If you've attended a Halloween party and noticed a boiling cauldron of witch's brew, spewing a dense cloud of vapor like an overheated radiator, it's likely your host has paid a recent visit to Continental Carbonic Products Inc.

The product of this unusual Decatur business? Dry ice.

Continental Carbonic was founded by Robert O. Wiesemann Sr. and his son Robert II in Chicago in 1976. At the outset, it distributed dry ice over much of Illinois and Indiana. During the next several years, the company expanded, and by 1986 it served much of the Midwest.

That year, the company opened its first manufacturing facility in Decatur and moved its corporate office here. That brought it closer to Archer Daniels Midland Co., which offered a continuous supply of liquid carbon dioxide, the basic component of dry ice.

Twenty years later, the company is celebrating the opening of its newest manufacturing facility in Albion, Mich.

"The first deliveries of dry ice are leaving the loading dock at the Albion plant as we speak," said John Funk, president and chief operating officer, during a December interview. "We now have 470 employees, six manufacturing plants and 21 branch distribution points that serve the eastern two-thirds of the U.S."

Dry ice is used by food distributing companies to keep their meat and poultry products frozen. For this purpose, it is far superior to wet ice.

"Wet ice tends to melt more quickly," Funk explained, "and then the shippers are left to clean up the water mess. With dry ice, there is no mess to clean up."

That's because when dry ice "melts," it turns into a gas.

Carbon dioxide gas exists naturally in the environment. To make dry ice, the CO2 is pressurized and cooled to form a liquid, which is allowed to expand in an atmospheric chamber where it yields a snow-like solid and some gas. The snow then is compressed hydraulically into blocks of dry ice that begin to "melt" at minus 109 degrees Fahrenheit. The residual gas then is recycled to maximize the yield per pound of liquid carbon dioxide.

The end product is packaged in 60-pound blocks, half-inch-diameter pellets and smaller rice pellets.

"We can package the product in most any configuration the customer needs," Funk said. "We have a number of customers who prefer the pellets because they are much easier to handle."

He said the product is especially useful in beef, pork and poultry packaging businesses. It is equally effective, he said, in frozen food storage operations, airline catering, carbonated beverages and gift-food packaging.

If you buy or receive a gift of a frozen food item from the QVC network, for example, Funk said it will be packed in dry ice from Continental Carbonic.

Nonfood uses include chemical processes, dermatologic uses, blood banks and cryogenic blast cleaning, a rapidly growing segment of the business.

"We use dry ice to clean almost anything," Funk said.

The primary benefits stem from the fact the machines don't have to be torn down as they are when solvents are used.

"And the best part about the process is there is no cleanup needed," he said.

Chuck Rutherford, production manager at the Herald & Review, says the company bought a dry ice blasting machine that it uses to clean its press.

"It works very well," Rutherford said, "and the folks at Continental Carbonic were very gracious, allowing us to try out various machines until we found one to fit our needs."

Before the discovery of dry ice blast cleaning, they had to take the press apart and clean it with a solvent."Now we can clean the press without dismantling it to get to the parts we need to get to. And there is no mess to clean up."

For customers who can't justify the cost of buying a blasting machine, Continental Carbonic rents the machines by the day, week or month and provides a blast cleaning service that comes equipped with an operator.

The business is located at 3985 E. Harrison Ave. Besides selling dry ice to large and small wholesale accounts, it makes the product available to retail customers who need to keep food cold or want to make a mean-looking witch's brew.