Enjoying ice cream on a hot day is a special treat… if you’ve ever wanted to bring ice cream or ice pops to the park or beach, you can! The trick is to use dry ice! However, there are some dangers associated with using dry ice so please read everything in this post before you attempt to pack ice cream for the park.
Buying Dry Ice in San Diego
Several grocery stores in San Diego sell dry ice. I get my dry ice from Vons in my neighborhood. Ralph’s stores and Smart & Final also sell dry ice. Call your store before you go to make sure they sell dry ice and have it in stock. There are also several places that only sell ice. You’ll just need a few pounds though, so your local grocery store should be sufficient to supply this (and ice-only stores often have a minimum of five pounds).
You can ask for dry ice when you check out. Vons sells it by weight, so I tell them how much I need (more information on how much dry ice to buy is below) and they get it and ring it up with my other groceries. It cost $1.99/lb.
Handling Dry Ice
If you touch dry ice directly to your skin, it can cause frostbite. So, use gloves or tongs when handing it. Generally, it comes in a plastic bag from the grocery store, and you can just carry it with the handles to avoid touching it. When you go to put it in your cooler though, you’ll want to make sure you have a barrier between your skin and the ice.
Precautions should be made to prevent children from accidentally touching it. You know your child best, so use your best judgement. When my daughter was very little, it was sufficient to tuck the cooler away because she wasn’t getting into things. Now, at age four, I explain to her that touching the dry ice can injure her very badly, so she knows to stay away.
Transporting Dry Ice
Dry ice is frozen carbon dioxide and does not melt like regular ice – it sublimates into a carbon dioxide gas. If you have dry ice in an area with little ventilation (your car, for example), you may start to feel drowsy, get a headache, start sweating or have an increased heart rate and blood pressure. So, you’ll want to make sure you’re transporting the dry ice in your car with the windows down or with fresh air coming into the car through your vents.
Storing Dry Ice
I prefer to store dry ice in a Styrofoam cooler with the lid ajar. You can store dry ice in a regular cooler, but it will need to be wrapped in newspaper so that it doesn’t come into direct contact with your cooler and crack it. You’ll also want to open the spout to your cooler or leave the lid ajar so the dry ice doesn’t explode. However you store it, make sure there is enough ventilation around the cooler so that people aren’t breathing in carbon dioxide.
Do not store dry ice in your refrigerator or freezer – it can break it!
Disposing of Dry Ice
Since dry ice is super cold, you can’t put it in the trash or sink to dispose of it. To dispose of it, just keep it in the cooler with the lid off (in a safe place) and allow the dry ice to sublimate into gas in a well-ventilated space.
Using Dry Ice to Pack Ice Cream
Ok, so if that all that information didn’t deter you from wanting to pack some ice cream for the beach, here’s what you need to do!
I usually stop by the store on our way to the park or beach to get the dry ice. You don’t want to get it too far ahead of time, so it’s easiest for me to go right before. I’ll often buy the ice cream or ice pops in the same trip, instead of risking having the ice cream/ice pops melt between leaving our house and getting the dry ice into the cooler (especially on a hot day!).
We’ve had this cooler for YEARS. It is 17″ wide x 16″ deep x 14″ tall inside. I lined the bottom of the cooler with newspaper, put the dry ice on top and then another layer of newspaper on top of that. I put the ice cream/ice pops as close to the dry ice as I could and kept the spout in the back open. You can keep other items in the cooler (such as drinks, food and even your beach towel) if you want them very cold too. Keep in mind though, they can freeze!
Five pounds of dry ice kept my ice cream cold in this cooler for 6+ hours.
This Styrofoam cooler I got from a neighbor who ordered seafood online and received it shipped in this cooler. It is 15″ wide x 10″ deep x 6″ tall inside (so, much smaller). I put the dry ice in the cooler with the ice cream and left the lid off a little bit to vent it.
1.5 pounds of dry ice kept my ice cream cold for 6 hours.
The first time I got this crazy idea to pack ice cream cones for our picnic, I couldn’t find much information on how to do it. Now that we’ve done it a few times, I definitely have some tips to share… I hope this was helpful!
