Would it be possible to make a cooler for when power goes out to keep stuff cold?

[Malaras 9]

And have dry ice or something to keep it cool?

[MrZombifiedGamer 164]

I'm not sure this would fit. Where would you find dry ice? There's already a canning mod that keeps food fresh, I'd take a look at it. I don't know where it is though.

[Kirrus 1645]

Technically speaking, the only thing that might work would be a bag in the running-river, but it'd be dependent on the river's temperature, and would give you a risk of loosing whatever you stored that way.

[Koregan 25]

a bag in the running-river

 

Sounds like a nice idea for a mod.

Perhaps the fishing-nets could be used.

So while fishing, you can enjoy a cold beer.

[MXXIV 25]

Decreasing entropy is a hard thing to do and rather elaborate strategies are needed to do so. One nice trick is so-called evaporative cooling, used in Africa to preserve food. However it's not miraculously effective, especially in colder and wetter climates.

[Asrayl 92]

... You can make a coolant with things you'd probably find pretty common in and around farms. 

 

Ammonium nitrate is the key here. It's a fertilizer, and a common ingredient in instant cold packs. If you mix this with water, it will dramatically reduce that water's temperature.

 

The ammonium nitrate and water mixture creates an endothermic reaction (It absorbs heat from the surroundings) which lowers the temperature of those surroundings. Given time this is sufficient to freeze the water in the bowl. 

 

Kind of a neat little science experiment, though thanks to certain high-profile fertilizer "incidents", you're probably better off not getting the materials to try this at home. 

 

Here's a video though, pretty cool stuff. 

 

 

Edited to add; In regards to long-term cold storage, good insulation, and a basement are your best friends. 

Edited April 2, 2016 by Asrayl

[Dahtroll 6]

Since you speak about ice and power out ... Well i just had to rethink of what people where doing back then with no electricity. Its not miraculous but hey! Its better then nothing.

They kept big ass ice cube under straw in a dark place to keep it during the ''heat season''

Anyway someone wrote about it xD

 

The thing goes by the name ICE BOXES.

http://frozen61.tripod.com/id5.html

[MrHrulgin 54]

Bumping a very old suggestion: Since we have ice packs in the game it would be great to have styrofoam or insulated plastic coolers in order to keep food cold. Being able to load up a cooler with frozen ice packs would make it a lot more doable to keep food cold while traveling or gathering food. This would probably also entail temperature being averaged between objects in the container so that the existence of cold ice packs in the cooler would bring down the temperature of foods added to the cooler. 

[Flashy 1]

Hypothetically we could make a cooler into a moveable object and assign it to a drainable object property and then set it so that we feed ice cubes into it and as long as it doesnt reach empty, should provide a lower, but constant refridgeration effect.

Now this is based on components ive looked into scripts and code.. How hard and its feasibility is unknown to me. Relatively new modder.

 

Is it possible? Absolutely... is it modder creatable and/or difficult.. Unknown..

Edited December 3, 2020 by Flashy

[Badgzerz 25]

People smoked their food or salted it to dehydrate it to preserve it. Smokers are very easy to make in the bush, they just require a couple sticks, some tree boughs, some twine, and some sort of metal rods, like the shelving in a stove or grill. I could make one very easily. Permanent ones could be made from planks, or bricks. Or even clay.

Tribes also preserved meat and berries in its own fat and it could store for years at room temperature. This was called Pemmican, and in game it would be incredibly easy to make, and it could be made w/ or without foraged berries. 

People also preserved meats in salt to dehydrate it, then they would cook it into a soup to make it edible again. 

Then of course there is making jerky, which is laughably easy with some thought.

This all needs to be in vanilla. Except maybe salt preservation, although salt shouldn't exactly be difficult to come buy. 

 

You can look at a lot of pre-industrial household methods for different things on the Townsends youtube channel. 

[Badgzerz 25]

Cold storage just wouldn't be feasible year round in Kentucky. 

[Staina 0]

In our region (Bohemia in Czech Republic) there is a cave that has ice in it even in the midst of summer. 30°C outside - no problem. In the middle ages, restaurants used it to cool beverages, especially beer.

 

Maybe for some maps where caves are present naturally, this could be implemented.