# Grand Canyon Cold beer on Hottest days..



## buckmanriver (Apr 2, 2008)

You can do the same thing with a 5 gallon bucket. Change the water every time you add beer. Easy

If I had a cooler like that I would find a commercial kitchen with a big freezer and pre freeze the whole thing pre-trip. During the trip I would drain it daily to maximize the ice. Might be able to have cocktails your whole trip that way at least in the evenings that is.


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## turtlebat (Jan 8, 2016)

Did it last year in late July. We ran a bunch of the big ones(including lava) with our bag in the water. We lost a total of 1 beer the whole trip. Not a perfect score, but the beer was always cold.


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## Andy H. (Oct 13, 2003)

Another trick to help stretch ice on any desert trip is to pre-cool beverages in river water, then drain a cooler into a bucket and use that to chill them. That should get them plenty cold and you haven't even had to open a cooler yet, much less waste ice chilling down drinks.

And if all else fails, you could remember my brother's maxim, "the warmest beer I ever had was cold enough for me."

Have a great trip!

-AH


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## dbendell (Apr 8, 2012)

Check with the Park Service for the maps. They are installing refrigerators at all the major beaches. Suppose to be done by August 1st.


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## Recreation_Law (Oct 29, 2013)

*Cold Beer only takes 8 minutes*

River guides say it takes about 8 minutes to cool something down to river temperature. So use your drag bag 9 minutes before you need a beer.

Also the coldest place for beer is under a hatch that is getting river water on it all day. Seems the colder evaporation under a dark hatch makes beer (and everything else) really cold.


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## Managan (Mar 9, 2015)

On my last GC trip we had a few "drainers" in the group. Hit the beach, drain cooler into your NRS bucket and super cool dragged beers.


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## Gremlin (Jun 24, 2010)

This is great info! I didn't think for a second I was going to have even one "super cool" beer!!


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## teletoes (Apr 16, 2005)

If you have a handwash station, you can use that pump to get the cold water out of your big ass cooler.


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## Eagle Mapper (Mar 24, 2008)

I use one of the small water guns to get the chilly water out of the cooler.


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## 90Duck (Nov 19, 2012)

I did the drag bag route last year. I made the mistake of putting too many in the bag AND leaving some of the cans in their rigid 6-pack holders. I realized there was a problem with this method on day two when I started pulling out "soft" cans that had developed holes in them. I ended up losing 10 cans or so that way, which made me really unhappy on about day 16 when I rand out.

So learn from my mistake: if you drag bag, only put in what you plan on drinking that day, and remove the stupid 6-pack holder before you launch!


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## Gremlin (Jun 24, 2010)

This might be the most helpful thread on the Buzz ever!


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## 50119 (Jan 17, 2016)

Don't you know, the river God requires a share.


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## 90Duck (Nov 19, 2012)

River Gods got my contribution, but fortunately they gave back in the way of some floating beers of another contributor found in random eddies below Lava!


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## [email protected] (Jun 1, 2010)

I suggest you take one of these, once you get your beer cold keep it cold.


https://www.walmart.com/ip/Ozark-Tr...&visitor_id=Xe6pcZipsV8gA1YzYClQvc#about-item


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## Gremlin (Jun 24, 2010)

Got it! I paid $8.88 which is exactly the same amount I paid over 20 years ago for a ficus tree at Jewel/Osco in Chicago that is still in my living room today so I am feeling very pretty good about that!


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## canoedog87c (May 19, 2017)

On a similar thread does anyone have experience with devoting a whole cooler to just ice with a bunch of dry ice on top? Only opening the cooler to get out another block or bag of ice. Sounds like this might be the ticket for shorter trips. Could have cocktails with ice 4 or 5 days in.


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## Rich (Sep 14, 2006)

Recreation_Law said:


> River guides say it takes about 8 minutes to cool something down to river temperature.


 
I'm going to avoid any comments about the average IQ of river guides.
But the time to cool something to river temperature would be highly dependent on the delta T. 

