Packing coolers with dry ice

It's almost time!  Figured I'd do one last quick post.  Bonnaroo can be hot (although this year looks to be cooler than usual), so how do you keep your beer, food and beer cold?  The 5 day coolers they make now are pretty good, but even w/ a decent amount of ice they will warm up before the end of the weekend if you open them up regularly.  They sell ice there, but it is expensive and not as cold as the ice you get at a grocery store/Quickie Mart.  The solution... dry ice!

A word of warning, dry ice is cold, very cold.  It is -109F (-79C), your normal home freezer is around +4F, so we are talking about over 100 degrees colder.  If you touch dry ice with your skin it will stick, within seconds you are looking at frostbite.  Handle it with gloves, leather work gloves or regular winter gloves will allow you to handle it for a few minutes at a time.

Most supermarkets (at least around here) sell dry ice, usually from coolers in the front of the store (not outside, near where customer service is).  It should sell for $1-$1.50/lb, bring a cooler in, pick some up (did you remember your gloves), bring it home.  When packing your cooler for 'roo, the important thing to remember is that dry ice will freeze anything that touches it.  What I do is put the dry ice on the bottom of the cooler, put a layer of frozen bottled water on top of the dry ice (I freeze it the night before), then put your food/drinks on top of that.  If you don't want to use bottles of water, put a towel down on top of the dry ice or a couple layers of cardboard.  The important thing is to have an insulating layer between the dry ice and everything else.  Cold brews throughout Bonnaroo!

Hope everyone has a safe trip, wait until you're off the road to enjoy the brews, stay hydrated!