TikTok Taught Me: A Cooler Trick to Keep Your Ice Frozen for Longer?

Summer is in full swing, which means we're bringing out our coolers for potlucks, picnics, camping, and road trip adventures. Of course, we're using a cooler for a reason: we want our food and drinks to stay cold — even in the summer heat. So, if you're like us, you know there's no worse feeling than opening your cooler and finding a puddle of chilly water where your ice used to be.

But, according to TikTok, those days of melted ice are over thanks to this incredibly simple trick. TikTok user @anna_truth posted a video of her pre-chilling a cooler with the text "I don't know who needs to hear this, but you need to temper your cooler before your big summer trips. Let some ice sit in the cooler for at least 24 hours!!! It will make your ice LAST SO MUCH LONGER and not melt as fast if the cooler is already cold instead of room temp."

In the TikTok, Anna is using a Lifetime cooler, which already boasts ice retention for up to seven days. However, even Lifetime — and other favored cooler retailers like YETI and Igloo — recommend pre-chilling coolers before packing them.

Why You Should Pre-Chill Your Cooler Before Packing

You may be thinking but a cooler is already insulated to keep the ice cold, why would I need to cool it down? In reality, the insulation is actually what's working against you — especially if you store your cooler in a warm place, like in a garage or outside. Coolers may be insulated to keep things cold, but the insulation will also trap heat. So if you're loading a warm cooler with ice, the ice will have to fight the warm air that's trapped inside the cooler before it can even begin cooling down the cooler and its contents.

The best way to keep your cooler cold for longer is to pre-cool it overnight or, even better, 24 hours in advance at room temperature. You'll need a sacrificial bag of ice to chill your cooler, but it's worth it if it makes the next bag last even longer. Simply move your cooler to a room temperature place in your house, fill it with a bag of ice or dry ice (if your cooler is dry ice compatible), and let it go.

When you're ready to load it, just drain the water (you can leave the leftover ice from the first bag), dump another bag of ice inside, and pack the cooler with your food and drinks. Another pro tip is to pack coolers with already cold items — room temperature items can also warm up your cooler as the ice is working overtime to cool them. To take it even further? If you're using a small, soft-sided cooler or tote, chill the tote, fill the tote, and keep it sealed and in the fridge until you're ready to go. Then, load it up with ice.

When packing, try to keep your food and drinks closer to the bottom so they're getting the full benefit of being surrounded by ice. And be sure to fill the cooler up to the brim because any air that's left inside will speed up the melting process.

Sure, TikTokers are loving the trick — Anna's video has over 5 million views — and even cooler brands say it's a good tip, but does it actually work? We put it to the test using three different types of coolers: a non-name brand cooler bag, an Igloo Picnic Basket hard cooler, and a YETI Tundra hard cooler — here's what we found.

The Pre-Chilling Test

To test out this method, we pre-chilled each of our coolers with an eight-pound bag of ice for 24 hours. After the pre-chilling, we packed the coolers with food and drinks and another eight-pound bag of ice. We let the coolers sit out, checking on them until the ice was completely melted.

Cooler Bag

Let us preface this by saying that the cooler bag we used was not a name-brand bag, and there are certainly better cooler bags on the market that this may actually work for. However, with the cooler bag we used, the pre-chilling process made no difference. The ice in our cooler bag melted within eight hours during both the pre-chilling process and the actual cooling process.

So, with the cooler bag, it wasn't worth the wasted ice.

Igloo Hard Cooler

Igloo is one of the brands that recommends pre-cooling your cooler for better ice retention. According to their site, Igloo recommends you pre-chill the cooler overnight "by storing it in a cool place — ideally with a bag of ice inside to help diminish the trapped heat."

Normally, the ice inside the Igloo is completely melted within 22 hours. However, the pre-chilling extended the ice's lifespan for an additional eight hours. After 30 hours, the ice was completely melted.

Eight hours is a lot of time, especially when you're camping or on a road trip and don't have access to another cooling source. With that in mind, the pre-chilling process is definitely worth it in the Igloo hard cooler.

Yeti Hard Cooler

YETI recommends preloading your cooler with a bag of ice a few hours before you plan on using it as well as storing it in a cool place before packing it.

After the 24-hour pre-chilling process, the YETI cooler still had a ton of ice leftover, which is nice because you're getting more bang for your buck out of the sacrificial bag of ice. Typically, the ice in this YETI lasts about 2 1/2 to 3 days (or 60 to 72 hours), but after pre-chilling it, the ice lasts for 82 hours.

No matter if that's an additional 10 hours or 22 hours, that's still a pretty substantial amount of time. And, considering that the 24-hour pre-chill didn't use up a lot of ice, you won't have to buy too much more ice when you're ready to pack the cooler. Overall, pre-chilling your YETI hard cooler is most definitely worth it.

The Bottom Line

At the end of the day, this pre-chilling method works exceptionally well for hard coolers. It may be a hassle to remember to pull your cooler out of the garage the night before, but it's certainly worth it if you do.

We know buying an extra bag of ice that you'll essentially waste isn't always ideal. So, if you don't want to waste any ice, at least bring your cooler inside the night before you intend to use it. That way it will start from room temperature instead of the hot temperatures it was facing outside. Or pack the cooler with reusable cold packs from the freezer and then replace them with freshly frozen ice packs or ice when packing to go.

It's also important to note that how you pack your cooler and where it is while in use will factor into how long your ice lasts. Your cooler should be packed with about 2/3 ice and 1/3 food or drinks. Remember to keep the water inside your cooler as the ice melts because that cold water will keep the remaining ice frozen for longer — just be sure to keep open food and meat out of the water. And try to place your cooler in a dark, cool place. The sun will heat the cooler up and cause your ice to melt faster — so if you can't find any shade, try wrapping the cooler in towels or a tarp to keep it cool.

All in all, however, TikTok has done it again with another stellar hack, and we know we'll be pre-chilling our coolers all season long for our favorite summer recipes.