On a recent GC trip I was taking a bath next to my boat on a nice beach.
I looked over at my beer drag bag that was floating between me and my boat. I realized my bath water and my beer were the exact same temperature and yet I had never been happier in my life.


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## DanOrion (Jun 8, 2004)

Best beat the heat GC advice I've heard is the nipple beer: wade nipple deep in the water, open and sip down a beer. By your last swig, you're core temp will be comfortably arctic.


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## Gremlin (Jun 24, 2010)

Thanks everyone for the helpful replies. Since I seem to have found the right crowd with this topic, I have another question. What worked to transport the hard liquor? Do I need to buy a bunch of Platypus type bottles? Would 2 liter pop bottles suffice? Precious cargo!


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## basinrafter (May 12, 2009)

Depends on what hard liquor you want. When I went liquor shopping a few years back for our trip, I found both 1.75's of Captain Morgan and Jack Daniels in plastic. Not exactly convenient for you, but Dillon Ridge Liquors in Dillon carries a pretty good variety of liquor in plastic bottles, as well as pretty much every canned beer that exists. If your tastes are fancier than mine, I don't see any reason why 2 liter plastic bottles wouldn't work for the good stuff. We've also taken glass bottles with us, but completely duct taped them just in case. If they broke, we'd lose the booze, but at least we wouldn't have glass shards all over the place.


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## 90Duck (Nov 19, 2012)

We had all kinds of different approaches on our last trip; booze in the plastic bottles it came in, glass bottles carefully wrapped in bubble wrap blankets, and transferring to lexan or other non-glass containers. On that last option, we peeled the labels off the glass donor bottles and put them on the lexan bottles using shipping tape covers. We didn't have any breakage, but they were still all somehow empty at the end of the trip.


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## raftus (Jul 20, 2005)

Tape wrapped glass bottles go into a dry box or a milk crate under a hatch. For extra protection you can get those plastic mesh bottle protectors that some liquor stores use and put that under the tape. I haven't ever seen a glass liquor bottle break on the river - although I'm sure that someone has done it. 
100 Protective Mesh Liquor & Wine Bottle Sleeves - Ship Glass with No Breaking! | eBay


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## Eagle Mapper (Mar 24, 2008)

I used a 48oz wide mouth nalgene bottle. I was able to put 2 fifths in one nalgene. They travel really well and do not take up much room.
https://www.nalgene.com/product/682009-0570/


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## Managan (Mar 9, 2015)

We used these bad boys and they worked great. best part is they get smaller as you finish the tasty treats inside. We took a 10 liter one of Tequila which made us pretty popular. Pack Tap | Sea to Summit


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## Electric-Mayhem (Jan 19, 2004)

I've never had a glass bottle break. I generally put a couple bottles together in a small cardboard box to keep them from sliding around and it works well. I had a bottle of Bulleit Bourbon that rode in there for two Grand trips and about 5-8 other trips with no problems. I'm pretty careful about packing it and I suppose there is always a first time for anything.

That said, I do have a thin mouth Nalgene with some tequila in it which I got before I smarted up and realized that most Thrift Stores usually have at least a few of those Stainless Steel bottles for $1 each. I've grabbed a few of those since and they work well for booze and I feel better about using those instead of paying $10-20 per Nalgene. If you prefer plastic containers, they usually have a plethora of those too, though I've never seen an actual Nalgene there.


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## luciphil (Jun 8, 2011)

I bought several 1.75L and a few 0.75L bottles of Kru vodka that come in the stainless steel containers and refill them with whatever booze I want and then label them with duct tape and sharpie.
Wecome to KRÜ 82 | KRÜ 82 Vodka


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## Gremlin (Jun 24, 2010)

Learning new stuff all the time! I actually did have a bottle break, boooo! Someone handed me a handle of vodka on the Westwater ramp an d said it was for the next mornings bloodys. I thought I packed it carefully in my dry box. When I went for it in the morning it had a hairline crack from the bottom up the side. All the vodka leaked out. I think it went up and came down hard in a rapid. We considered pouring my dry box through a coffee filter. If it were the Grand, we would have.


