Well, that didn't work

I have a second small IC (25 foot of 3/8" copper). I've used it a couple of times to try and prechill the water heading into the main IC by putting bags of ice into a cooler. Instead of spending $ on ice from the convenience store I got a small bucket, put in the chiller, filled it w/ water and placed in the the freezer of the fridge I just got to ferment in.

Well, either there was still some water left in the chiller from last time and it created a blockage or the water froze as it moved through the chiller. I have no idea which. I blew the water out of the chiller with a compressor after I got the ice off it. I'll have to give it another try.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA....believe me I am laughing WITH you!!!!!! I more or less did the same thing!!!!! Thought I was going to out-smart the system and got noting flowing through my IC!!!!!!!!

Most likely the water froze in the tubing, a typical freezer is around 0F. Since you have the space, I'd just freeze a bunch of 2L bottles of water and float them along with the pre-chiller in the bucket.

Note: I've had the soda water line in my kegger freeze on several occasions. It happens after swapping tanks and not being careful where the line goes. If it touches the inside of the freezer, it freezes.

That has got to be my most used line ever:

"Well, that didn't work ...."

You could run vodka through the line before freezing it. It should take out the water and leave only unfreezable booze. You might need to leave some in though to make sure it doesn't evaporate off and leave you with freezable water. Then you can take an icy cold shot or two before executing your plan.