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For camping, barbecues, picnics, and tailgating, you need a good cooler and ice packs to keep your food and beverages chilled. They're also essential in an emergency if the power goes out.
That's why our editors searched Japanese e-commerce sites such as Amazon, Rakuten, and Kakaku.com for the best ice packs available online. We then picked out the most popular products and tested them on 3 things:
We then ranked the products and put what we learned into a buying guide to help you choose the best Japanese ice packs available online.
mybest US' editing team consists of experienced members who have backgrounds in writing, editing, translation, and more. We are dedicated to researching what makes a product or service the best to users in the US in order to create top-quality articles. From skincare, to kitchen appliances, and to DIY supplies, our mission is to find the best ones for you.
We recommend considering these four points before buying an ice pack.
Ice is ice, and it only has one temperature, but ice packs come in a variety of temperatures to choose from.
If you're looking for moderate chilling, choose one that says 0℃ (32℉) on the package. These are standard types, so if it's not labeled, it's probably this kind. Use them for lunch boxes and for drinks you don't want to freeze. Using stronger ones could leave you with a slushie and freezer-burned sandwiches.
If it says "strong cooling" or has minus Celsius temperatures written on it, it's good for keeping foods at lower temperatures. Use these to keep ice frozen and for transporting fresh fish or meats.
They vary in performance, but in general they should keep a cooler's interior below freezing. A home freezer ranges from -4℉ to 0℉, so it won't keep things frozen forever, but it's possible to stay near freezing for a while.
Better cooling isn't related to longer cooling. In fact, to cool the surrounding air, you have to remove heat from it, which in turn melts the ice pack faster. This means that regular ice packs generally keep their cool for longer than the sub-zero ones.
Imagine you're taking a camping trip, and you have to drive 3 hours to the campground. To enjoy your roasted wieners for dinner safely, you need an ice pack that lasts 10 hours. For an all-day barbecue or beach picnic, choose one that lasts 6 hours or longer.
As we mentioned, the average time required to freeze these ready for use is 24 hours. However, some of the sub-zero types need up to 48 hours in your home freezer before they could reach their peak cooling.
It's also worth checking what temperature they need to be frozen at. Most of the ones sold for home use will reach their effective temperature by just putting them in typical freezers, but double-check the sub-zero types if it's a brand you're not sure of.
We tested and ranked the hard types in this article. But there are also soft ones. Which kind should you choose?
These are durable and efficient. They're the best choice for outdoors use and for having in an emergency power outage. Their hard cases insulate them, so they keep cool longer. If you put one in the bottom of a cooler and stack your food and drinks on top of it, they will chill your items effectively.
These will melt more easily because they don't have an insulating shell, but they're useful in many ways. They can cool powerfully because of the lack of insulation. They freeze faster, so they're ready to use easily. They never harden when they're frozen, and come in many sizes and shapes, so you can squeeze them into gaps where hard types don't fit.
We recommend these for everyday uses such as packing in lunchboxes and keeping your bottled drink cool in your bag. They're also perfect to use in conjunction with the hard type. Stick the hard ones in your cooler first, them use these to fill the gaps between your food and drinks. Fewer air pockets makes for better, longer-lasting chilling.
Products | Image | Click to purchase | Price | Key features | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Yamazen Campers Collection Power Cool | $5.90 Low Mid | mybest's Top Choice! Chills Fast and Lasts Long | ||
2 | Kawai Giken Neo Ice Pro Hard | $9.90 High Mid | Put it in the Freezer Overnight, and Use it All the Next Day | ||
3 | INOAC CAH Series Refrigerant|CAH50011 | $4.43 Low Mid | Great Chilling at an Affordable Price | ||
4 | Iris Ohyama Open Area Hard Coolant | $3.11 Low | For a Quick Freeze and Slightly Warmer Temperatures | ||
5 | Logos Speedy Freeze Ice Pack | $9.80 High Mid | The Best One from Logos Brand | ||
6 | Logos GT Minus 16 Degrees Hard Pack | $8.80 High Mid | Only Good if You Use it with the Matching Logos Cooler | ||
7 | Toppan Forms Mega Cool | $7.90 Mid | Changes Color When it's Ready to Use |
If you want reliable portable refrigeration, this is the one! We were very surprised at how long it could keep cold. It was the only product we tested that could maintain 40℉ or below for 4 hours.
It cools fast, too. From room temperature, it could get our beverage to an appropriate drinking temperature at about three times the speed of the ordinary ice packs. We also found that as per the manufacturer's instructions, it does take 24 hours to freeze before use.
This powerful, long-lasting cold pack is definitely worth it! We recommend this without hesitation for all your chilling needs!
This one freezes fast, in just about 10 hours! So you can pop it in the freezer the night before you need it and it'll be ready for packing into your cooler the next morning.
It can hold a surface temperature of 3℉ for 16 hours, and it will keep your cooler interior at 50℉ for 3 hours. If you want something with powerful, long-lasting cooling that is ready after 10 hours, it's a great ice pack.
