I was out to my local Sam's Club the other day, and noticed they had a 150qt Igloo 7 day ice chest on sale for $70, and it got me thinking....I have a couple of the smaller Coleman 5 day coolers that worked well in 05....a lot of my leftover food is frozen in disposable plastic containers, and I have enough to fill one of the small chests....I know that would be good for at least 4 days if not opened, and possibly longer with all the thermal mass...

I have a 5 cu.ft. chest type freezer, and a 3500w generator (that I would prefer to not run continuous), but after say 3 days of power outage, would like to make ice to augment the coolers....to make the cubes more practical, keep them to the size of a normal refrigerator ice cube tray

my question...what kind of mould would you use to make a lot of ice cubes in the freezer?...they would have to be stacked vertically to make best use of the freezer

baking pans and then crush the ice
zip loc bags laid flat and then crush
small plastic cups
styro egg cartons

your ideas welcomed....

Les,

To maintain the temperature of food that's already cold you want larger pieces of ice, not cubes. Block ice is preferred.

Even better is refilling disposable soda/water/gatorade bottles with water and freezing them -- just squeeze out about 10% of the water after filling to allow room for expansion as they freeze. Since the melt water is contained within the bottle your food doesn't get wet and the temperature at the bottom of the cooler stays closer to freezing.

Ice cubes are good for rapidly cooling things down, but big chunks of ice are ideal for maintaining temperature.

I also use those rectangular blocks of gel that do the same thing as refilled bottles but are more space efficient. When I'm on an extended car-camping trip I rotate them into my Engel 12V fridge set for freeze mode and can go indefinitely.

I would use standard ice cube trays, they are very cheap from discount stores.
Once the ice is frozen it may be removed from the trays, put in bags or boxes and another batch made.

Note that freezing water into ice requires the removal of considerable heat and the compressor in a domestic freezer will probably run continualy whilst freezing water.
Therefore only attempt to make ice in the freezer when line or generator power is available.
Make certain that the ice cubes are fully frozen, and the freezer is down to the normal temperature before shutting off the generator.

I'm fond of freezing water (or tea) in rectangular Nalgene water bottles -- especially this 64 oz one below.

http://www.rei.com/product/402058/nalgene-space-saver-bottle-64-fl-oz


Nalgene makes several smaller rectangular bottles, including a 32 oz. I've got several in the freezer right now to throw in the cooler for a weekend trip.

One of the aspects of using water bottles for ice is that we can drink the water (or "iced" tea) when it melts.

Mark,Adam,Dagny... thanks...I've used frozen 2L and gallon jugs (typically)for hurricane outages, but since retirement, have a lot of left overs, and my concern was that I couldn't get larger solid blocks in the filled cooler....I use one for the non frozen perishables like lunch meats etc...other for solid frozen stores....I'll check out the discount stores, as I typically don't shop there... again thanks,

Hurricane party to eat up the perishables?
Freeze larger containers and use them in the fridge, treating the fridge as cooler/icebox?

I'll be over for the party...

I also use plastic bottles but find that Powerade bottles with their thicker plastic and design, better withstand elevation changes from sea level to several thousands of feet in elevation changes and vice versa. The Gatorade type, after some trips, develop leaks after the thin PET plastic expands and contracts from the elevation differences.

Not a worry for most but something to keep in mind for those while traveling in mountainous country.

nursemike... we did that in 05...mini block party with a couple of neighbors....Pasco county , like most of the rest of Florida has a very efficient ice and water distribution plan for hurricanes....I'm just looking to be more self sufficient....since retirement, I've got way too much time on my hands...I'm down your way on occasion to shoot matches at Frank Garcia's range in Frostproof


when I was a kid, Mom and Dad froze water in quart tupperware containers, but we switched to dedicated ice chests as there was less cold air "spillage" with the lift top ice chest as opposed to opening the door..