainproject.com/v/my-di…

mattm wrote: Had to dig into my notes a bit = "waeco cf50, Pre chilled to 33 on AC, 60% full with beer bottles, garage temp was ~73 degrees on ave for test. 13 hrs pulled 80Whrs with me occasionally opening the lid for more "realism". " A 125Ahr bat run down to 50% = 62.5Ahr x12v = 750Whrs / 160Wr = 4.69 DAYS of cooling. I'd round down to 3 or 4 to be extra conservative. Solar Panel Wise, lets say 200 Whrs / 4 "Sun Hours" = 50 Watt Panel MINIMUM. Lots of "it depends" on these rough numbers of course. Sugest a good MPPT Solar charge control (I like GenaSun 10AMP model). Cheap Crystalline panels are everywhere it seems. For truly portable use I Badly want a 60W PowerFilm setup (more efficient with variable light) but can't justify the cost just yet!

What about using the freezer to just freeze water in the unit for cooling? Instead of having the device plugged in 24/7, why not fill the bottom 4" with water, then put it in freeze mode, let the water freeze, then unplug it and use it as a cooler. When the water liquifies, just plug it back in and freeze it again.

Not sure how efficient it is as a cooler, but if you can get the ice to last 2 days, that's 2 days off, maybe 4-8 hours on. That's a pretty good duty cycle and would save far more power than leaving it plugged in all the time.

mattm wrote: Had to dig into my notes a bit = "waeco cf50, Pre chilled to 33 on AC, 60% full with beer bottles, garage temp was ~73 degrees on ave for test. 13 hrs pulled 80Whrs with me occasionally opening the lid for more "realism". " A 125Ahr bat run down to 50% = 62.5Ahr x12v = 750Whrs / 160Wr = 4.69 DAYS of cooling. I'd round down to 3 or 4 to be extra conservative. Solar Panel Wise, lets say 200 Whrs / 4 "Sun Hours" = 50 Watt Panel MINIMUM. Lots of "it depends" on these rough numbers of course. Sugest a good MPPT Solar charge control (I like GenaSun 10AMP model). Cheap Crystalline panels are everywhere it seems. For truly portable use I Badly want a 60W PowerFilm setup (more efficient with variable light) but can't justify the cost just yet!

Thanks for this... I appreciate it! Looks like i might have to reconsider a fridge again in the spring. I'm actually running a 150W Renogy Mono panel and went with the Morningstar PWM Pro-Star 15 controller and a VMAX Solar tank battery.

I use a Yeti for river trips. It is great for the Grand Canyon when you need to keep ice for 20 days in the heat, but overkill for just about anything else. I wouldn't bother with the size and expense of one just for car camping. A few notes from river trips:

Make sure your cooler is cold before you put in you trip ice and food. This is even more crucial if you have a Yeti - those walls retain heat just as well as they do cold and it takes a lot of ice to cool them down. Yetis are actually great for cooking sous vide - fill a hot Yeti with 130 or so degree water, chuck in a bunch of vacuum sealed bags of steaks, let sit for an hour, and then sear with a mapp gas torch and you've got good eats.

Block ice is better than cube. Commercial block ice sucks since it is just ice chips compressed together, and is still 70% air. Make your own ice blocks in tupperware that fit your cooler nicely.

Even better is to get friendly with someone who has a walk in freezer - i've had good luck asking grocery store managers if i can put a cooler in the walk in for a few days. Fill with 4 inches of water, leave it in with the lid open, and it 2 days you have a really solid block of ice perfectly sized for the cooler. On very long trips like the Grand Canyon, i'll start with a layer like that. Once frozen, I add a day's worth of food in vacuum sealed bags and cover with water and let freeze overnight. Repeat until the cooler is full. A big Yeti will weigh 400 pounds rigged like this, but you will be chipping steaks out of the ice on day 20 in 100 degree temps.

Try not to open your coolers, and when you do keep it short and in the shade. Be really organized.

Use separate coolers for food and beer. Drain the food cooler into the drink cooler. Ice keeps much longer in a drained cooler, and that cold water is just fine for cooling down cans and bottles.

