Cool Bushcraft

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IanLvt

New Member
Oct 4, 2018
2
1
60
Massachusetts
Extended trips away either with the family, a scout group or alone have with them differing pluses, however also come there own issues. One of these is keeping fresh food fresh, and the beers cold.

Everyone has their own ideas on how to achieve this, personally for family trips I have a rather large cool box, which does keep the milk fresh for a few days, however when I either on my own, or with a group of scouts, it stays at home.

I was just wondering what other people did to keep the milk (beer) cold?

A wheeled cooler with a drain for groups. I recently bought an IceMule insulated bag that I can throw in the car. With a bag of ice in it, food/drinks are kept cold for a good 24 hours. Great when it's just me away for the weekend.
 

Chalkflint

Tenderfoot
Mar 6, 2017
70
34
Oxford
If using cool boxes there is a vast difference in quality. My Coleman Xtreme works so much better and for longer than cheaper versions I have used.
One tip I use is keep the box off the ground and covered. If the ground is warmer than the box then the box is getting heated up by the ground. I also keep the box covered with a blanket and out of sunlight. They are small things but make a noticeable difference
Chalkflint
 

oldtimer

Full Member
Sep 27, 2005
3,183
1,801
82
Oxfordshire and Pyrenees-Orientales, France
Two things about physics I remember from school.

1 How electric motor and dynamo work because "I left my homework on the bus, Sir. " actually was true but I got detention anyway and had to write it all out again. How did he know it would come up in the O level Physics exam and get me a decent grade despite knowing only two things from the entire syllabus?

2 Evaporation cools: because its a trick I've used often. When I was a child, my father used to take a canvas water bucket on our camping trips. He would hang it from a tripod and it would keep water cool on hot days. Anything such as milk in a bottle put in the bucket would also stay cool.

John Fenna's post explains an alternative way of using the principle clearly.

3 Something else I learned in school: A trick my primary school pupils taught me when I was a teacher in the Bahamas was to take a can of Coke from a very cold fridge and immediately wrap it in aluminium foil before placing in lunchbox just before you leave for school at 7.30am. When lunch break came at noon those kids had lovely cool coke to drink. Guess what, it works with beer cans too!

In the south of France, I freeze a one litre platypus bottle solid and put it in my daypack when setting off for the day. It is still cold at mid to late afternoon. When the water in my insulated water bottle is becoming tepid.
 

Robson Valley

Full Member
Nov 24, 2014
9,959
2,664
McBride, BC
Evaporation sucks off 540 calories per gram of water evaorated.
That's partly windchill and a whole lot of deadly hypothermia.
That's how the South African canvas water bags function.
 
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