Sorta water related…. Ice Ice Baby..

[Mdragger88]

Anybody here know anything about ice machines?
Particularly keeping them sanitary…
This may be a long shot but
We recently aquired an old commercial one. Initially we cleaned it well with bleach & then my husband put this stick thing in the tray that’s supposed to keep it sanitary.
We do not eat the ice but it would be nice to know we could. It’s just for beer coolers at the moment. I am having a hard time trusting the little “set it & forget it” stick thingy as I tried to look up its msds/ingredients & returned nada. I have a pile of them & i am supposed to replace it periodically which i have done on schedule.
So, basically I have no idea how it works other than it doesn’t contain bleach but some magical unknown ingredients.
I don’t buy it…
Maybe I am jaded from the knowledge I have gained here but until I have more info We definitely ain’t eating the ice !

Is there something I can clean the tray/ grids with without having to dump the entire ice bin because it’s been “contaminated”?
There are various products on amazon but they are just as mysterious as the stick thingy. They all kind of read like the frog but for ice machines
At least i can find the msds for the frog products!
I need cold hard facts & chemical names.
I have access to chlorhexidine & quaternary disinfectants as well as bleach obviously.
I’m not opposed to buying a special product if i know what it contains- it seems like its a trade secret though
There’s a coating on the grids that could accidentally be removed with wrong chemical so I don’t just wanna go nuclear on it.
I feel like it should be simple but apparently most with commercial grade ice machines pay someone to clean them or maybe they just don’t clean them?

 

[Turbo1Ton]

I have a commercial Scotsman ice maker that I use at my home. I descale every 6 months and sanitize every 3. I still get nasties showing up after several weeks.

My wife used to be a bartender and server. The restaurant she worked for they would clean their ice machines weekly. Fully dumped and sanitized. Every Sunday evening. After seeing what shows up on mine after a few months, I am glad they are that diligent about it.

I hate to be a pessimist but I'm not sure anything other than being diligent about cleaning and a good sanitizing would really work.

--Jeff

 

[Turbo1Ton]

Forgot to mention, the sanitizing solution that the restaurant used, and what I use, is just bleach water.

--Jeff

 

[Mdragger88]

I think i have most of my plan then .
Bag the ice to empty the machine (we bought a separate freezer for this purpose) & proceed to cleansing. Do u spray the bleach mix on the grids? What ratio? Maybe 10%?
Do u use the mystical stick things?

 

[Turbo1Ton]

Good plan on bagging the ice. My machine is only a 26#/day machine, so I throw mine in a normal size cooler and use it up while the machine recovers.

Your machine should have instruction on the method for sanitizing. Might search the manufacturer's website for a manual, or contact them directly. Should be readily available, especially if it's a commercial machine. I would suspect there may be a label on the machine as well. Mine has one. But yours may be worn off if it lived a commercial life.

I don't know the percentage. My machine instructions say 1 oz of household bleach per 2 gal of water. Doesn't give a bleach strength. I usually just use my pool chlorine, so I am likely using more potent stuff than they intend.

Mine, I wipe everything down real well, pour a bit (2 qts) of the sanitizer solution over the tray, and then run a cleaning cycle with the sanitizer. Then run another cycle with just water, before starting the ice cycle. It's all part of the machine controls. Once you put it into 'clean' mode, then I just follow the instructions.

Never heard of the mystical stick things. To be fair, I didn't look anything up either. I might have tried them had I known about them. But sounds like they may not be all they are made out to be.

--Jeff

 

[Mdragger88]

I assume the sticks are some kind of algeacide.
They came with the machine- it is a super old ice-o-matic & the boxes for the sticks look super old too.
There’s not alot of labels left on the machine.
It sat unused at my husband’s shop for a long time.
I’m sure it probably came off a job site that was demo’d like a hospital or jail.
We don’t have hard water (about 25ch) so the whole descaling thing is probably not necessary super often. I will definitely try the bleach cycle. The tray looks suspicious now even though I cleaned it not that long ago. Where the water is is clean, it just the surrounding areas past the waterline.
It has a pretty large capacity.
Us & several friends threw in to buy it for a couple hundred bucks so no one had to buy bagged ice every day anymore. It has already paid for itself. My house is in a central location (nearest the beer store) so we put it in our shop & everyone just comes by to fill their coolers.

 

[Turbo1Ton]

Found their website. Here is a link to their service/support info... ICE-O-MATIC | Service & Support

Also, check out YouTube. It is usually a great resource for videos of disassembly and cleaning things.

Great idea on the communal ice. I've got a buddy that picked one up when his sons were in school and they were going to wrestling tournaments all the time. They would use it to fill coolers every weekend. They really are handy things to have around.

--Jeff

 

[Mdragger88]

It really has come in handy this deer season! We just processed 4 hogs the other day as well & it’s nice to have endless ice that u don’t have to pay $2/$3 a bag for.