Keeping things cold

[Roar88]

Hey guys new to the forum and Camper trailer camping.

Just wondering how people keep their cold food cold and dry food dry. Sounds silly but Im finding i need a engel for cold stuff and seperate one for stuff like meats and whatnot so they dont all get piled onto eachother in the smaller portable fridges.

Would like to here how everyone does it? Do I need heaps of tupperware containers or what? 

[Shane083]

we use a container for meat down the bottom and we have a basket thats sits in the top of the fridge for fruit other food stuff, that leaves the middle for cold drinks. with the fridge set at 1.5 degrees the meat stays frozen, the fruit and stuff doesnt get burnt from touching the side of the fridge cause its in the basket and the drinks stay super chilled. also with the basket to get a drink we just lift the basket out instead of shuffling food around searching thus closing the fridge quicker.

[BigJules]

I know what you mean. You reach for a cold drink and your fingers go through the paper wrapped around the lunch meat. For sure a drinks fridge is handy, if you can fit it in, power it, afford it. We used a single 40L Engel for many years, but started takng another 32L fridge along as well so we could keep the food and drinks separated, not having to rifle through the food for a beverage. When I do use a single fridge I bag the food multiple times and try to pack it to the front at the top.

[Nomad]

Hey Roar,

A lot of people vacuum pack there meat. This stops leakage.
If I am going away for a weekend or long weekend say three or four days I freeze everything in portions in  clip lock bags and then put them into a container with a couple of freezer bottle thingy's and deep freeze for a couple of days before going away.

I pull what we are having out in the morning to defrost and keep the rest in the fridge. I don't have a freezer, just a fridge. Works for me. When we go away for longer I just buy my meat as we need it and get it vacuum sealed.


Cheers
Nomad.
 

[MDSimpson]

I had issues with space. Buying meat in the plastic trays, wasted a lot of space. I have bought a vacuum food saver for a weekend away and plan on following the swaggers advice of pre cooking and vacuum sealing. It stops leaks, even from Tupperware, there is no air in there to speed up the food going off, and also allows more food, less air.... With the added bonus of 'cook in the bag' abilities.

I guess the size of the fridge depends on how many people you need to feed for how long...

It took my wife and kids a while to realize, not all the juice boxes and cans of diet coke need to go all at once. One drink each, then replace when needed...


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[brickiematt]

It took my wife and kids a while to realize, not all the juice boxes and cans of diet coke need to go all at once. One drink each, then replace when needed...

Same. Start with half a dozen in the fridge, and then one out, one in. Works for us.

[tropicbird54]

Know what you're talking about Roar88.
Still find it a bit of a challenge trying to get it right.
We did a big trip last July - camping for 12 nights and ended up using our Engel as a freezer because we had bought our meat and had it cryovaced at the butchers who also froze it all for us.  Up till then, had only ever used the Engel as a fridge.
Anyway, it worked well.   We have a fibreglass esky we have had for years and it is very efficient at keeping things cold, so that became our fridge.  We put ice in at the beginning and only once again during that trip.
Heading off again in May for a much longer time and may try the same routine.
Good luck,
Cheers
Sharyn

[Roar88]

Awsome ideas coming in. 

I think I may need to invest in a cryovac and take along frozen single portions of all the meat. Wife thinks its a great idea. (New toy) 

Its the one thing that has me concerned as Im never sure at what temp the esky or waeco is.

[Muso]

Aah.............one of the advantages of being "old". No kids, just me and the mrs. 50L Waeco Dual Zone fits the bill.

There's usually 3 or 4 tinnies down the bottom and are rotated.

[BigJules]

Pack meal size portions rather than singles I reckon.

It's things like the butter and dips that get lost, upended and messed up in my fridge.

[carinya]

Only have one small fridge, use it for stuff you want to keep mostly dry.  Meat will stay frozen for 3 days on the bottom, and I use an esky with ice for drinks, milk etc

[Proudy]

As a lot have said we cryovac our meat and use snap lock bags for other stuff like cold meats . We also take 2 fridges with us food in one drinks in the other.


Proudy

[Mace]

Was mentioned somewhere in another thread by someone else:

Cryovaced, or vacuum sealed meats stay frozen longer and/or  stores  better if wrapped in  aluminium foil afterwards.

Going to try this one out next time away. A bit more packaging, but can see the sense in it.

 

[UTE 701]

We just have the one fridge .

( would love a second fridge one day )

We can set our fridge and have the meat on the bottom and a sheet of 10 mm ply above that . Then butter, ham , etc  on the ply in baskets .

The meat stays frozen and the drinks cold .

We just have to remember to lift the meat or meal we want that night up to the top in the morning.

Another thing to make the whole process easy is to have a shelf or similar , handy to the fridge , because if you have to take stuff out to get to the bottom , you don't want it all balancing somewhere and then fall in the sand !

We take an esky for drinks and milk . And If you are doing a road trip and staying in Caravan parks , we have lots of bottles of water and then we stick them in the camp kitchen freezer to refreeze overnight . ( put your name or a strip of tape on them )

[MDSimpson]

I bought one of these yesterday, but it was only $49.95 on sale. Should be here tomorrow.  Off to Tuff Truck next weekend, so I'll be testing the cryovac options..   http://www.shoppingsquare.com.au/p_398390_New_2012_Food_Vacuum_Sealer_with_210pcs_Sealer_Bags

As for the second fridge. I have one, our old 31l Waeco, but do ot have the battery power to run both for three days, well, I don't think I do anyway. I have the std battery plus a 75ah aux...

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[MDSimpson]

It arrived at work on Friday. Kids had spaghetti Bol last night. So I vacuumed the leftovers and will test the reheating tonight... Looks good so far, easy to use..


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[Roar88]

  just read last post without the previous and thought WTF. Then reread your last post.

[HerGU]

As everyone has said, vacumn sealing and freezing it the go. We are now lucky enough to have a 60L engel in the camper and a really old 40L (handed down through 3 generations!) that we put in the car.

The little basket is good for butter and dips, but i might look at getting another for the fruit and vegies as mentioned above (never really thought about the vegies before).

On our big trip next year we are planning to make the 40L a freezer and the 60L the fridge because of our setup. however it will depend how long the 40 holds out as we cannot trust it with food at the moment as it doesnt hold its temp at the moment as we currently just use it as a drinks fridge on smaller trips. We even bought the old girl a new seal hoping to to solve the temp issue, but she still played up last weekend. Once she get down to temp off 240V she seems ok, but if running only on 12v - it takes a cool night before she can seem to handle herself.....any one else had these issues?