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## cdcfly (Jul 28, 2013)

canoedog87c said:


> On a similar thread does anyone have experience with devoting a whole cooler to just ice with a bunch of dry ice on top? Only opening the cooler to get out another block or bag of ice. Sounds like this might be the ticket for shorter trips. Could have cocktails with ice 4 or 5 days in.


We did this on a trip to Powell a few years ago. It was my first time seeing a Yeti cooler. I asked why they spent so much on a cooler, and the answer was that the prior year's trip ran low on ice, and they spent half a day and tons of money on boat fuel running for ice. So each morning we puled blocks out of the frozen coolers and inserted them into the daily coolers. The blocks never began melting in the Yeti's


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## DanOrion (Jun 8, 2004)

1-liter soda bottles are perfect for liquor transport. You just need to plan ahead of time to start collecting them.


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## zbaird (Oct 11, 2003)

Never had a 2 liter pop bottle fail me. You can smash them down when empty which is nice.


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## DoStep (Jun 26, 2012)

All those Evian and Gatorade bottles you are already recycling work great as booze haulers...


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## villagelightsmith (Feb 17, 2016)

buckmanriver said:


> You can do the same thing with a 5 gallon bucket. Change the water every time you add beer. Easy
> 
> If I had a cooler like that I would find a commercial kitchen with a big freezer and pre freeze the whole thing pre-trip. During the trip I would drain it daily to maximize the ice. Might be able to have cocktails your whole trip that way at least in the evenings that is.


Draining the cold water is a waste of the cold. I haven't completely thought out the solution, other than possibly a second stage cooler in which to keep that cold water.

Keeping convective heat loss to a minimum can be done by keeping the lid closed AND DUCT TAPED! Keeping radiant heat out is done by painting the outside either white or reflective silver. (Everybody's got an opinion there, but until I do a comparison, the jury is still out.)
Conductive heat enters by way of warm water and warm surfaces on the outside of the cooler.

Remember the latent heat of fusion required to bring ice from a solid to a liquid. Once the ice is brought up to 32 degrees, it takes a lot of heat to turn it to liquid.Only after it becomes liquid can its temperature increase by the addition of more heat from an outside source. The liquid water sloshing around in your cooler is 32 degrees for a while, and can still chill a beer.

A dry-ice maker can be had, but that involves packing some (aluminum) compressed gas cylinders of liquid CO2. I'm not sure how cost effective it would be. For a price, maybe I'll buy a better quality of beer and drink it warm.


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## villagelightsmith (Feb 17, 2016)

Ten? Liters? of Tequila? Reposado, I assume!


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## villagelightsmith (Feb 17, 2016)

Radiant heat loss can be slowed with several layers of foil, seamed at the edges and taped securely to the inside of the cooler and wrapped around your pre-conditioned, cold-soaked foodstuffs. Get _every_thing (including the coolers) into a commercial locker for a few days, then take some dry ice in there to produce a further drop, then top off the coolers and replenish the dry ice just before the launch. Somewhere I have a big cattle-breeder's liquid-nitrogen tank for keeping bull semen at extremely low temperatures. A few cups of that stuff in the cooler might even introduce hypothermia to your dry ice supply!


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## villagelightsmith (Feb 17, 2016)

Make friends with the Commercials. Sometimes they will admit to having a lot of extra ice, but only _after_ their "sports" have been helicoptered out.


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## mkashzg (Aug 9, 2006)

villagelightsmith said:


> Draining the cold water is a waste of the cold. I haven't completely thought out the solution, other than possibly a second stage cooler in which to keep that cold water.
> 
> Keeping convective heat loss to a minimum can be done by keeping the lid closed AND DUCT TAPED! Keeping radiant heat out is done by painting the outside either white or reflective silver. (Everybody's got an opinion there, but until I do a comparison, the jury is still out.)
> Conductive heat enters by way of warm water and warm surfaces on the outside of the cooler.
> ...


A drained cooler is a happy and colder! Use your foam on top to keep the cold down low as the contents reduce the space.


