Dry Ice: Is It Worth It?
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I'm going with Chilled Fog in the Graveyard this year. My question is, should we use conventional ice or Dry Ice as the coolant for the fog? I'm looking at spending $70 for 50 lbs of CO2. As I understand it, I will lose 10 lbs. of Dry Ice between Friday afternoon and Saturday evening. I'm OK with that, as long as we get a really good low-hanging fog. We've got Froggy's Swamp Juice on hand.
If anyone reading this has had any real experience using Dry Ice as a medium, I'd appreciate some input here.
If anyone reading this has had any real experience using Dry Ice as a medium, I'd appreciate some input here.
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I have done that.
I have an old cooler that I converted into a fog chiller.
The first year, I used ice. It works ok. Every year since, I have used dry ice.
It makes the fog much thicker and lower. The only thing is, dry evaporates quickly. Make sure your cooler is very well insulated. Also, don't buy it until you are close to ready to using it. It will not last in your freezer. I bought some last year for two nights of my haunted house. When I went to get the remaining dry ice for the second night, it had all evaporated in the freezer. An expensive mistake. Most grocery stores of plenty of it available.
I have an old cooler that I converted into a fog chiller.
The first year, I used ice. It works ok. Every year since, I have used dry ice.
It makes the fog much thicker and lower. The only thing is, dry evaporates quickly. Make sure your cooler is very well insulated. Also, don't buy it until you are close to ready to using it. It will not last in your freezer. I bought some last year for two nights of my haunted house. When I went to get the remaining dry ice for the second night, it had all evaporated in the freezer. An expensive mistake. Most grocery stores of plenty of it available.
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I used dry ice , but I didn't spend that kind of money. Get prices from the people that sell it to the ice cream man.I bought it for 80 cents lb. . I used a combination of dry and wet ice and it worked great all night . I did not have to refill with ice. I'm in S. Fl. so ice melts quikly down here.
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I've been thinking about this very thing. I made some Vortex style fog coolers last year out of the Igloo cube coolers. They worked well but the ice seemed to melt very quickly and also made somewhat of a wet mess. I was thinking of dropping the chillers for all the fog machines except the one that's going to lay a low fog bank in my garage haunted house. I was thinking of using dry ice to allow it to run longer and also not have to deal with all the meltwater.
I'd read before that dry ice over water ice made a big difference any hauntcrazy's comments seem to bear that out. Anyone else have any experience with this method?
I'd read before that dry ice over water ice made a big difference any hauntcrazy's comments seem to bear that out. Anyone else have any experience with this method?
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I love Dry Ice. My local Fred Meyer has it for sale all year round at 99¢ a pound. I don't think it's all that good for chilling fog, but I love putting chips of dry ice into the cups of hot cider I give out. And it's loads of fun having bubbling apothecary jars and such.
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I have used dry ice in my fog chillers and it definately works better than 'water' ice BUT...you really need a ton of it and it only lasts a little while in your freezer and on halloween most places are usually out of it. I would definately try to get some but don't bank on it.
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Yes, the mix of dry and wet ice works well. I have used the combo in two chillers every year, and usually use 10 lbs of dry ice per chiller. I place the chunks of dry ice on top of the cubes. It really minimizes the melting of the cubes.
BTW, storing dry ice in a freezer will sublimate it very quickly. It also tends to shut off your refrigerator, since the thermostat thinks its really cold in there. The fans will stay on, though, and the air circulation is what evaporates the CO2. Just use a well-insulated ice chest for storage.
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Isn't that dangerous to put it into people's drinking cups?
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It can be, you have to use good judgement. I serve hot cider. Believe me, it's hot. I have an old coffee caraf that keeps it piping hot.
When I say I put dry ice into the cup of cider, I am putting a dime-sized sliver of dry ice into 6-8 ounces of hot cider. The dry ice disolves almost instantly, but bubble like crazy for the first 5-10 seconds.
Remember with dry ice, the hotter the liquid, the more immediate and dramatic the reaction.
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I may try dry ice this year. I never figured out a convenient way to catch/divert runoff water from my chiller last year.
Like in my thread i posted earlier, we converted a minifridge into a chiller. we have it on the coldest setting possible which basically turns it into a freezer. we measured and it was about 2 degrees f. it works great and with no matienence. the fog comes out and stays down until we want it to go up.
Wiz
Wiz
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I use dry ice for years and eyars now, and pay .60 cents a pound.
It works great has less mess, and makes the fog thicker and lower/longer hanging. I never have to wet the lawn, but may try this year.
NEVER store dry ice in your freezer folks!
It sublimates, off-gassing CO2.
This process is far colder than your freezer and will stop the freezer from actually running as the thermostat is not being triggered.
If you have a cat or small dog or creepy crawler kiddy on the floor when you open the freezer door, you could also knock them out from lack of oxygen, sad but true.
It is best to store dry ice wrapper in newspaper, in a long chill cooler, covered with 4-6" of foam. The cooler keeps the CO2 in the storage vessel, slowing the sublimation process (part of trying to reach equalibrium).
We demonstrated at GLFF the past 5 years the difference between fog from ice and dry ice.
It is a a drastic difference of quality of fog.
We also demonstrated the difference between run of the mill cheap fog jiuce, some "branded" fog juice, and Froggys - Froggys wins hands down, 400 people at GLFF got to check it out first hand.
IMO ZFroggys freezin, with dry ice, absolutely rocks.
It works great has less mess, and makes the fog thicker and lower/longer hanging. I never have to wet the lawn, but may try this year.
NEVER store dry ice in your freezer folks!
It sublimates, off-gassing CO2.
This process is far colder than your freezer and will stop the freezer from actually running as the thermostat is not being triggered.
If you have a cat or small dog or creepy crawler kiddy on the floor when you open the freezer door, you could also knock them out from lack of oxygen, sad but true.
It is best to store dry ice wrapper in newspaper, in a long chill cooler, covered with 4-6" of foam. The cooler keeps the CO2 in the storage vessel, slowing the sublimation process (part of trying to reach equalibrium).
We demonstrated at GLFF the past 5 years the difference between fog from ice and dry ice.
It is a a drastic difference of quality of fog.
We also demonstrated the difference between run of the mill cheap fog jiuce, some "branded" fog juice, and Froggys - Froggys wins hands down, 400 people at GLFF got to check it out first hand.
IMO ZFroggys freezin, with dry ice, absolutely rocks.
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