Cooler and food storage

[ariasca]

Hi

I am curious about how different boat owners use and maximize cold storage of food. i.e. what do you do for a weekend on the water? How much ice do you use? Do you not even try to keep certain foods? Do you have techniques in keeping small food quantities cold? Have you built and installed special racks or storage devices? Do you have your own list of do's and dont's?

I know it is a lot of questions but when you have an empty box with no real prescribed order we are left up to our won devices.

Photos are welcome.

Cheers

 

[Ralph Johnstone]

If you have a refrigerated freezer compartment, plan ahead and thaw frozen food in the fridge compartment. Saves energy.

Freeze as many precooked meals as possible and use them like ice.

Freeze drinking water and use like ice.

 

[Benny17441]

A weekend is easy to do with an ice cooler if you plan right. We have gotten in the habit of pre-cooking complete meals and freezing at home some of them. It accomplishes two things; it delays spoilage and simplifies cooking aboard. We have basically reduced the cooking function aboard to re-heating. If we pack fresh meats like a steak we will cook that on the grill the first night out. You can freeze at home a couple of gallons of drinking water and that will supplement your ice and as it melts you use it for drinking, cooking and to make coffee. It is important to recognize that the frequency with which you open the lid to the cooler directly influences how long the ice will last. It is best to place drinks and snacks in a separate small cooler so the large one does not have to be opened as frequently. Boat built in coolers are usually poorly insulated so by adding insulation the ice can be made to last longer. Stuff in contact with the ice will get wet and depending on its texture it can get soggy so having a shelf for fruits and vegetables is a good idea. Boat coolers also have a drain at the bottom to let the melted water out into the bilge but since cold air flows in a down direction a lot of that cold temperature can be lost through the drain. We used to plug the drain up and had built a lower shelf with holes in it so that we could place the ice on top of the shelf and let the water accumulate at the bottom. At the end of the trip we would pull the plug up and let the bilge pump expel the water off the boat. For a while I ran a dorm refrigerator on an inverter and it worked well for a weekend and we have now a 12V built in refrigerator and we recharge the batteries with a generator but we still adhere to the basic principles of conserving energy.

 

[Don Lucas]

I leave my freezer/refrigerator on all the time now powered by solar. Life a lot easier when you don't have to take everything back and forth to the boat each weekend.