Ice Chest -- has anyone ever tried this?

wa8yxm wrote:
How do you think they made ICE CREAM in days of old before my Granddad built freezers.... In fact they still sell those old ice and salt ice cream makers.

Short story: Went to an "Event" (Festival type) one of the vendors was Grandma's Home Made Ice Cream" (Was good too) next to the consession trailer was an old ice cream maker.

Hit and miss gas engine turned the "Crank" and of course it used ice and rock salt,,, I think it was about 5 gallons.

Folks (Who had never seen a hit/miss engine) were saying it sounded like it was not running right, or running out of fuel... Sounded 100% to me (And to it's owner) but then... I am occasionally known as John from Detroit,,, Detroit is border to border with Dearborn,, Home of the the Edison Institute, (Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village) I used to have a "Friends" pass (Annual pass). and have visited often.. On of the village buildings... Came from my home town just a few miles from where I grew up.

I think that this January in Quartzsite next door to BB's was the type of ice cream maker wa8yxm mentions. Of course the DW and I were only interested in the scooter next door to the ice cream vendor, we wouldn't be caught dead in BB's. No cold brews or live Country music for us, it's rock hard church pews and good HF&D sermons for us.

Can one go to he!! for lying?, I hope not.

We did it for a party once and it worked great! But I made the mistake of not emptying the cooler 100% and left a couple of drinks in there for about a week and discovered that the salt eats the aluminum cans. Shouldn't have been lazy:)!

Interesting question from a chemistry perspective. Salt lowers the freezing point of water, so it will melt the ice, but forces the ice to draw energy - heat - for the phase change. The result is colder water/ice - ergo, colder drinks since the heat was drawn from it. Funny when you think about it, we use salt to melt ice on roads. The result is water that is colder than the ice. But yes it will work.

Salting ice does lower the temperature of the ice water. That is the reason for salting the ice when making ice cream. The lower temperature of the salt water (brine) will do a better job of sucking heat from whatever it is in contact with. I don't use it in a cooler and wouldn't see any reason to unless you want to freeze your soda.

The ice water in your cooler will typically be slightly above 32F/0C. Salted ice water in your cooler may be as cold as -6F/-21C.

I make ice cream the old fashioned way at all our family parties/picnics.

wa8yxm wrote:
...next to the consession trailer was an old ice cream maker....

You can buy these at Lehman's Hardware in Kidron, Ohio and go into business;

It doesn't get them colder, but it will get them cold faster. (Use Rock Salt, btw...)

When getting my refrigerator to an operating temperature, I've found that bottles of brine that are deep-frozen do a good job at getting the fridge and freezer to operating temperatures. However, I've moved onto hard-sided gel packs because they are easier to work with and take up less usable space by being square than a bottle does.

I use to work at a restaurant with a salad bar. I had to set up the salad bar every morning. This was back when the trend was to place kale leaves around every container in the bar. First I set the containers where I wanted them, then packed ice around each container, then salted the ice and covered with kale. The ice didn't melt and you could take the containers out to refill them and the ice stayed put. All this to say, shake salt on your ice and it takes a lot longer to melt. I just used table salt.

robsouth wrote:

K Charles wrote:
On of the village buildings... Came from my home town just a few miles from where I grew up.

Me too

:h

They are talking about Greenfield Village and Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn Michigan. Vast exhibits of historical buildings brought to Dearborn by Henry Ford and reassembled. Grew up just south of there and enjoyed it many timse. The posters are saying that buildings in thier towns were relocated there.

RoyF wrote:
Dry ice: put a layer of dry ice on the cooler's bottom, add a layer of regular ice so that drinks don't touch dry ice, add drinks, cover with more regular ice. You can also keep steaks or other meats frozen by starting with a layer of dry ice.

You can also freeze your drinks solid in the water ice. Did that the first time we used dry ice on the boat. Took a week to free up the last 2 water bottles. :D

Dry ice: put a layer of dry ice on the cooler's bottom, add a layer of regular ice so that drinks don't touch dry ice, add drinks, cover with more regular ice. You can also keep steaks or other meats frozen by starting with a layer of dry ice.