For me the amount of time depends on whether the snake is actually interested…if it is lazily watching the prey then I'll give it like 20 minutes. And if the snake is completely avoiding the prey it gets 10 minutes.
Live freezing is pretty harsh..why not at least whack the rat against the wall before hand? And I'm pretty sure CO2 boxes are "nicer" in that sense than being stuck in a box and slowly freezing.