Dry Ice Information!

great info.

here's a question, since I'm leaving before dawn--can I buy dry ice the night before and store it in a regular freezer, or will it start "melting" at 0* in the freezer? I guess anyway it's better than nothing, unless it's better just to keep the dry ice in its own cooler.

From the linked article it almost sounds like it's too cold since I don't plan to freeze anything. Or use it in a cooler with just ice as a maintence cooler.

Anyone that is considering using dry ice, that is not familiar with it needs to research it fully before using it. Use common sence and you will be fine. I used it last year at Lockn' and it works great.
Dry ice is actually considered as as Haz-Mat by IATA.
( Dry Ice, IATA, UN 1845, Class 9 Miscellaneous.
 Dry ice however is not regulated by the DOT as a hazardous material).

Just get it the night before and leave it in the cooler - on a porch or outside.
Put pre frozen water bottles in at that time.

In the am, open it up to 'exhaust' and organize for the trip.

We get it in the am before the ride down.

We're seriously looking at it for next year.

Okay, lol. There's no need to proselytize! 

I didn't really like the whole dry ice deal I had, but part of it was that it was $2.00 a pound, so I got 10# (2 blocks) and they
seemed mighty small. Got them Thursday night and kept in a cooler w/ frozen bottles; Friday morning early packed the coolers.

I had lots of frozen plastic bottles most 2 liter but also square plastic jars like rice or snacks come in--the shape packs well. And
lots of blue ice packs.

1. in a 5 gallon water cooler, put frozen food on the bottom, then frozen water bottles and blue ice then dry ice. Stayed frozen solid
from Friday morning until Saturday afternoon; by Sunday morning dry ice gone; water bottles still fairly frozen. Kept that cooler closed
the whole time.
2. Small cooler: blue ice, 1/2 bag ice (Friday am), dry ice. all still fairly frozen Saturday afternoon and ice still good for
cocktails. Kept closed.
3. in food cooler, just plastic frozen bottles, frozen bourbon, vodka and rum, and "blue ice" packs. Packed full, newspaper on top,
tried not to open much. Kept cold all weekend but Sunday I rotated frozen bottles from #1 into it.
4. Beer cooler--already cold beer, limeade, V8, gin, tonic. a few frozen bottles; bought a bag of ice just before getting on 29; good
until Saturday night; added fest ice Sunday am; still cold but almost all melted by Monday am pack-out.

So while the dry ice was gone in less than two days, and cost $20 (which would have been 40# of fest ice),it maintained a frozen cooler
for an extra day.
I just expected more, especially at that price. But I also wonder if I really got 10#; the guy helping me at the gorcery store that night
was kinda squirrelly.
If I had a longer drive than 4 hours, or came Thursday instead of Friday, not sure it would have made the difference.

And $10 for 20# ice delivered to the tent is not a bad deal at all.

I have used dry ice for about 5 festivals now...I put one or two blocks on the bottom of my cooler, depending how long the fest is. The next layer is about 12 frozen water bottles (the basic cheap walmart water). Then my food. The top layer of water bottles thaw, but I have always had frozen bottles on the layer against the ice. This year even with the heat I had one or two frozen bottles left after 5 days using two blocks of dry ice-the secret is make sure everything is cold when you put it in the cooler, don't add anything warm later, and try to stay out of the cooler as much as possible. Yes, the dry ice is sort of pricey, but I NEVER have to lug bags of ice around, or pay $10 for a bag of ice like my neighbors did. Worth every penny!