Coolers?

TheGetFresh wrote:

Anytime you stand there considering buying a $400 yeti cooler, remember that companies transporting human organs for transplant still prefer to put body parts in a...

Anytime you stand there considering buying a $400 yeti cooler, remember that companies transporting human organs for transplant still prefer to put body parts in a $12 styrofoam box. 
 

Jokes aside (kind of) you really don’t need a rotomolded cooler unless you’re on a fishing boat where you’ll be offshore for days with a high risk of rough water. For moto trips and long weekends, most brands will work great if you pre cool them. Fill the cooler with Ice the day before you load it. On loading day, dump the old ice and load with your goods and fresh ice. That will give you an extra day of cold. For rotomolded vs blow molded coolers, the different usually comes down to the volume of the insulation chambers rather than the material, and your still only getting like 10% improvement. Save your money. 

Falcon wrote:

I don't really have a favorite, but I'd like to give you guys a tip: leave the water in your cooler. Why? Science!  Water (and every...

I don't really have a favorite, but I'd like to give you guys a tip: leave the water in your cooler. Why? Science! 

Water (and every other material known to man) has a property known as the heat of liquidation. In layman's terms, it's how much heat the ice can absorb before it completely melts. This value is roughly 540 calories per gram of water. (There is also the "heat of vaporization," which is the net total heat required to turn the liquid into gas.) Once ice is warmed up to the freezing point of water at 32 degrees Farenheit, that's when the melting phase begins. An interesting phenomenon during the melting phase is that the temperature does not change. Think about it: you can have ice which is far colder than 32 degrees Fahrenheit, but you cannot have ice above that temp (except in really extreme conditions which we won't talk about here. Look up all the various types of water ice if you want to freak out - it's a trip).

 Anyway, the ice in your cooler starts at some temperature slightly below freezing and begins to warm as it cools down your beer. Once the ice reaches 32 degrees, it begins to melt. But guess what? Any heat that continues to enter the closed system inside your cooler goes into melting the ice, and the temperature of the melted ice remains constant at 32 degrees - as long as it's contacting the ice. (This is why we stir our icewater; it makes sure there is complete contact between all the water and all surfaces of the ice.)

After a while, you'll have an ice chest full of icewater. The water is still at 32 degrees, and it completely envelopes any can or bottle resting near the bottom of the cooler. Furthermore, the water will remain at the same temperature until all the ice melts - down to the last tiny fleck. Once your bottles and cans all reach the same temperature, the only heat entering the system will be the sun beating down on your cooler, the ambient heat in the atmosphere, and any air you let in by opening the cooler.  

So, start with cold surfaces, cold bottles and cans, open the lid sparingly, and don't dump that water!