Dry ice for cooling food

[Lif Strand <fasterhorses@gilanet.com>]

When using dry ice, keep in mind a few safety precautions:  Don't touch
with bare hands!  Do NOT stick your tongue to it!   Don't let the ice
directly touch anything you care about (it will freeze things so quickly
they will crack, even plastic).  And yes, do open the cooler every so
often to warm it up or everything will freeze solidly (alternatively,
use a smaller piece of dry ice or use the blue ice method, described
next.)  DO Not carry a lot of cry ice in an enclosed car - when it does
evaporate, it goes to CO2 (unless you are looking for a new, inventive
way to commit sapuku).

We took a group of people over the Tevis trail (4 days) with dry ice as
our cooling source.  We insulated each piece of dry ice by wrapping it
in paper then surrounding it with styrofoam.  (Dry ice exposed to air
will cause it to evaporate fast - it isn't melting, it's sublimating -
going from solid to vapor directly. NO NOT seal in a zip lock baggie -
it will balloon up the bag & pop it)  Then we used the dry ice to quick
freeze blue ices & used the blue ices to keep the other coolers cold.
Worked great.

When you are done, drop the pieces of dry ice into water - way cool
Little explosions!

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Lif & Paul Strand   STRAND ENTERPRISES   www.fasterhorses.com
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