Hard Packs - Grey

Bought these ice packs because i was looking for something have duty that would last when we go on road trips or when we have parties around the house that way we wouldnt have to keep buying ice. The packs work great and when used with a good cooler they have kept things cold for multiple days without having to refreeze them. These were a fraction of the price of name brand ones and have been worth every penny.

Let me start this review by stating a fact. YOU WILL NOT FIND A BETTER ICE PACK! We live in South Carolina and it gets pretty dang hot down in here in the summer. Heck, it gets pretty dang hot down here in the spring. I got tired of constantly buying ice every day when we go to the beach, lake, boating, camping…and we go a lot. I was determined to find the best ice alternative at a good price point and after reviewing a few products I decided to go with Cooler Shock. And I tell you right now, I am SO GLAD I DID! I bought the “original” foil Cooler Shock large 3 pack ice packs about 1.5 years ago. I loved them so much I bought another set, and then another…well, you get the point. I bought a lot. We have some for our soft side cooler for beer/water or whatever we’re drinking for the day. We have some for our large fishing cooler to keep our fish cold until we get back and can get home and get them cleaned. Well anyway, those were nothing short of amazing and were worth every penny I spent on them, but more importantly what I saved by not having to buy ice! Well, enough about those. I need to get to talking about what you came here to read about, the NEW and IMPROVED hard plastic Cooler Shock ice packs. I received the new hard packs on 10 July 19, filled them according to the instructions and placed them in the freezer. These new hard plastic ice packs feel and look like they are built to last. Unless you lose them or run over them with a tank, you will most likely have these packs forever. As with the foil packs, we plan to use these packs on the boat, at the beach, at the lake, camping, grocery store runs…the uses are limitless. I’ll give you a quick story about when we used our two hard packs in a Hopper 40 soft side cooler this past weekend. We took our boat out Saturday afternoon, 13 July, around noon and it was probably around 90 degrees outside. We had the cooler loaded with plenty of beer, water and Gatorade. I made what I call a drink sandwich. I put one ice pack on the bottom, add the drinks, then another ice pack on the top, and put drinks on the top pack. We fished well into the evening and got off the water at 1130 that night. We parked the boat at my cousin’s beach house and went back to our camper. The cooler stayed in the boat overnight. We unloaded the boat Sunday morning around 11:00 and put everything in the back of the truck. We headed for home, which is about 120 miles away, but stopped about halfway home for lunch and my wife did a little shopping. That put us at getting home 4:00-4:30 Sunday afternoon. I should have been surprised, but knowing how great Cooler Shock products are, I wasn’t. The few remaining bottles of water, Gatorade and one beer was still ice cold. The hard pack on the bottom was still half frozen but the one on top wasn’t frozen, but was still cold. I just can’t tell you enough or express how GREAT this product is. I have two hard packs for now, but that is about to change. I will be ordering another set or more in the VERY near future. So, after you read this, do yourself a HUGE favor and order yourself a set of three or more. YOU WILL NOT be disappointed. You will soon find out that ice is only needed for a glass of sweet tea and not a cooler. Cooler Shock is all you will ever need to keep everything nice and cold!! Feel free to ask any questions you may have about these AWESOME and AMAZING Cooler Shock hard packs. #NoMoreIce

I've been using reusable ice packs my whole life, but we recently got a bigger cooler, and I needed more to keep the bigger cooler appropriately cold when camping. I decided to give these a try, because they are big and wide enough that they would be easier to move around when I need to get into the cooler, than several smaller ones. They were very easy to fill and freeze, and I just took them camping this weekend. For those of you who are nerdy like us, we used a 65 quart Lifetime cooler, with a handful of other reusable ice packs. It was not hot where we camped, but the cooler definitely saw some sun. After three days on top of the food in the cooler, they were 36°F. I'm very pleased that the food stayed cooler than my fridge. I could probably have waited another day to unload the cooler without any spoilage.

These were a lot bigger than I anticipated but work well. I will say I followed the instructions and the gel got stuck in the corner and I had to pick it out with a long screwdriver. For the second one I did my own thing and it worked great. The instructions also said using one cup of water but was not enough so I added a little at a time to get to that overflow state in the instructions. But after that hiccup nd freezing them for 48 hours it worked very well and kept my color cold for the whole day. It easy to to wipe clean and it's flat enough to store easily.

