Subtitled: What I learned while transporting 15 pounds of boudin from New Orleans, Louisiana to Iowa City, Iowa, with sightseeing stops along the way

(But all that won’t fit on a book cover.)

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Call it hot ice, dry ice, CO2 ice, whatever, it’s the stuff that lasts a lot longer than “regular” ice but may cause serious tissue damage if you handle it incorrectly.  If you’re going to transport refrigerated or frozen food for a long distance with a cooler, it is clearly the stuff to use.  This was my first time using it for anything other than short term, so it was definitely a learning experience. 

Where to begin…  how about the initial conditions.

Daily temperatures in the low 90’s
Boudin pre-frozen in 3 boxes of 5 pounds each
Packaging/icing, Monday 1530
Departure, Tuesday 0430
Arrival Friday, 1130Lesson 1 — Coolers make a difference.

The cheap Styrofoam coolers you can buy at a drug store will of course work, but for a lot shorter period than the “shipping coolers” that are a more dense Styrofoam and are much thicker.  If you have ever received product from Omaha Steaks you know what the shipping version is.  It is about 2 inches thick all the way around, including the lid, so it holds the temperature better and will withstand handling during shipping.  The shipping cooler also has a pronounced lip where the sides and top meet, providing a much more secure seal than the cheap coolers do.  

Lesson 2 — How much versus how long is a compromise.

For such a long trip I was told I’d need X amount of dry ice because it would sublimate (evaporate) at a certain rate every hour.  That meant that I could not put all 3 boxes of boudin in the cooler because I then would not have room for the required amount of dry ice.  So, I had to buy another cooler, a small one, to hold the third box of boudin.  The travel package then consisted of 2 boxes (10 pounds) of boudin in one large cooler with 40 pounds of dry ice, and a smaller cooler with 1 box (5 pounds) of boudin and 10 pounds of dry ice.  Obviously the small cooler’s dry ice would require replenishing before the larger cooler would, but the plan was to take from the larger cooler to keep up the smaller one.

Of course, the alternative was to go with the 1 cooler and replenish the dry ice more frequently, but I wanted to have a safety factor built in because there were only 3 places on my route that were supposed to sell dry ice and one of them was an assumed maybe. 

So, I opted for 2 coolers and more initial dry ice as opposed to 1 cooler and less initial dry ice.   

Lesson 3 — There are myths or inaccuracies out there.

One was regarding handling.  I had no trouble handling the dry ice by handing the bags it comes in.  Though I did not grip the bags of ice directly it was easy handling the bags by the edges or by the end flap.  I never used gloves and see no need for them.

Another was regarding the verbal advice I got regarding “Don’t bring it into your motel room because the CO2 will suffocate you.”  Well, on two of our nights we did take the coolers into the motel room and placed them on the table directly in front of the air conditioner.  I made sure the air conditioner was set to bring in outside air, so we had air exchange and the coolers were in a cooler environment than in the trunk of the car, hopefully and apparently somewhat slowing the sublimation rate. 

Another was that you can’t seal the cooler — it must have an escape valve of some sort to allow the CO2 to escape.  In theory that is a good point, but if you have a Styrofoam cooler, even if you tape the edges, is it really possible for that tape to hold in the CO2 as it sublimates into it natural gaseous state?  The real question is, can it escape fast enough to keep the cooler from exploding, and my experience is that even though the coolers were taped with shipping tape, the CO2 found its way out by bubbling the tape up in a couple of places.  The same could not be said, of course, for a hard sided cooler with a locking lid.   

Another was regarding how fast the dry ice sublimates.  I looked at charts and I spoke with 3 different places that sold dry ice.  Nobody agreed with the charts and nobody quoted figures anywhere near what my experience was in the end.  Bottom line was that the dry ice lasted a lot longer than the charts or the sellers predicted.

It is possible, I suppose, that my handling may have elongated the life of the dry ice, though I have no way of knowing.

      First, I did use the thick and dense shipping coolers.

      Second, the boudin was pre-frozen.

      Third, there was virtually no air space in each cooler.

      Fourth, I not only taped the cooler lids down, but also taped all the way around the edge where the side and lid meet,  Yes, there was CO2 escaping at a couple of places and I have no delusions that shipping tape will keep CO2 compressed, but I do believe it may have helped a bit by keeping warm outside air from getting in.

      Fifth, we did bring the coolers in at night so they spent far less time in the hot trunk of the car than they would have otherwise.

Lesson 4 — Knowing replenishment sources along the way is very important.

      http://www.dryicedirectory.com/ is an excellent source of all kinds of information regarding dry ice and I recommend it highly.  HOWEVER, just because a listed place sells it doesn’t mean you want to buy it there, unless you can figure out what to do with a 50-pound block of it, have the space for it, and need to buy that much.  Also, some places don’t sell to retail customers.
   
      http://www.partypop.com/ was flat out wrong, directing me to a source in Branson, MO (on my route) that is an ice house that has never sold dry ice; the guy there told me they had plenty enough work with regular ice that he didn’t think they ever would handle dry ice.  He did direct me to a grocery across town that sold it, however.  Getting bad information about sources could cost dearly in spoiled food on a long trip, so calling ahead to any prospective source would be a good idea.

      Apparently, grocery stores and Wal-Mart stores are increasingly beginning to sell dry ice.  My experience indicates you may not want to count on them on the road, however.  Of 3 Wal-Marts I checked that do sell it, only one had a supply that indicated they could be counted on to have some when you needed it.  A Publix grocery near me, part of a large chain in these parts, sells it, but the last 2 times I’ve checked the storage cooler, several days apart, it has been empty.    

The numbers:

The bottom line (first) is that I bought a lot more dry ice than I needed to, increasing the overall cost quite a lot, but without the assurance of sources along the way, I felt I had no choice.

As we drove across Branson toward the Jubilee Foods grocery I’d been directed to, I tried to call a prospective source farther up our route.  However, Branson was a black hole for my cellular service, so I decided to pack as much dry ice in the coolers as possible there, hopefully to make it the rest of the way to Iowa City without needing more on the way.  The real bottom line is that I spent more than I had to, by a long shot as it turned out, as insurance.

New Orleans, LA; Monday, 1530;  2 coolers (I had 1 and the other cost $13.99); 15 pounds boudin; 50 pounds dry ice split 40/10 between the coolers @ $40.33.  Total initial cost = $54.82

Branson, MO; Wednesday; 1130; added 35 pounds dry ice @ $31.50

Iowa City, IA; Friday, 1300; dry ice remaining = 35 pounds

Assume desired arrival is with 10 pounds dry ice between the 2 coolers.

Results: 

    35 pounds remaining minus 10 pounds reserve = 25 pounds wasted/unnecessary, which is two thirds of what I bought in Branson. 

    Cost of coolers and dry ice -- $86.32
    Cost of boudin --------------- $50.32
    Total cost of adventure------ $136.64

or $9.10 per pound of boudin, delivered 

That sounds like a lot, but part of that cost was in the learning and in the experience/adventure, and I don’t regret it a bit.  Not one bit.