No refrigeration...your advice?

[ssullivan]

Originally Posted by GordMay

Good links:
National Center for Home Food Preservation | USDA Publications

That's the one!

[Moby Dick]

Take some rabbits - they don't need freezing to keep fresh

(Don't tell cruising with pets......)

[hellosailor]

Guinea pigs. A low maintenance Peruvian roasted delicacy, that comes in individual serving-sized portions.

[Joli]

Our inlaws were in the Caribbean for 10 years and never had refrigeration. They simply bought ice every two or three days. The box was well insulated and they kept a secoond cover inside the opening cover. Most people they met down there had no fridge because it was broken.

Worked for them, very simple boat. Manual windlass, hanked on sails, no generator, no fridge. They went and had fun.

[Brent Swain]

In Georgia Strait it gets a bit warmer so veggies below the waterline don't last as long. Anywhere else the bilge is 43 degrees F so makes a good fridge. Learn to can. Lots of venison in the Charlottes.
Never had a fridge cruising full time for most of the last 35 years.No problem.
Brent

[md7a]

Experience in the Maine windjammer fleet suggests that the simpler comments posted here have already covered the basics you'll probably need on the Inside Passage:
- use large blocks of ice
- let it cool down and top off before you leave the dock
- don't let ice sit in water
- avoid cooling stuff that doesn't need it
- limit openings of the cooler (think ahead and grap it all at once)

Carefully handled, an ice box can keep food for up to 20 people cold for about 10 days. I have no actual experience, but reading suggests that you probably won't be away from ice for more than 10 days at a time.

You can sometimes get large blocks of ice (12" x "24" x 24" / 200 lbs) from caterers or folks who do ice sculptures for parties. Use an ice pick and tongs to handle and shape for your box.

[bearphish]

i would have to echo jentine's comment, i installed a little dorm room fridge and run it off the battery/charging system. small, and not very powerful, but effective for myself. i plan my "coolings" ahead, and always have something cold to drink, cold fruit, etc.

[Lynx]

Dehydration techniques have come a long way in recent years.
Just buy a #2.5 can (coffie can) of dehydrated stew (make sure that you mix the can well). After you have eaten that try caned stew.

I will not go to caned again unless it is chicken or tuna. It is just that good. One of the good books is "Mix a Meal" No for a fridge. An ice box to keep things cool if you want to buy the ice.

[Ex-Calif]

We just installed this unit. I think it's going to be a power hog (3A) and will report on how it works out.

Coleman PowerChill 40-Quart Thermoelectric Cooler with Power Supply - Wal-Mart

[MCathcart]

'Fridge? Yes, something... even the Coleman unit looks better than nothin. We have a 7 cubic foot fridge/freezer but the people we sail with only have an Ice Box. In one 10 day trip they went through about $5.00 of ice per day (some days they'd buy 40 pounds and other days they'd buy 4 of 5 bags) no more than 3 days and "where's the ice"?. In 10 days they went through $50.00 in ice, bad or not? No matter where we go "See anywhere to get Ice"? Then you have to haul it back to the bote and it's melting already. The dorm fridge Dan posted looks great to me, especially if you don't have any refrigeration!

Will, 10 days? I'm not touching that one.

Mike

[brian and clare]

Hi


We have cruised with no fridge, and there is one or two things no-one mentioned.


First is Mayo.

You can have helmans mayo (or whatever brand you want) almost indefintely if you use a clean knife, but better, we got squeezy bottles so that nothin ever touched the mayo. I had heard about this and was scared to death, since my mom had put the fear of god in me about eating old tuna sandwiches, but it works even in the panamanian heat. The helmans website actually has a section on this. .


Second is cheese,

I know that folks say that cheese lasts pretty easily, but for good cheese we didnt find that to be the case. You had to use it all pretty quickly or get mold. Maybe if you are hauling lots of ice to keep it cool, but we didnt. Maybe would have been better if we had used some other techniqe than re-wrapping it in clingfilm, but in the tropical heat the oil tended to weep out of it and cause a problem, plus it tended to stink things up. We used the individually wrapped sandwich slices and didnt have much problem (I know, so low class, but keep in mind we went sailing on a boat that cost $6,500) occasionaly there was a little mold around the edge that could be torn off. Funny to note that the singles "mottzarella" is actually just the same as white american cheese. Hilarious. There must be a law against doing that.

Third is Ice,

Hauling ice is a pain in the butt. For living aboard, to be honest we couldnt be bothered, even in the keys. In hot weather it just takes up so much of your time to do, and if you have the basics and use the tips for no fridge, you dont need much cooled down anyway. I admit I love ice in a drink, but Im way too lazy to haul dighyloads of ice every 2 days. No thanks. Worst was seeing people with fridges hauling ice to "help out" their on-board fridge. Worst of both worlds


The thermoelectric coolers,

We were given one as a present and we ended up not using it because though it worked it ate a ton of juice and didnt keep things that cold.


Eggs

We heard about greasing and varnish and all that stuff with the eggs. Just buy them at the store and eat them. I suppose on a long trip (like over 3 weeks) maybe that would be worth it, but 2 weeks was never a problem. I defy you to sail somewhere that you cant find eggs within 3 weeks. We did not even turn them.