I had been shopping around for ice packs for a new rotomolded cooler I bought a couple of months ago. I've tested ice with this cooler and it as lasted a solid 5 days with ice to spare, which is more than enough for my intended use. The ice-packs were to supplement the ice and also to use it as a primary to keep things cool. I found Cooler Shock on Amazon and got the clear container. The container seemed a little flimsy when it arrived as if it would break when dropped. But after filling it with water and getting a gel solution, it seemed to hold its shape a little better. Instructions were followed the first container and added cold water from the faucet, it took a while for the power and water to mix and stood their shaking it much longer than I expected. I then mixed the powder in the second container and added 2 cups of WARM water to the powder and it dissolved and mixed much faster. I added 2 more cups and continued to shake it and then topped it off with the final 3 cups. After about 30 minutes, the gel then expanded to fill any gaps and the solution in both containers was ready for the freezer. Long story short, this ice pack seemed to last a little longer than the RTIC brand. The freezing process was more even than the RTIC, where the RTIC ones bulged. Both brands were kept in the same cooler for about two days that held a consistent 38 degree F inside the cooler. After the two days, the RTIC started to lose its ice form and you can feel the gel move around. The same was for the Cooler Shock, however it wasn't as bad as the RTIC. It would be probably last longer had I primed the cooler and filling the space with other cold items. But two solid days of below 40 temps was good enough for me. This testing and comparison between Cooler Shock and RTIC ice packs isn't the most comprehensive nor is the validity of the testing methods were equal to one another, but I figure I'm going to be using both at the same time anyway whenever I use it. As for using the ice pack with actual ice, I'd need to do that another time.

These (gray hard packs) have worked great in my Yeti 65qt cooler, 2 or 3 of these and some smaller ice packs and/or regular cubed ice keeps food and drinks cold for days on road trips or camping. Even if I leave the cooler in a hot car or outside. It can be a little difficult to remove 100% of the air pocket when filling, which is a little frustrating, that’s the only drawback so far. Tilting side to side, at a slight angle away from you while filling very slowly and squeezing gently helps (if that makes any sense. Why the fill port is lower than the shoulders is obviously a design choice for size, but makes filling without a small air pocket almost impossible. Even so, I honestly recommend this product. A small air pocket won’t hurt it’s function or cause excess swelling when frozen. The key (with any cooler) is to pre-chill the cooler for a day with a few sacrificial ice packs, then replace with these and you will get great results that last several days. I’ve wound up with drinks and food starting to freeze up after a few hours depending on how close you put those items to these ice packs. *As a side note, if you are considering any size of the soft pack version of these, I personally haven’t had a good experience with them. I’ve had them all split open (they weren’t overfilled either), they just don’t last, every one I had split by the spout/cap area and leak after a period of time. I’ve left a much less stellar review for those (all sizes), it’s a defective product in my opinion. These large hard packs are great though! Wish they made them in various sizes…not sure why they don’t yet, seems like a big-time missed opportunity. * update 2021* The newest hard ice packs are clear compared to the gray plastic packs I ordered last year. Clear plastic is generally not as strong as solid colored plastic. I’ll update this review after some use, as to their durability compared to the older gray plastic model. The empty gray colored units feel more substantial. I’m thinking this was a cost cutting measure, again durability remains to be seen and I will update accordingly if anything negative happens with them.

Keeps food in the cooler cold for many hours.

Their chemistry and physics really do keep stuff much colder for an extra day or two. I've often had things freeze in my cooler with these packs. They also eliminate the hassles of ice. You pull them out of your freezer, put them on top of the food in your cooler (cold air sinks), eat the food, return home, and put them back in the freezer. Easy 5 stars ... until you have questions or need product support. We're supposed to add water after we buy them, shake them until the powder dissolves, freeze them, and start using them. The powder in mine won't mix, however, and Cooler Shock refuses to respond to phone calls and emails to Customer Service about it. That's 1 star (actually zero) for an average of 3.

Wanted to get something cheaper but effective for my yeti. These for perfectly along the back wall, along with a couple of their smallest flexible ones they’re brilliant. Did some very unscientific experiments with my yeti, iceytek and different ice packs and these stayed cold much longer than my other packs. Work the order as nothing else similar in the UK

Works great in my Coleman full-size cooler

These cooler packs can be a bit fiddly to fill up with water; I used my own funnel. But they work well. As these freeze at 18F (-7C) I would not use them for keeping food cool, it is likely to freeze them. But they are great at keeping food frozen, when defrosting a freezer. I have used then to keep food below -10C for over 12 hours.

Come on Party outdoors

I have used cooler shock blocks for years... and this plastic format has various advantages over the cooler shock's mylar version of the same product. This blue plastic version is much gentler on your hands when handling the cold cooler pack. My complaint is how difficult it is to mix the water into the packs during set up, without causing a powdery non functional area of the cooler pack. Even after creating six of these packs I still didn't master the process. Essentially, you want to add water slowly and mix it up as you go... Keep the powder away from the handles... this is the number one most difficult spot to get the water into... almost all of my cooler packs have a dry powder section in the handles where I couldn't get the water to reach. Add a bit of water... then shake it up... add some water... shake it up... move the powder around... add some water... shake it up... until the pack is full. Finally squeeze it and hold it upright so all the air comes out the top... then quickly put the top on. Grab a friend for the last step so that you can squeeze the pack tight, while the friend screws on the top. Honestly, it might be better if the pack wasn't clear... because if I couldn't see that the pack wasn't mixed correctly, I wouldn't notice any difference and then it wouldn't bother me... Ignorance is bliss.