If you are one of those who have a need to know how to keep ice from melting in cooler here you can find the best tips with the most detailed explanation. Today on the market you can find a lot of high-end coolers that offer great performances like insulation, portability, durability, usability along a lot of useful features.

But, often it happens that we have a need a little bit more to improve the insulation capabilities and to maximize the retention of the ice inside our cooler.

So here are the best and most popular ways on how to improve the insulation of the cooler and to keep ice from melting.

The Best Ways on How to Keep Ice from Melting in Cooler

Here in this video, you can watch some of the ways how to maximize ice retention in a cooler.

1. Pre-Cooling Your Cooler

One of the first and most important steps you can take when you need to use your cooler is to do pre-cooling. A certain number of people will wonder why we need to pre-cool the cooler and what we will get with it.

First of all, if you use the cooler without first pre-cooling it, it will contain a certain amount of heat. So when you fill the cooler with your items, ie food and drinks together with ice, the cooler will immediately start using the ice to reduce the temperature of its body. This will cause the ice in the cooler to melt faster. Simply put, the heat from the cooler will start to be transferred to the ice, which will speed up the ice melting.

This will drastically reduce the insulation of the cooler; less ice will be retained in the cooler, which means that your food and drinks will not be stored at a safe temperature long enough. In fact, these are the main reasons for making the cooler pre-cooled. Now you may be wondering how you can pre-cool the cooler. Pre-cooling the cooler you can do in several ways and they are:

• The First Way: This method is simply to place your cooler in the refrigerator or freezer overnight before going on your adventures outside. However, this method is not used for many normal reasons because people usually do not have enough free space in their refrigerators and freezers.
• The Second Way: The is the easiest and most popular way to pre-cool a cooler is to fill it with so-called sacrificial dry ice at least 24 hours before use. This way you will reduce the overall temperature of the cooler before using it. But of course, before using the cooler, you should completely empty the cooler of the rest of the sacrificial ice and the water that has formed from the melting of the ice during the pre-cooling of the cooler.
• The Third Way: In this way instead of dry ice, you can use block ice inside the cooler at least one night before using it.
• The Fourth Way: This is if for some reason you can’t use dry ice or a piece of block ice then you can purchase a few ice packs and put them in the cooler for about 24 hours before you start filling it with your items. Here you can check and browse the various ice packs.
• The Fifth Way: And the fifth most popular and at the same time cheapest way to pre-cool your cooler is to use frozen water bottles. This method is used if you cannot get dry ice, a piece of block ice, or ice packs. Simply put, you just need to fill a few plastic bottles with water and put them in your freezer. Then, put the frozen bottles inside the cooler for at least 24 hours. You just need to remove the bottles before using the cooler.

2. The Ideal Ratio between Ice and Your Items

Now that we’re talking about proper storage of food and drinks in the cooler, including ice, you should always keep a 2:1 ratio.

This means that every time you pack the cooler, there should be twice as much ice as food and drink, ie two-thirds of the ice versus one-third of drinks and food. In fact, the food and drinks need to be perfectly surrounded by ice.

There should always be one layer of ice on the bottom of the cooler, then between each layer of food and drink you should put a layer of ice, and at the end of the top, you should put another layer of ice. As you can see it is very simple and easy.

3. Wet Ice or Dry Ice

When using ice to keep the items in the cooler for better efficiency, it is advisable to use dry instead of wet ice. It is normal for any of you to wonder what a difference between dry ice and ordinary ice is.

Simply put, wet ice, commonly called hot, ordinary, or dripping ice, is found at a temperature of 32 degrees Fahrenheit. This type of ice does not last long. While dry ice is the ice that has a temperature below the freezing point of water. This type of ice is much drier and can last much longer than wet ice.

4. Don’t Open the Cooler Too Often

If you want to keep the ice retention longer, you need to keep in mind not to open the cooler too often.

Because with each opening, a certain amount of hot air enters the cooler, which means that a certain amount of ice will be used to cool down the hot air to the same level as the cold air in the cooler.

5. Keep the Cooler Away From the Sun

When using our cooler, we need to be careful about where we place it. It is very important that the cooler is as far away from the sun as possible.

Although most coolers have UV protection, sun exposure will help reduce insulation and thus reduce ice retention. Always look for a place with a shadow for your cooler. 

6. Reduce the Air Pockets

Always try to fill the cooler as much as you can with ice. Do not allow any air pockets to be inside because their temperature is higher and to keep these air pockets cool they consume the ice around them, which accelerates the melting of the ice in the cooler.

7. Pre-Cooling Your Items

When it comes to keeping ice from melting in the cooler, there is another very important thing you need to practice when packing the cooler with the necessary items. It would be nice if you could pre-cool every item you want to pack in the cooler in advance. Pre-cooled items will not take much away from the ice, so the melting process will be drastically slowed down.

8. Keep Your Cooler Raised from the Ground

Some may not believe it but also there is another very important factor that plays a big role in reducing the melting rate of the ice in the cooler, which is the touch surface between the cooler and the ground on which it is placed.

We all know that any surface in the summer is very hot. This is the main reason why almost all coolers have feet that minimally lift the coolers off the ground.

This type of feet that raises the cooler reduces the touch surface and also reduces the heat exchange between the cooler and the ground. It will also be great if you place stones or wooden objects under the cooler at all its corners to lift the cooler off the ground to reduce the contact area and increase the airflow between the cooler and the hot ground. As you can see, this also helps to increase the retention of ice in the cooler.

9. Don’t Drain the Water from the Cooler

And one more thing. As long as you use the cooler, never drain the melted water from it, regardless of its quantity. Firstly, its temperature is almost as cold as ice, and secondly, it somehow isolates the ice, slowing its melting.

All you have to do is remove food from the water, especially meat products, and store them in a safer place where there is no contact with water. In this situation, it would be nice to have a water-tight container to store the food in it.

My Conclusion

So these are some of the best and most popular ways how to keep ice from melting in cooler and I really hope that they will be of great use for you. But, also you need to know that besides using these tips for extending the retention of the ice in the cooler and it is also very important to have a cooler that has top capabilities and above all insulation.

So, in combination with these two things, more precisely, owning a cooler with top insulation and using the best ways to keep the ice longer in your cooler that I explained in this guide you will get really fantastic results. But this does not mean that these ways of retaining ice should be used only if you have a high-end premium cooler. But, also you will always get great results on any cooler you own.