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## mattman (Jan 30, 2015)

The cooler water can be used to soak a cotton towel that you put over the outside, to make use of evaporative cooling.
Some good ideas hear that are new to me, Thank You!


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## mkashzg (Aug 9, 2006)

mattman said:


> The cooler water can be used to soak a cotton towel that you put over the outside, to make use of evaporative cooling.
> Some good ideas hear that are new to me, Thank You!


Turns out river water also works just as good for that too! I prefer a thick burlap sack tho. 

Don't forget your foam in the top of your coooooler!


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## DIRIGO (Mar 13, 2015)

A little trick i learned in the army was to take a sock and soak it and hang it up. The evaporative effect will chill the beer down nicely. Not extremely cold..not even cold really...chilled I'd say. But a great way to get warm liquid cooler then what you got.


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## mattman (Jan 30, 2015)

yes, been doing that for bout 15 years, but colder water works better.


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## Rick A (Apr 15, 2016)

It is simple science that water melts ice. If I have a full layer of beer in the cooler and my ice is on top of that layer I will leave the water in the cooler for a while but if the ice is in the water drain the cooler. I don't have a expensive cooler but with good cooler management I often have ice longer than folks with better coolers.


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## ptwood (May 4, 2004)

A couple of options...


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## DoStep (Jun 26, 2012)

We pack them like this, the cardboard held up just fine through the end. Two 30 packs fit in basically the same space as an ammo can within a hatch, though it may lack a little bit of the flair of PT's beer dispensary. River temp beer and family drinks at river temp is good enough in GC.


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## DaveScott (Jul 12, 2017)

I like the milk crate in the drop bag. Kudos to both the quantity and quality.


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## DaveScott (Jul 12, 2017)

Gremlin said:


> Thanks everyone for the helpful replies. Since I seem to have found the right crowd with this topic, I have another question. What worked to transport the hard liquor? Do I need to buy a bunch of Platypus type bottles? Would 2 liter pop bottles suffice? Precious cargo!


I have had 2 liter bottles break but I've frequently used the Gatorade bottles as ice packs without having any breakage so I'd tend to steer that way. My preference though is the platypus bottles. I like that they collapse flat when empty.


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## villagelightsmith (Feb 17, 2016)

Frozen water, starts melting at 32 degrees, F. 
Frozen CO2, dry ice, begins vaporizing about minus 100 degrees F..
Liquid Nitrogen, minus 300 degrees F. or a little below.
(Just don't get any of it on you or turn it loose in the boat!)
Liquid "O2xygen," on the other hand, is bloody cold. But it makes a wonderful firestarter, as a brief search of youtube videos will show ... 
These heroic measures can hurt you, but a taste for warm beer can be safely acquired.


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## mattman (Jan 30, 2015)

Can you imagine having to deal with the medical emergency in the bottom of the Grand Canyon, as well? Would be a major buzz killer.


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## Poky (Jun 27, 2011)

Freeze your canned beer and it will keep things cooler longer. When you purchase the beer before the trip, do not put it directly into the freezer. Set in on the floor next to the freezer and let it rest for a day. Then carefully place it into the freezer, in it's original packaging, at least three or four days before packing your coolers. Occasionally a can will pop in the freezer and it's OK if the tops of the cans swell up. It's actually better than ice and saves cooler space as well. We all deserve to have a real cold one after running Lava ...


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## mattman (Jan 30, 2015)

And I can't think of a time I need a cold one more!
( and a pull or two of tequila!)


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## tmurph (Dec 31, 2011)

*Pathetic*



DoStep said:


> We pack them like this, the cardboard held up just fine through the end. Two 30 packs fit in basically the same space as an ammo can within a hatch, though it may lack a little bit of the flair of PT's beer dispensary. River temp beer and family drinks at river temp is good enough in GC.
> View attachment 20641


I'm pretty sure you said this was the most Pathetic Pile of beer you had ever seen on a GC trip


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## DoStep (Jun 26, 2012)

Ya and we hauled over a case out to boot!


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