Dry Ice to cool cold plate/jockey box

[QuackerBacker]

Good day,

I cannot find an answer to this question with any search done.

I am building a jockey box with a cold plate. Is it possible to use Dry Ice instead of Wet Ice to cool the cold plate? The benefits of Dry Ice would be avoiding drainage and Ice Bridging around the plate. I would think that direct contact with the plate and Dry Ice would need to be avoided to keep the plate from becoming too cold, but if properly insulated above/below the plate, it would maintain a constant cold temperature in the cooler.

The cooler would need to be vented to avoid CO2 build up, but that is pretty simple.

Any thoughts?

Regards.

[cubby_swans]

yeah if you have any contact with the cooling plate and the dry ice, consider your beer frozen. Dry ice is like negative 80-100F.

The whole purpose of the cooling plate in a jockey box is that it is in contact with cold liquid. Liquid is a much better conducter than air. So the cold transfers to the beer (or more appropriately the heat transfers out of the beer) quickly. If you put a can of beer in the freezer, it takes 30 or so minutes to cool down. If you put it in a bucket of ice water, it cools down in less than 10 minutes.

So, if you put dry ice in the cooler, with something like a layer of cardboard to prevent the cold plate touching the dry ice, then the transfer of heat from the cold plate would be taking place in the 'air' in the jockey box. It would be an interesting experiment, but I THINK the result will be that if you are pouring beer at rates expected from a jockey box (often) that the beer simply would not cool enough. And then, if you are not pouring beer often, say there's some how a 15 or 20 minute break between pours (total guess here, maybe it's 2 minutes or 30), if that beer sits in that cooling plate long enough in temperatures that low, it will freeze. So in order for this to work, I think you would have to find the correct rate of pour to get cold beers without it freezing. I could be wrong, but this sounds right in my twisted head. I would try it once, if you have cheap access to dry ice. And by all means, please let us know if you do this.

[xscash]

i have frozen my cold plate but putting ice before filling the plate with beer, learned to fill the cold plate first. then in a rush to cool the plate i froze it by simply pouring salt over regular ice. if the ice bath is too cold you will freeze your beer, this is a pita to un freeze. i used a blow torch, learing experience. its made to work one way....i say, stick to what works.