Chemical Freezer for Camping

Hey guys,

As I said it in my profile bio, I am a person who loves all outdoor stuff ( especially when it includes camping ).

A few weeks ago just before I finished high school, I went on a dinghy ( 2 person boat ) trip with some of my friends. The night before we left for our three days trip, I realized that I was going to need proteins! I went on the web and searched for some ways to keep food that needs to stay cold like steak ( mhhm imagine eating a fresh slab of red meat on the third day of your trip! After exhausting hours of research, I remembered that when I was around 15 years old, I had discovered something called dry ice.

Dry ice is simply the solid state of carbon dioxide and is as cold as -109.3°F ( -78.5°C ). What is even cooler is that dry ice has no liquid form. This means that it goes from solid straight to gas.

Okay, let's go back to my story now. Once again, when I was 15 years old I was looking on the web for dry ice because I had seen videos of incredible stuff it can do. During my researches I found a company website

( http://www.praxair.com ). The upper company specializes in industrial gases and a lot more. If you can't find any Praxair store near you just look up for other industrial gases companies such as Airgas.

Usually the employees there are very friendly and if you ask for some leftover dry ice they might give it to you like they did with me three times. I just went and asked politely and each time I got out with a 20 pounds bag full of dry ice pellets!

The last two pieces of equipment you will need for this to work is a giant plastic jar with the lid ( coolers will work too but that's what I used so I will stick with it ) and a good old piece of camping floor mattress ( winter ones work better because they are more isolated but 3 seasons ones will work as well ).

Look around your house for a container which as a good volume for your needs. If you can't find any just use any cooler or even a lunch box if you are not planning on eating a lot. But if you still don't have anything that will be acceptable for this just go ahead and look in shops such as Sail or Bass Pro.

Note that whatever you will choose it is better to stick with something rigid becauseelse the padding we are going to do could move around and would potentially cause leaks in our <strong>homemade super freezer </strong>from where the trapped cold air would evacuate.

This is the tricky to make part but easy to explain one ! the only thing you will need to do is calculate and cut a piece that will be flat on the walls of your container. For the bottom and lid, you will want to make them a bit bigger that the top because it will keep pressure on the other piece of mattress you already installed.

If you are using a waterproof bag, you will NEED to make holes in the lid like in the picture shown, because once you put the dry ice in, it will automatically start to vaporise into gas which will cause great pressure in the container.

Yes if you don't make holes it WILL explose and can cause serious injury.

It is now time to put the dry ice in !

One tip before I conclude, if you want it it stay cold even longer you can freeze your meat and/or water bottles...

This will be it for my first tutorial. I hope you enjoyed and please if you liked or disliked hit me up with your feedbacks !

Peace, the ProjectKing

I am not responsible for any accidents nor injury caused by the manipulation of dry ice.

Please be sure to wear gloves and to read on how to manipulate dry ice before handling it.