Putting aside for now, the fact that making crystal clear ice requires specially filtered water that is very carefully and slowly frozen with fancy equipment.
The real question is why does anyone think this is what they need in life. They only people I have seen that insist on such things are whisk(e)y snobs that drink their whisk(e)y on the rocks. They claim that cloudy ice has impurities in it that affects the flavor of the drink.
While technically they are maybe correct, my reply is-- “Shut up and drink your whisk(e)y neat like God and the Irish meant it to be consumed. The water is already in it.”
Noe that the water can just be tap, and the equipment isn’t super fancy. If the water looks clear, you can make clear ice from it.
It’s called directional freezing, you stick water in freezer insulated on all sides so that it freezes from the top down instead of outside in.
If you have larger ice, you’ll see the white stuff is in the middle, the last area to freeze. Directional freezing causes that to be at an end instead of in the center, and you either pull out the ice before the end freezes, ideally, or cut off the end.
I have an ice mold that doess this and it provides break off points to break the clear ice off the unclear ice.
It does take a while though and the bulky insulation takes a lot of room in the freezer.
I don’t know, I’ve also heard that a few drops of water “opens up” the whiskey. My dad was an alcoholic who loved whiskey. He would order it with a few drops of water. Ice would do the same thing.
I was recently in a pub which had water bottles from the different regions of Scotland, so you could add drops of the same water it was made from.
Also, a pipette to exactly measure the amount of water added. It was excellent.
Not such fancy equipment. I used to make it in a lunchbox cooler with our very hard tap water; that eventually cracked but I have been rocking one of these for a decade now.
https://www.clearlyfrozen.com/
All you need is directional freezing. My ice comes out crystal clear in big ol’ blocks like that.
To be fair - I would charge $5 a tray too. It takes a day & a half and space in my freezer. But it is an easy, cheap, and fun hobby
They only people I have seen that insist on such things are whisk(e)y snobs that drink their whisk(e)y on the rocks.
But then these cooled-down granite cubes are better because they don’t dilute the liquor.
BTW why drink Americans their Whisky with ice? I’ve never seen that in Scotland.
Right‽
Well it looks nice too so if you host a party I get it
That’s interesting. I popped into this thread to help figure out why some of my ice was extra clear.
I think this batch froze slowly. Thanks
He shops at Aldi
He buys $5 ice.
Who is this person? Is he the same guy spending thousands on a free game?
Here in Europe you’d see expensive SUVs, like Porsches and Range Rovers, parked outside the Aldi all the time. Lot’s of rich people are penny pinchers especially old money who inherited their money. They would probably buy these ice cubes if they have to impress their friends with their Japanese whiskey that they only drink when guests are at their home.
This is an impulse buy
This is the name of a place in the Netherlands, I tried to Google these cubes but no luck, I’m very curious.
It is also the place Brooklyn is named after
Ecosia seems to have done better: this appears to be a bit from “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt”, a Netflix show.
I wouldn’t be surprised if this made a real debut
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I must be stupid or something but if they were ice cubes wouldn’t they melt before you get home
When you buy Popsicles, do they melt before they get home?
Imagine all the AI prompts you could buy for $5!
Secret recipe!
I love how that article fails to provide any actual pictures of clear ice. and the only picture they do include was made in the fancy directional tray and absolutely has non-mineral turbulance :)
For that price I can get a giant bag at the supermarket… And with just a little patience I can freeze my own.
Ah, yes frozen ice
Why don’t they just put these things into the ocean and solve global warming?
SimpsonsFuturama did itONCE AND FOR ALL!!
Bad news, everybody!
if i saw these i’d leave them in the bread section
Why would I buy frozen ice cubes? I have no time to microwave, I’d rather buy fresh ones
You need to try the grass fed free range ice cubes.
I have fresh ice cubes every day, so I literally had a tap of the stuff installed in my kitchen.
What the fuck… My co worker put a video of this… On snap like 11 hours ago from Aldi’s. Like, this could be a screen grab of it.
They’re 4 square cubes of clear ice and Aldi wants like $5 for them.
Bro, I’ll mail you 4 for $4. You just freeze it again once it shows up. HMU if interested.
Do you provide the square mold for refreezing, or do I need to purchase that separately?
These work so much better than the unfrozen ice cubes they sold last week.
If you are into fancy looking cocktails this product makes sense. Making clear ice cubes at home is not easy.
If you are into making fancy cocktails then you can get into making fancy ice
You can make these arguments about literally any prepackaged product. I’m not defending this ice, but come on. You can make anything yourself, so long as you have the equipment, time, and money. Paying for someone else to have done it for you is about convenience, and is worth whatever someone is willing to pay for it.
Almost done making my ISS, shouldn’t be too many leaks when I’m done with it. I’m using the expensive duct tape after all.
