BURNINGMAN COOLER ADVICE

I cannot stress how important it is not to screw around with keeping your perishable food safe/frozen. A few years ago one of our campmates had blood from raw steak (yes... gross) leak into the ice in his one cooler, and so his beer bottles got contaminated. A day or so later he and his girlfriend drank beer and got the runs. There's never a good time to have the runs, but at Burning Man, with porta potties.... you couldn't get much worse.

Here are some suggestions:

• Wash coolers your with bleach before Burning Man
  
• Use "Extreme Coolers" (or 5 day coolers) several companies make them. They have thicker insulation and keep stuff colder for longer. The downside is that they have thicker walls, and so hold less.
  
• Use at least two coolers - one for food (that gets opened occasionally) and one for drinks. Make sure the seal on the food cooler is tight.
  
• Use Dry Ice with my food cooler and wrap dry ice in old newspaper to protect it from exposure to condensation and other moisture. Start with dry ice and add layers of relatively flat vacuum sealed food packs (keeps food compact and fresh) between dry ice. Caution: Dry ice melts in a puff of smoke with moisture. Also, dry ice freeze stuff like rock - so you need to take food out hours before you need to re-heat it. I take Lunch food out in the morning and leave it in sunlight to thaw out. And use gloves when handling dry ice as you get freeze burns in seconds - and do not place cans or bottles next to dry ice as they will freeze and burst. I always buy dry ice from an Ice Cream wholesaler - (they supply the Ice Cream man :-) as it is very much cheaper. In the Phoenix I go to:
  Excel Ice Cream & Candy Co
  (602) 258-9793
  1620 W Grant St
  Phoenix, AZ 85007-3316
  
• For your drinks cooler, use regular ice (and replenish at Camp Arctica for $2 per bag).
  
• If you are using ice for mixed drinks, I recommend a third (clean) cooler that only holds ice, or keep your drinking ice in its own bag and out of the melted mush. Use a plastic cup as a scoop.
  
• Consider additional insulation around at least your food cooler (example water heater blankets or material like TCM or the $2 emergency blankets. If possible, raise your coolers off the ground (Or insulate the surface beneath the coolers). Stacking your coolers (and insulating them) will also work well and take up less floor space, but can be more cumbersome to get stuff out.
  
• You can freeze raw food and cook there, or per-cook food that keeps well (pasta sauce, curries, etc) and freeze it in the default world, then shrink wrap (or ziplock bag it) and freeze it. Then store in your food cooler and thaw and re-heat when you are ready to serve.
  
• Keep you coolers in the shade at all times. I usually make a space between tents, and then use TCM or emergency blankets.(highly reflective aluminum foil) as the shade material - with a small air gap above the coolers. This keeps the sun off the cooler and the area below really cool.
  
• Try and insulate your coolers (with sleeping bags, etc) for the for the trip out to BM - this way you don't expose the coolers to unnecessary heat on the way there. See Camping and Traveling with Dry Ice
  
• One the way back, use your coolers for stinky trash - and then remember to empty them out and wash with bleach when you get home.
  

2007 Burning Man Arctica (Ice camp) update:

Ice will now be sold in three locations

Center Camp in the usual place
Ice 9 - at the 9:00 keyhole
Ice 3 - at the 3:00 keyhole

Hours will be 9am - 6pm and they are always looking for volunteers. You get free ice and often other gifts.

Labor Day: Only Artica in Center Camp will be open - from 9am to 12 noon

Prices for ice has gone up. It will be:
$3 each (for 7lbs bags of crushed ice or 10lbs bags of block ice).
$15 for six-packs of the 7# bags of crushed ice will cost only $15 (i.e. buy 5 get the 6th free).

Center Camp - Coffee update:

Please try and Bring Your Own Cup (BYOC) - there will be an express line for those who bring their own cup

Hope this helps!

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Version 3 - updated August 10, 2007
Copyright None - But drop me a note if you find this to be helpful
Email: ruvi (at) burningtribe (dot) com
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