I scored a very nice pack at a local gear swap today. It is in very good condition and for $75 I felt I couldn't go wrong. I was surprised at how much it will hold. Has anyone every placed a chunk of dry ice on top to keep things cold? Just curious, I haven't done a search for this yet.

I assume you got one of the Insulated food packs. Stu from the Boundary Waters Journal uses a gallon milk jug of frozen water. He gets quite a few days of use out of it.

OldFingers57: "I assume you got one of the Insulated food packs. Stu from the Boundary Waters Journal uses a gallon milk jug of frozen water. He gets quite a few days of use out of it. "

Sounds heavy!

OldFingers57: "I assume you got one of the Insulated food packs. Stu from the Boundary Waters Journal uses a gallon milk jug of frozen water. He gets quite a few days of use out of it. "

He actually uses two gallons of frozen water, and yes, it is heavy. Did it for a couple years, and for 4 guys it was grand!

I think I am going to try freezing some chili, beef stew, and baked ziti in cool-whip containers and have frozen steaks as well. Hopefully they all don't thaw at the same time.

MN_Lindsey: "

OldFingers57: "I assume you got one of the Insulated food packs. Stu from the Boundary Waters Journal uses a gallon milk jug of frozen water. He gets quite a few days of use out of it. "

Sounds heavy!"

Yes but most of the time you aren't carrying it, the canoe is. So the farthest you may have to carry it is the longest portage you are doing. We use it river tripping so no big deal as we have no portages to contend with.

Sounds fun to me. Could be heavy but so what, it's a canoe trip and the longest portage might be all of one mile. Most are far less.

As soon as some of my buds retire I will probably get an insulated food pack myself. Hard to see eating really well by myself.......good food is meant to be shared.

Dry ice works very well. It will last a lot longer than Frozen milk jugs. Put the cold stuff at the bottom with the dry ice on top (wrap the dry ice in newspaper to help prevent cold burns. Then put an insulated layer (reflectex, closed cell foam, bubble wrap) on top of that then put your dry goods in the upper portion. Your dry goods do not need to be kept cold- you only lift the insulating layer when you go into the cold section.

After your trip "air out" the pack by putting baking soda in a cake pan and place in the bottom of the pack and close the top. in a week there will not be any food odors left.