SMH my head, of course you should be making the duct tape yourself 🙂↔️
If you’re into making fancy ice, then you can get into making your own purified water using complete combustion. If you’re into making purified water with complete combustion then can get into making your own hydrogen, carbon, and oxygen. If you’re into making your own hydrogen, carbon, and oxygen then you can get into making your own universe.
I think I did it wrong, I ended up with an apple pie.
Shit, what do I do now? I think I’ve just become God of my own pocket universe.
Edit: I watched The magicians once, but most of what they did didn’t seem to work out.
I have a very well stocked home bar and enjoy making fancy cocktails. My tiny ass freezer barely has room for the 5lb bag of ice I keep in there, let alone space for a fuckin mini cooler to make clear ice in. I also lack prep space to carve ice in my kitchen. You can make fancy drinks without fancy ice. It’ll still taste the sam, it just won’t look as pretty in the glass
One step at a time
Yes… First step buy fancy ice maker that freezes ice in one direction, second step make fancy ice, third step put it in the glass, fourth step pour whiskey on it
these arent occult secrets that take years of study and meditation
Worth noting that the fancy ice maker is just like a 30 dollar ice tray, with insulation and silicone mold.
It does take a long time to make a little ice compared to normal freezing.
There’s even a market for small scale, at home ice makers like this. They’re pricey certainly but not as stupid as paying $5 for ICE.
A bartender I worked with made his in a little igloo cooler, of course then you one big block that you have to cut into functionally-sized cubes. But he would also do cool shit like suspend pine needles into it the block so each cube had a little sprig coming out of it after they were frozen and cut.
You just need to keep the water agitated as it freezes to prevent bubbles forming in it, and they sell machines specifically for this that would pay for themselves in no time over buying pre-made fancy ice cubes. They even have ones that make spheres.
you can also freeze the ice in an insulated container with no lid. that makes air bubbles and impurities collect at the bottom, after which you can cut that part off.
Or be lazy and put that side on the bottom of the glass.
You are the only person in the thread to get this right. Nobody else actually has done it and it shows.
This is overly complicated.
The practical answer is directional freezing. Put the mold for the thing you want to be clear in a small cooler (or buy an insulated mold thing), be sure there is a hole in the bottom, fill it with water and put it in your deep freezer. Voilà clear ice for whatever purpose.
You don’t need to agitate it or boil it or use special water, just use tap water and the right set up and it works fine.
You don’t need to agitate it or boil it or use special water, just use physics and you’re all set.
Each of those things uses physics.
Isn’t this the reason for using hot water to make ice?
That may help slightly, as it lowers the water’s ability to hold dissolved gasses. So boiling it beforehand will force out a lot of the gas that would have become air bubbles. But it’s not perfect, and results vary a lot. There are two main ways to get clear ice:
- Keep it moving while it freezes, so the air bubbles can escape
- Insulate it so it only freezes from one direction.
Basically, the air bubbles cause foggy ice. And air bubbles tend to get trapped because water freezes from the outside (where the cold air is touching it) first. This forms a hard shell, which then traps the gas and causes foggy ice. By agitating the water, you ensure that it doesn’t start freezing until all of the water is ready to freeze. It prevents the shell from forming first, meaning gas can escape the center of the cubes as it freezes.
For the second method, by insulating it, you ensure that the water freezes from one direction. For instance, if you fill an ice chest/cooler with water (effectively insulating it from the sides and bottom) and throw it in the freezer without a lid, the top half of the cooler will be clear ice and the bottom will be foggy. Because as the top freezes, the gas is able to escape down towards the bottom of the cooler. So your ice doesn’t get murky until the gas runs out of room at the bottom of the cooler.
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That does exactly what I said in the second method. It insulates everything except the top, so it freezes in one direction. So I guess thanks for proving my point?
You win that’s right. I read the first part and checked out because it’s Rube Goldberg clear ice. Directional freezing is the way and everything else is stupid noise.
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It emphatically is easy… But a clear ice mold for the less than 5 dollars and make unlimited cubes.
You obviously haven’t actually tried it, else you wouldn’t write this, so why talk?
Isn’t it as simple as just boiling the water and then freezing it?
No. You need to freeze in in an insulated container with only one side exposed so it all freezes in 1 direction. Impurities get pushed to the opposite side and you are left with clear ice.
There are so many dumb as shit comments in this thread about agitating and boiling and purifying water and you’ve got the actual answer, thank you.
You’ve really got your knickers in a twist over this. Is this something deeply personal to you?
Calling people “dumb as shit” cause they have different methods than yours is wildly arrogant, and doing is so incessantly touches on mental illness.
This is the answer. Directional freezing creates clear ice.
why is it hard to make?
