Which do you prefer if you pack in fresh food. And why.

I know many people pack in fresh/frozen food. Looking to see why so many use frozen water jugs vs dry ice. I have always done dry ice thinking it was better as far as cold/weight ratio. Also it just disappears as it "melts"

What is everyone's thought.

Looking to up my game for next seasons trips and figured this was the best spot.

Edit : we normally take 6 night trips and like fresh meat for at least 4+ days.

Thanks

For three nights of fresh foods, neither are needed. Frozen foods at the beginning fill our small, soft-sided, insulated food pack. As foods are consumed, we make sure to fill the empty spaces in the food pack with crumpled newspaper or other lightweight items to reduce convection, which is the real culprit in quick-thawing near the end.

That being said, my wife insists that we ought to use ice, so I include a couple of 59 oz recycled plastic juice jugs filled with water and frozen. Heavier, sure, but rather refreshing to drink as they melt.

I am kind of like schweady, I have a small 6 pack size cooler that i put in my freezer, then put the food in ziplock bags, in the cooler, pack them down, they freeze in shape of the cooler, no air gaps, then if there is room on top, newspaper to fill cooler, no ice at all brought. Cooler goes in with sleeping bags for trip in, and if you take something out, add crumpled news papers, good for 3-5 days, easy.

I have used dry ice on a few trips. The drawbacks:
1. everything stays frozen solid - you have to thaw everything out that you are going to use.
2. the outside of the soft sided cooler gets condensation (and even ice), so you need to keep it away from things you don't want to get wet.
But, it is lighter than ice.

When dry ice melts it releases carbon dioxide that attracts bugs. It also keeps things Rock solid so need to thaw meat a while. We take ice in milk jugs for our food. It melts and you can drink the water, bonus. Soft side cooler if you use dry ice, I tight sealing cooler might be damaged with the melting gas from the dry ice.

I pre-freeze items that will tolerate freezing, refrigerate others and then pack it all in a cooler with dry ice surrounded by regular ice for the trip from home to EP. Frozen and refrigerated items then go into a one gal igloo cooler surrounded with the aluminum faced bubble insulation for the trip. For group trips I will move to a larger soft sided cooler also bubble wrapped. I appreciate the tip on filling in air space to reduce convection effect, thanks.

Oh, yeah... buz reminded me: our meat pack is small enough that the whole thing fits in the freezer compartment in VNO's bunkhouse fridge without unpacking. Saves time and provides an extra shot of cooling, if only for a bit. It also has a perfect riding place in the space behind my stern seat in the SRQ17.

We pack frozen half gal jugs of milk works well fresh milk for the coffee and oat meal.

I perfer to use the heavy plastic bags with removable spigots from box wine. I freeze these and they seem to last longer than ice cubes and I can always use the water as it melts. When the bags are empty they weigh nothing and compact to nothing also.

My group usually makes a batch of chili or soup or stew and freezes it solid before the trip. It keeps the cold stuff cold for about three days (in late spring/early summer), and on the fourth day our dinner is all thawed out and ready to go.