Rounding out our top three, this ice pack cools well and lasts a long time. It takes 24 hours to freeze before use, just as the manufacturer states. We also loved the price of this one!
And, the same series offers six different types. You can also choose from 0℃(32℉), -5℃(23℉), -15℃(5℉), -21℃(-6℉), and -25℃(-13℉). So we think this brand can easily cover all your freezing and chilling needs.
All of our top three were sub-zero types, and this is our top choice for zero-degree packs. It's high-performance for a basic refrigerant pack.
It will be ready to use after 10 hours in your freezer, and it keeps cool temperatures for an acceptably long time. It's also not too expensive. If you're looking for a simple ice pack that isn't sub-zero, this is your best bet.
This famous outdoor goods manufacturer offers several ice packs, but this one was the best we tested. It maintained less than 50℉ for 3 hours, which we considered to be average. Also, the time it takes to freeze ready for use is 24 hours, which was similar to some of the others we tested.
Logos says this is twice as fast as one of their other ice packs, and touts this as a selling point. But, it's still not the fastest we tested.
This one really didn't impress us much. It did keep under 50℉ for 4 hours, so the duration of chilling was good, but the cooling strength was poor. And the main thing that turned us off was the fact that it takes 48 hours to freeze before you can use it. If you have a lot of freezer space and are good at planning ahead, that might not be a deal-breaker.
It's popular because it's meant to be used with a certain cooler from the same company which enhances its cooling, so if you want to buy a set, it might be a good one for you.
This one was average as far as cooling power and duration. It takes 12 hours to freeze and be ready to use, which is better than some but not the absolute best.
However, it has a unique feature which really impressed us. When it's unfrozen, it's purple, but when it freezes and is ready to use, it turns amber. Hard ice packs can be difficult to judge, so this is a really nice way to tell for sure it's ready to pop in your cooler.
We ran each product through a series of tests to check for how well they chilled, how long they chilled, and how fast they could freeze and be used. Then we scored them on a scale out of five points.
To keep our results as fair as possible, we used a 500 gram size pack for each product. If there was no 500 gram size available, we used one as close to that size as we could find.
We put a can of beer that had been chilled in the refrigerator into a cooler alongside one of the ice packs. We then put the setup in a room that was 86℉ to replicate a hot summer day. Then, we measured the temperature of the beer after 8 hours. The smaller the change from the original temperature, the higher the score.
We found that ice packs which were the same size and rated to the same temperature still varied a lot in their performance. The best were those rated as subzero ice packs. Their surface temperatures were 3.2℉ and made our cooler 37℉.
When we looked at the makeup of these products, we found that they contained plant-based polymer compounds and inorganic substances as their main components. The ice packs with only natural main ingredients were not as strong.
To determine how long each ice pack stayed cold, we measured the temperature inside our cooler every hour for 24 hours. We gave our highest rating to those that could maintain temperatures below 50℉ the longest.
In our test, 11 products could keep the temperature in the cooler below 50℉ for more than an hour. But only one product, Yamazen's Campers Collection Power Cool, could keep the temperature below 40℉. It was able to bring the cooler down to just above freezing in an hour, and kept it below 40℉ for four hours - about the same as a refrigerator!
We also learned that size is not as closely related to performance as we expected. Products that were within 200 grams (7 ounces) of each other didn't have much difference in how long they could keep things cold.
We used the manufacturer's specifications in addition to our tests to check this, because it's hard to see if the product is totally frozen when it's in a hard plastic case.
We found that most of the products took 24 hours of freezer time before they were ready to use in our cooler. Use this as your benchmark when selecting a 500g ice pack, and look for one that's even faster. We also found that the time had little to do with the size or cooling power, so please rely on our product descriptions.
Here are some ways you can get the most out of your ice packs.
If you can fit your cooler into your refrigerator to cool it down or use ice packs when it's empty, it will keep cold longer once you fill it. When you add food and drinks, make them as cold as possible first, too.
Put the hard ice packs at the bottom of the cooler and stack your stuff. Use another hard ice pack on top of the food and drinks. Then use soft ice packs to fill in any gaps. You don't want any air, if possible.
If there is melted water from ice or condensation that collects in the bottom of the cooler, discard it often. It will make the still-frozen ice packs melt more easily if you leave it.
Ice packs are mainly water, with absorbent polymers and a gelling agent. In Japan they can usually just be thrown in combustible garbage, but check with your local government.
But no matter where you are, one thing you should never, ever do is dump it down the drain or flush it down the toilet! The materials will react with water and swell, causing clogged pipes. Put it straight in the trash without attempting to empty it, even if it's torn and leaking.
Eating outdoors is only half the fun (or struggle) when it comes to being outside. Here are some other products that will make your experience a great one.
No. 1: Yamazen|Campers Collection Power Cool
No. 2: Kawai Giken|Neo Ice Pro Hard
No. 3: INOAC|CAH Series Refrigerant|CAH50011
No. 4: Iris Ohyama|Open Area Hard Coolant
No. 5: Logos|Speedy Freeze Ice Pack
View Full RankingThe descriptions of each product are referenced from content available on manufacturer, brand, and e-commerce sites.
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