It’s not hard, it just isn’t particularly efficient or convenient. The standard method is to use a bunch more water that you want to become actual ice, make it in large insulated blocks, then chop at the end. I have a little insulated tray that makes two at a time. They come out pretty clear, but at least half the water used is essentially waste to create a clear cube. The top half being still ice, but full of little bubbles, not clear. If I was throwing a party, as people are want to do on summer weekends, and I wanted many many big clear ice cubes then I’d seriously consider buying a box load.
thanks for this explanation too
To get clear ice you have to freeze it slowly, basically just at the freezing mark (32°C/0°F) which is a warmer temperature than most people have their freezer set to. It’s not difficult in an objective sense, it just requires rubbing a couple of brain cells together and a tiny morsel of effort which is apparently more than a lot of people can muster.
alr ty, i was too lazy to search the question and i was not bothered to use AI for this.
You don’t need a separate production chain made specifically for your homemade drink to look fancy on your auntie’s photo!
Believe it or not some of us like pretty things to enjoy for ourselves, not to put on social media.
And big clear ice melts more consistently in a way that better maintains coldness longer while maintaining a slower pace of dilution. It does make a difference to flavor.
I’d view it as handy thermal mass, useful when shipping other frozen items.
That box is a bit easier to stack than a bag of ice like most other grocery stores have.
And much more expensive.
I’d drink pisswater ice before I’d pay 5$ for 4 fucking ice cubes.
I remember when buying bottled water seemed ridiculous.
Until you need like 1000L at once or 10kg of ice.
Go find place in your freezer to cool down 10L of clear ice.
Spoiler: This won’t be only 10L of space you will need.But they don’t stock 10l of them. 10l of ice has always been available in like the freezer in the front of a store. For parties and shit.
It still does to me
When it’s 2 for $1 or something it’s fine if you’re out. This crap where they filter it pure then add back in the same shit shit took out and charge you $25 is insane.
My store also have Unfrozen Ice Cubes
Americans buy water in plastic jugs??
Not always. Sometimes we buy them in little plastic bottles in packs of 24-48!
Some towns still get water to their houses through leaded pipes. This is the most economical way for those people to get water. Others don’t trust their water even if it technically meets EPA standards. And some places just have water that tastes really bad.
Most of America gets water from a tap and maybe filters it.
Others don’t trust their water even if it technically meets EPA standards.
Less “don’t trust the water”, more “don’t trust the EPA”. And under this administration, who can blame them.
It’s a shame that our options are “Lead and PFAS” or “Microplastics and probably PFAS” (not to mention the plastic waste itself and the wild inefficiencies of transporting water by fucking truck of all things)
What, you Europers just drink it from the ground? Where the dirt is? Like savages?
Water? Like from the toilet?
Atleast its not like from the toilet.
It still ain’t got dem electrolytes.
We use bottles… But yes, generally you can just drink your tap water.
I’m from Austria. My tap water comes from the mountains. ⛰️ 💦
Sometimes it’s safer that way https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flint_water_crisis
Only artisanal wooden buckets for you then?
You must get your water out the toilet
Have you never heard of such a concept? Some people do it because they are going camping or in case the water goes out in a storm or rarely if the water from the tap is of dubious quality.
I grew up in a farmhouse that had contaminated well water. We got all of our drinking and cooking water from jugs. It fucking sucked because it was inconvenient as hell
I mean, yeah of course, but preparing camping supplies and going for groceries seems not quite the same thing.
As a European, being longer than maybe a weekend cut off from external help (or the general concept of a natural disaster as a possible occurence) is not really a thing. Worst that happens is some flooding near rivers and the coast on rare occasions.
Dubious water quality is also not a problem people have to deal with on a frequent basis, at least in germany. You can give your landlord major shit if you don’t have access to proper, clean water. (If you own your place it is your problem of course)
What I’m getting at is these large plastic jugs of water are not just purchased routinely by the majority of the population when grocery shopping.
Mine comes from 347 feet below my yard.
I happen to live where the tap water is excellent. It’s from ancient, underground aquifers. The only issue is a little bit high arsenic, which I filter out, but that’s not really necessary, I’ve been told.
It’s not sustainable, eventually the water will run out, but for now, it’s pretty good.
So, no, this American doesn’t buy water in plastic jugs.
Wait, there’s arsenic and the customer has to filter it out? What do the water company do then?
Mine expects me to filter literal shit out. More months than not we get boil orders for “high fecal coloform bacteria”. And the notices come weeks after the testing; so that always makes you feel good.
They probably have a well, this no water company. My water is crazy high in iron and manganese, our softener needs to be replaced and a new filter needs to be installed before we can drink from our well. Pain in the ass but at least all our grey water is cost of pumping electricity only.
Did you miss the part where the mention it was a safe level?
I need to get a bunch of “fresh, never frozen” stickers to put on bagged ice.
“Vegan” stickers on a bag of ice would be silly
Certified gluten free!
