Tips of Freezing Foods

[darenrogers]

I'm going camping this upcoming weekend - Friday and Saturday night. The plan is to cook some of the food ahead of time and freeze it in ziploc bags.

My question is this...what do you all find to be the most effective way to keep things frozen. I'm obviously keeping the food inside a large cooler, but what works best inside of the cooler. Loose ice? Sealed ice packs? Dry Ice (if I can even find any)?

How long do you find frozen good actually stay frozen under well controlled circumstances?

[renodesertfox]

Well for me, since my experience is mostly desert camping where daylight temps can climb into the 90s or low 100s easily. I use solid ice blocks that I have made out of gallon plastic milk cartons. And along with that on the bottom food that will be used last goes next to it. We also have taken other size blocks of ice along also. These were made by pouring water into cooking pans 3" deep and then frozen in the freezer. Once frozen they come out easily from the pan and these are arranged along the sides of the cooler as we fill it up with food.

I also think it's a good idea, if you have the space available is to have two coolers(1) for food only & (2) for drinks only. Ice melts faster in one cooler if that cooler is always being opened and closed.

Ice cubes don't last a long time because their mass isn't great like a gallon of ice. Dry Ice also doesn't last as long and is really impractical(but someone always argues anyway). Keep your food tagged with a black marker for the last meal; the earlier meals tag your bags with a different color, like green. Also when tagging colors to the bags also tag the meal list with the same color, so you won't have to memorize your tag colors. It seems simple enough, but get out in the boonies and I'm lucky if I can remember. If you go and use small ice cubes, keep them together in the plastic bag that you bought them in, otherwise they will melt very fast. I've had hamburger patties on the last day of a ten day camping trip and they were kept in a loc-n-loc air-tight plastic bin surrounded by my homemade ice blocks and I have never had a problem with spoiled food! Organization is the key to happy camping!

Wal-mart sells small loc-n-loc containers and other airtight container very inexpensively, good luck! Let us know how your camping trip went, we'd really like to know!

[Bigdog57]

When Dad and I were mullet fishing back in the 80's, we had three freezers at home devoted to making ice blocks using plastic dish-washing pans -those low square pans. He had built a big cooler on the boat with double-layered styrofoam inside a plywood box. That thing would keep fish frozen for three days in hot blazing summer sun! Ice blocks last a LONG time! You can chip off chunks and clean them, for using in drinks.
When freezing meat, Dad would put it into a ziplock bag with salt water - kept it from getting freezer burned. Worked on beef, pork, fish, squirrel - most any meat.

[renodesertfox]

So BD, can you buy salt water if you don't live near an ocean? I've never seen salt water for sale? Your pops put block ice in with saltwater and squirrel meat so not to get freezer burn, is that what you're sayin'? And if you decide to make your own salt water what is the ratio between salt to water? I have no idea?

[Bigdog57]

The blocks went in the bottom of the cooler to keep the fish cold while fishing - NOT to freeze the meat at home.
He just added salt to water - don't know the ratio, go by taste I guess....
Basic idea is as the bag sits flat, the fresh meat should be just covered in salt water. This way, once froze solid it'll keep for years. I've eaten fish that was put away four or five years earlier - tasted great! Just don't let it sit around before freezing - I have seen stuff in meat shops I wouldn't give a dog! :rolleyes:

[renodesertfox]

Okay, cool!:cool:

[richardvg03]

one bag of ice poured (out of the bag) into the ice chest with 2 bags of ice stacked.. one on top, one on bottom (still in the back)....

[pricey106]

I have never really cooked anything before a camping trip, but I have prepped and froze alot of meals.
Made burgers from scratch, formed in a burger press, froze on a cookie sheet. Then individually wrapped in press and seal wrap. Then placed in food saver bags, and vacuum packed. 8 per pack I did. Individual so as not to stick together, and not become a giant burger when thawed. I did 40 burgers this way for our last outing. They were still frozen on day 4!!!!