FIVE TONS A DAY.

What a “5-ton machine” actually means

Tube ice machines are rated by weight of ice per 24 hours. Five tons is 5,000 kg. A 10-pound bag is 4.5 kg, so the TV50’s rated output is a little over 1,100 bags a day. That is where the “1,000+ bags a day” on our order form comes from, and it is why the form shows you how much of a day’s production is still free before you book.

The rating is set at a test condition, in CBFI’s case 32 °C air and 20 °C water. Kingston runs hotter than that on a July afternoon, and warmer water takes longer to freeze, so real output moves with the weather. We plan around the rating, not above it, which is the honest way to promise a Friday delivery.

How it makes tube ice

Water is pumped up through a bank of vertical stainless-steel tubes inside the evaporator tower. Refrigerant chills the tubes from the outside, so ice forms on the tube walls from the outside in, leaving the hollow centre that gives tube ice its shape. When the wall reaches thickness, the cycle reverses for a moment to release the ice, and a rotating cutter slices the columns into short cylinders that drop into the ice bin. Then the cycle starts again, unattended, controlled by a PLC with a touch screen.

Because the water is frozen slowly against a cold wall rather than flash-frozen, the ice is dense and clear. That is why it outlasts cube ice in a cooler and why it can go straight into a drink. The water it starts from matters too, which is why ours is reverse-osmosis purified before it reaches the machine.

The spec sheet, translated

These are CBFI’s published figures for the TV50. The compressor is the heart of it: a Bitzer 6HE-28, a German-brand semi-hermetic unit that is the standard in commercial refrigeration.

Two things on that table matter to you as a customer. The stainless-steel ice path means nothing but steel touches the ice from water inlet to bin. And the automation means the machine runs through the night, so the morning’s stock is made before the first truck leaves.

Why five tons, and not two or twenty

CBFI publishes a capacity guide for ice businesses, and it maps neatly onto Kingston. One- to three-ton machines are for a single shop selling loose ice locally. Fifteen tons and up is a regional plant with trucks and a fully automatic bagging line. The five-to-ten-ton band is what they call a small ice factory: enough to supply several communities’ worth of bars, restaurants and beverage wholesalers, run by a team of two to four with semi-automatic bagging, on a plant floor of 100 to 150 square metres.

That is us. A downtown site, a small crew, and customers who need 50 to 500 bags at a time rather than a truckload. CBFI also recommends a water-treatment system for this size of plant, which we took further with reverse osmosis, and warns that electricity is 30 to 50 percent of the running cost of any ice plant. Anyone who has paid a JPS bill will believe that.

What it means for your order

• Same-day and next-day orders are realistic. A thousand bags a day covers a busy Friday of bars, a fete and a couple of bin rentals with room to spare.
• Big events need a date, not a phone call. A 500-bag order takes half a day of production. Book it on the order form and the capacity for that date is held for you.
• Consistent ice. Every bag comes off the same machine, from the same purified water, cut to the same size. What you get at a wedding is what you get at the bar.
• Room to grow. CBFI machines are built as skids that can be added to. When Kingston asks for more than five tons, the answer is a second skid, not a new plant.

Come see it

The plant, the wholesale depot and the pickup counter are all at 26 Hanover Street. If you run a bar or plan events and want to see where your ice comes from, WhatsApp us and come by on a weekday morning while the machine is running.