Labeling cans,

I know there is this long standing tradition of pulling off labels, but I think In many caeses it is uncessary. I guess if they are going into a really moist place like the bilge, or you are going to stock up for a full year or something the label peeling would be worth it, but after doing both, if you are storing cans in a dry locker, dont bother peeling the labels. We did write the food type on the lid though, since when tight packed you cant see the label. Oh, I will say that canned pineapple rusts like crazy, so eat that first. Must be all the acid.

Textured soy protien,

Looks like gravel but works well. Cheap at health food stores and acts like ground beef (sort of) DO NOT buy the beef flavoured. If you want to know what dog food tastes like be my guest. Plan is the way to go, and works well with peanut satay type dishes, and asian curries with fresh coconut (yum).


Canned Argentianan Beef Stew

YUMMM


I have yet to try the canning our own beef, and the ground beef idea. Was too chicken to do the canning, but probably should have since a lot of canned meet is yuck.

One final note. You havent lived until you have had thanksgiving with Spurkey (spams version of Turkey) OK, you actually have, it is nasty and we bought a lot of it.

[hellosailor]

B&C_
"You can have helmans mayo (or whatever brand you want) almost indefintely if ...since my mom had put the fear of god in me about eating old tuna sandwiches, but it works even in the panamanian heat."
There are plenty of good "no refrigeration" references in camping cook books, many sailing articles (any magazine web site), and the older cook books. In the US one of the best old ones is the New Settlement Cookbook, still found mainly used, and with about 100 years of solid basic information in it--including food safety and using stoves that aren't found in modern homes any more.< G > Your mom was right about the old tuna sandwiches though, because fish rots quickly, and anything that changes the pH of mayonaise makes it into a very good growth medium for food poisoning. The amount of salt and vinegar in mayo (especially homemade mayo) is the magic food safety ingredient in it, that's why the stuff in tubes lasts so well. Once it is added to any foods--especially fish--you're on a clock against the microorganisms.


"We used the individually wrapped sandwich slices"
See now, in the US that is usually called "processed cheese food" it is not cheese. Hard cheeses keep well, soft cheeses don't. With a hard cheese, if it gets mold you either cut it off or just rub it off with a paper towel and white vinegar, then rinse with water if you don't like the vinegar odor. This is how hard cheeses are kept and aged normally.

"Funny to note that the singles "mottzarella" is actually just the same as white american cheese." Dunno what you've been eating, but the ingredients in "American" cheese slices and "mozzarella" cheese slices should be very different. Although, you will find varying amounts of cheese product, milk product, and oils, etc. in them. In the cheapest ones you can actually smell a popcorn smell--that's from corn oil. In "cheese food" slices, the ingredients could appear identical--but the cheese base used should be very different.

The thing to avoid is bulk cheese that has been cut up in supermarkets. It is usually handled poorly when they cut it up for rewrapping, and I've seen mold growing in fingerprint and handprint shapes on it.

"Eggs" Look at the old cook books. < G > Our parents generation was taught to fear eggs because our grandparents had problems with salmonella and poisonings from bad eggs. Of course, there are dehydrated whole eggs (powdered eggs) that can actually be pretty good when properly made, these days.

"I have yet to try the canning our own " Again, our grandparents sometimes died from it, so our parents were taught not to can. Home canning is perfectly safe--just like home bomb making, as long as you follow good instructions and don't make any mistakes. Fortunately good instructions (for canning < G > ) are easily found these days. Buying the equipment still puts off many people.

[brian and clare]

Hiya

The bulk wrapped cheeses we had trouble with were mostly the cheddar and swiss type. The soft stuff we would normally eat in a sandwich. The nice hard cheeses were not really in the budget, though we did have some of those little waxed laughing cows for treats. For the cheese slices I was actually talking about the product that is individually wrapped and labeled as "mozzarella" cheese from the same people of the processed cheese fame. It was white, and that was the only diffeerence between it and the yellow stuff! I dont know how they could imagine that it had any relation to mozzarella. The pizza we were so hopeful for just didnt quite taste the same.

My mom actually made and canned rasperry jam from the backyard, but she used to pour wax on top of the jars to seal them, something I have never heard of anyone else doing (not that im big in canning circles). Boy was that good stuff.

B

[rebel heart]

Rubbermaid 17-Liter Cooler - Wal-Mart

"cools 40 degrees below ambient". That might explain why they get such bad reports in the really hot weather. 40 degrees below 100 is 60, and that's not exactly a cold beer.

I'm thinking of picking one up though. So maybe it doesn't work in the insane heat, but that's not all the time, and any fridge that can stand up to tropics is quite pricey.

[Ex-Calif]

Originally Posted by rebel heart

"cools 40 degrees below ambient". That might explain why they get such bad reports in the really hot weather. 40 degrees below 100 is 60, and that's not exactly a cold beer.

I'm thinking of picking one up though. So maybe it doesn't work in the insane heat, but that's not all the time, and any fridge that can stand up to tropics is quite pricey.

So far we used it for one full day in about 90 degree heat. In absolute "ice cold" terms it is the wrong fridge but for our purposes I think we will like it. The drinks were "relatively" cold compared to ambient temperature and it beat the hell out of warm bottled water.

I froze 2 X 1 liter bottles of water (leave space in the top and lids loose when freezing) and stuck these along with 24 cans of drink and our sandwiches in the fridge in the morning. The frozen bottles helped bring ambient down to start with and the fridge worked great all day.

I have a simple 3 light battery monitor that plugs in a lighter outlet and it never got below two lights (normal charge) running off 2 batteries for 12 hours.