Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire 7 week ice chest test

Not a Yeti.

Came home from my hunt in AZ on 26 Oct. Actually bought the ice on about the 21st ( so 54 days now), 3 blocks, as my homemade ice jugs had started to melt already after a 2 day drive down and 4 days of hunting in temps averaging 50-65 day, 30-45 nights down there. When I unpacked the three blocks still were about 2/3 intact and the jugs just had cold water in them. Just for scheidts and giggles I decided to do a little test when I got the chest out of the truck. Not scientific at all. Put the chest on the north side of the house, which at this time of year and our latitude gets very little sun, actually none now that we're in December.

Chest has been opened a few times to inspect the ice, perhaps not as often as if I was using it camping. Normally, this chest only gets opened every few days on a camping trip, to refill a smaller chest that gets opened daily, so conditions here weren't that difference. Lately the chest has been used a couple of times to store a couple of quail that have hit the picture window and the dog finished off. I breast them later for him to eat.

Temperatures since I got back have been as low as 8F, probably averaging closer to 32F at night. Highs up to the mid 60's, with an average about 45F. Basically deer hunting temps in a lot of the places I've lived and hunted, which I what I was trying to test.

Opened the chest this morning to see what was left. There's still ice, picture of a chunk I took out of bag and set on jugs. Still two more chunks in the other bags:



The special brand of ice chest tested:



For my uses, in these kind of fall temperatures, even in the warmer ones in AZ, if I keep the thing in the shade, and when hunting in AZ usually put some other insulation over it if I can, blanket, old sleeping bag, it keeps ice just fine for me. No need for a fancy Yeti or clone that doesn't have the same amount of interior room.

Now, if I was hunting in hot weather, say 80 degree and above average daytime, I might have to put some dry ice in it to get it to last for the duration of an average hunting trip. One can buy a lot of dry ice with the savings over a Yeti.

Other opinions may vary...................nope, they will vary.................especially around here.
Geno

That's good information.

Maybe next summer, you can do a hand-warmer comparison.

I use gloves.

and it's not cold here, it's still quite warm.

Deer hunting temps as I said.

Geno

Not a Yeti? Oh man. This is going to crush Sam O

I imagine where he and Jim live I should do a test for how well it keeps a casserole warm in a blizzard.

Geno

You mean a hot dish?

Don't leave a Yeti in the back of your pickup. Friend got his stolen at Tractor Supply.

I eat the quail. The dog gets the sparrows.

I will, however, try one of those 5 day Colemans.

I think that up there a thermos test would be more appropriate? Still, good to know. Thank you.

we use a artic,yeti and my coleman extreme with the same amount of ice,same length of time and my coleman won easily.

mine is 120quart,i bought it new at a fleamarket for 20.00 last fall.

I like these Coleman Extremes, using them to bring back completely processed, vacuum packed, frozen moose back from Newfoundland and Maine over the last 2 seasons. Multi day trips in the back of my pickup, NO ice added, or needed.
They have also served me in Florida for fish and hogs.
Mine are 150 qt and 40 qt. Still look good and clean up nicely.
Don't need no stinkin' yeti.

I will have to try a Coleman. I have yeti and rtic

I have that cooler on my truck. Loaded it with ice last Monday for a fishing trip that never happened. Been in and out of it all week. Still have about 1/3 left. Hi temps in the 50s and 60s all week. Great cooler for the money.

Also have the larger Coleman Extreme Marine. It gets used more during deer hunting season (our rut is still about a month away). Typically use it as a true ice box. I'll put a few 1/2 gal. blocks in the bottom and fill with ice. I did this last season about the middle of January. Still had ice for the last deer I shot on Feb. 9.

We used to have a Coleman outlet store. Sure wish I'd bought a couple more.

I bought a 45qt Rtic for about $100 delivered.

Thing is the real deal, as good as Yeti

We have the same cooler. It works well enough for our needs. We have a fridge in the camper so the cooler is for extras.

If you need blocks of ice: I hit the local thrift stores and buy used bread pans for like 1 to $2 each. I have quite a bunch of them and find they're very useful around the shop for all kinds of things. I also make ice blocks with them for the cooler. They'll make a nice bottom layer and stay frozen a long time.

They (regular coolers) work pretty dang good in much warmer weather than Ya'll are talking. Its just that if your cooler has been hanging out in a garage in South Georgia in the summer or early fall when its 90 degrees, some of the ice you put in it before you head out is gonna melt getting IT cooled down. If you read the fine print on these ice retention tests/claims, they are for a pre chilled cooler.

I know when I would get a deer in South Carolina in September or October when it was still very hot, I'd get it on ice in a cooler asap and the ice had to overcome the residual body temp of the deer and the temp of the cooler. Half or more of it would melt overnight. After things cooled down, it would keep the ice and meat very well if kept in a shady spot. I would always check every day because I am OCD and some days did not require an ice top off even in mid 80 temps if kept in the shade.

The thing about my adventures is that they sadly don't take me far enough away from "civilization" to make ice retention a factor, nor are they frequent enough. There is a "twice the ice" machine around the corner from where I live where I can get 20lbs for 2 bucks. It would take me decades to make up the difference in ice saved by a Yeti vs a Coleman or whatever.

If it's going to be warm, use a 2d cooler for ice storage. Freeze a bunch of blocks and fill it up. Keep it covered with a sleeping bag and in the shade. You'll need to take an ice pick.

I've frozen a bunch of bread pans of ice and put them in small trash bags, 2 blocks/bag. That keeps them from freezing together and makes it easier to keep the food cooler topped off. Last summer, we took a scout troop to a week long regional camp out. We filled a cooler with ice blocks like this. By the end of the week, they hadn't even started to melt. We had plenty of ice.

My Dometic 12V portable freezer is da bomb and makes a Yeti seeem cheap. Can set temperature at about 28 and stuff at the bottom will stay frozen and stuff on top cold, or drop down to -10 to freeze solid, like making ice blocks for your Coleman and stay out and dry indefinitely. Super efficient compressor that does take power, so like a road trip or charge off a generator is needed. Using to freeze jugs of ice for other coolers was how dad did it back in the day so we could run around the desert for a couple of weeks without buying ice and no melt water. Hooked to a Seperate deep cycle, running one tank full on a little Honda 1000W generator a day would power his if sitting in a camp. Just ideas.

I have a 150 qt Coleman Xtreme like the OP and mine has a small lid within the large lid. On two occasions I have packed the cooler with bags of ice, used it for a week in temps from mid 50's to mid 70's and still had some ice left, after 8 days. I put ice in it for a couple of days before I pack it with food, to cool it down. After the food goes in, seldom if ever, raise the big lid, use the smaller one. Keep it in the shade.

A friend says that if I will mix up salt water and freeze it in gallon jugs, it will last longer even longer. I know block ice is better than bag ice, but I haven't got local block ice. I'm gonna try the salt water ice. Just make sure the jugs dont leak.

I have used the Coleman Xtreme and Coleman Ultimate Extreme coolers for years now and had some of the same results, they keep ice for several days.

The Coleman Ultimate Extreme cooler claims that it will keep ice for 7 days instead of the 5 days that the Xtreme advertises. I couldn't tell you if there is a difference in the two, but maybe after deer season is over I will put a 20 pound bag of ice in each one of them and do a little experiment.