I have a friend in Wisconsin who is upset that she has received barely any snow so far this season, and asked if I could FedEx her some. I would love to do this as a joke, but how would I keep the snow in snow form while shipping? If I don’t freeze it, it will obviously melt, but if I do freeze it, won’t it turn into ice? What would be the best method of freezing it for shipping and maintaining the snow-like composition? Someone help…Christmas is just around the corner.
You are correct… you could pack it with dry ice to keep it cold, but by the time it has been bounced around through the FedEx system, it would have congealed into something resembling (at best) styrofoam, if not ice.
So there’s really no method? What if I packed it in one of those Chinese restaurant soup containers and then packed that container in ice? Does the snow need extra moisture to keep its composition?
Just send one of those cheap snow-cone machines.
That would be defeating the purpose, though. She wants snow from my area. She can make it herself with a block of ice and a cheese grater, but that wouldn’t be the same.
I would think you could: Fill an insulting thermos with snow, put it in the freezer with the top off to cool it down to 0 F, send the thermos wrapped in insulation for overnight delivery, and expect that it would arrive reasonably frozen.
There’s an idea. I could keep some test snow in a thermos overnight on the kitchen counter, and if it stays the same composition, then I can reasonably assume that it would keep for delivery. Thanks!
I think it would be funnier to send water.
Kind of like that “Florida Snowman” snowglobe, which is nothing more than a few pieces of coal and a carrot floating in water.
An insulting thermos? Is that like those screaming Christmas trees?
Otto, it turns out my friend is in Madison. Do you think maybe you could drive here, pick up the snow, and drive back? It would only be about three days.
It might work, but you’ve still got the problem that BrotherCadfael alluded to: As the thermos gets shaken up and down in transit, the snow is going to be compacted and will lose its fluffy consistency. You can probably alleviate this somewhat by making sure that your thermos is full of snow, and marking the box as “Handle With Care” couldn’t hurt either.
I’ve googled a bunch of frozen food mail order shops, and they all seem to use styrofoam containers and dry ice. I don’t think normal ice would keep the snow from melting; the ice and snow would just melt at the same rate since they’re the same substance. I think if dry ice is used to keep the temperature low enough (i.e. well below freezing), the snow would stay reasonably fluffy. It’s difficult to make snowballs when it’s well below freezing, right? Same thing.
Definitely mark it “handle with care”. The cores of most good thermosi are made of glass.
There was the time I collected grapes from the back yard in my handy thermos. I brought it into the house, closed it, set it on the counter and promptly forgot about it. A week later, we heard a muffled explosion, but couldn’t find the source. A couple of months later, I opened the thermos to find a fermented mess of grapes and shattered glass.
Oh, and as a footnote, if you are going to use dry ice, do NOT put it in a sealed container, such as the thermos we’ve been talking about. Dry ice expands a LOT when it melts and will burst almost any air-tight container.
That’s one reason why frozen food places use styrofoam containers for the dry ice–they’re not very air tight.
Ahem… I learned from UPS employees directly that the words “Fragile” or “Handle With Care” is an invitation to dockworkers and parcel handlers to mishandle your package.
Your best bet is to package it securely, well, insulated, and do not mark on the box aside from the origin and destination addresses.
The less your parcel stands out from the others, the better.
Line a small corrugated cardboard carton with a plastic bag.
Fill the bag to fill the carton with snow. Seal the plastic bag water tight and tape the carton closed. Enclose in a second plastic bag and seal.
Place the carton of snow in a larger carton big enough to allow packing the space between with slabs of solid carbon dioxide (dry ice) wrapped in 3 or 4 layers of newspaper. Fit should be solid so as to not allow any shifting when shipped.
Next Day Fed Ex won’t be cheap but …it is for a joke isn’t it?
“Beware of the Cog”
Maybe 10 years ago. My thermos is 5-6 years old and completely made of steel. I don’t see any reason for buying a fragile one with a glass core as the steel ones are just as good if not better, or so I’m told.
I’d be glad to! There is the small matter of my fee…
I think it would be much more effective to send a video of you scraping your windows, shoveling snow, trudging to the mailbox, battling traffic and slush, etc. You’ll never be able to send “snow” in its fluffy form. Send her the visuals.