Some sort of bubble wrap insulation on top of the food is critical with cheap coolers that have poor seals and little lid insulation. Waste of time with a Yeti though. All coolers benefit from being covered with something reflective to keep them out of the sun.

Polymax kennel flooring is great for putting on top of ice to keep food out of the swamp water. Swamp water is also not as much of an issue if you drain your coolers religiously, which you should do to preserve ice as long as possible.

20 kN wrote: What about using the freezer to just freeze water in the unit for cooling? Instead of having the device plugged in 24/7, why not fill the bottom 4" with water, then put it in freeze mode, let the water freeze, then unplug it and use it as a cooler. When the water liquifies, just plug it back in and freeze it again. Not sure how efficient it is as a cooler, but if you can get the ice to last 2 days, that's 2 days off, maybe 4-8 hours on. That's a pretty good duty cycle and would save far more power than leaving it plugged in all the time.

I think you'd end up using more power trying to do those big swings but I'm no thermo expert. You wouldn't want to fill the thing with "free water" but I could see jugs working. Problem though, what do you do with all the stuff that you DON'T want to freeze?

In my experience, temp swings are the enemy of keeping food fresh. Particularly dairy. A consistent temp is better than swings of warm/cold.

Some people disconnect the fridge overnight but again, I think you'll end up using more power in the long run and have the negative of temp swings. One would have to do some serious testing to really see how many amps each method pulls.

Power calculations are fun but there are tons of variables. The easy way to extend your off-the grid time is just get more solar Watts. Remember if you really hit a bad patch of cloudy weather, you can always just turn on your vehicle and charge up the 2nd bat that way. Look into dual battery controllers such as the CTEK D250s. If I had the time, I'd try and rig up my Odyssey (err, I mean 4Runner) with a modular CTEK D250s, a Dometic/WAECO Fridge, ~100Ahr Bat box or Yeti1200 and a 60-90W PowerFilm setup (I really want to rig my Thule Box with a Powerfilm RV stick on panel) The biggest issue is modularity for me. Most of the 4x4 Overlanders hard wire a lot of this into the vehicle. For me, it needs to strip down and out of the vehicle for everyday use so any setup I rig will have wires strewn all about.

Mr. Wonderful wrote:Get two gallon plastic milk jugs, clean, fill with water, and freeze. This eliminates the problem with the swamp at the bottom of the cooler.

This. 2 liter soda/water bottles also work well. Added benefit of having an ongoing supply of ice cold drinking water.

If keeping food refrigerated is a priority and you're willing to spend a little money, I suggest a unit by Whynter. It operates on either 12v d/c or 110 a/c (if you have an inverter or want to pull it out of your vehicle and use it at home) and has a built in low voltage disconnect circuit so you won't entirely dump your battery. For what it does, it sips power (about 4 Ah) and looks great.

I've owned cheaper "electric coolers" by Koolatron and you get what you pay for. If you go that route, definitely wire in your own LVD circuit so you don't get stranded without power. They can be found online for under $100 and are relatively straight forward to install.

Whynter 45 installed in my van

Matt thanks for the info... what size battery do you have running that and how long do you get out of it (assuming refrigeration temperature)?

Free solution that has worked very well for me (I eat eggs, drink cold beer, keep veggies fresh for many days all while living in my car without refrigeration or ice).

At night, pile all the stuff you want to keep cold and maybe even stuff that isn't a priority, like bread and canned food, on top of your car. In the morning, pile all that stuff on a car seat (the seat insulates well from below). Now surround the food with anything that insulates. I use jackets, pillows, comforters, my sleeping bag in its bag (not the stuff sack), and towels. Actually, I use all of these things in combination. If your nights are cool enough for this method, you've got the stuff around and probably don't need it during the day! The top layer should be light-colored so as not to heat up in the sun. I've practiced this method in many different climates and always had ice-cold beer to drink, just like my friends who live like real humans.

YMMV, of course. Bears and warm nights could prove problematic.