Check out this post from a few years back on making ice shaped like Easter eggs.
Short answer: water balloons.
Category: ice
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The Ice King of the Internet
I was interviewed recently for a story in a magazine for the iPad/iPhone called The Magazine.
During the interview we were joking that I'm the Ice King of the Internet. The quote didn't make it into the story, but I've adopted that as an official title. Hail your new king!
In the story, writer Alison Hallet covers the history of ice in drinks, current ice machines, how bars are using big ice, and how to make big ice at home (with my cooler strategy). I get too much credit for bringing an iceberg from Newfoundland to last year's seminar at the Manhattan Cocktail Classic (that honor belongs to Wayne Curtis), but as long as my glory is increased it is for the greater good.A preview of the story is here, but you'll have to subscribe ($1.99) to get the whole thing. Or sign up for a free 7-day trial, read everything, then decide whether or not to cancel before the week is up. Looks like they have a good amount of booze coverage.
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Ice Info for New Readers
Hello new readers – The best of the ice posts are:
– How to make clear ice using a cooler
– How to make giant crystal clear ice cubes
Then some fun projects with ice are here and here and here and here.
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Making Clear Ice Using a Blast Freezer
A few weeks back I was talking to Charles Joly, beverage director of The Aviary in Chicago, about ice. (This happens a lot.) We were talking about the cooler method I use to make clear ice.
The Aviary has a Clinebell machine that makes 300 pound blocks of sexy, clear ice that they then cut up into various shapes for drinks, so they don't need to use the slow-ass cooler method, BUT they also have a blast freezer.
I'd always wondered if you could make clear ice fast using the cooler method in a blast freezer, and luckily Joly was curious as well, so he gave it a try.
He said:
The cooler was a 10qt Rubbermaid with the lid off. Time was about 13 hours at a low of -40F and on average a bit warmer than that (-30-40F), as the blast freezer was opened and closed during service.
I was surprised it didn't freeze the entire block in that time. As you can see from the side view, it was about 60% frozen with side walls and a thin top layer beginning to form.
I cracked off the soft shell from the bottom, drained off the water and knocked of the thin side walls that were holding the pool of water. The remaining block had good clarity.
I would say the clarity is relatively close- say 85% that of the clinebell.
In conclusion, he says:
For home use or a one-off event, this ice is great. For venue use, we would need a lot of coolers. The Clinebell provides our hand chipped ice spheres (large, one rock per glass) and our ice shards that go into every glass of water served.
I think the technique is awesome for the home bartender, if you're doing punch service or simply as an alternative, although much more labor intensive and lower yielding, than the Clinebell.
So yes, it works. And maybe if you don't need too much block ice and have a blast freezer with space in it this could actually be useful. Just not at The Aviary.
Thanks for the effort, Charles!
An index of all of the ice experiments on Alcademics can be found here.
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Another Way to Make Clear Ice at Home
I am honored to have as Alcademics readers people who are just as huge cocktail nerds as I am. Many take on projects that I run out of time to do, pass along better information to me, or fill me in on the science I'm missing.
Kevin Liu, who has recently started the blog Craft Cocktails at Home and also blogs at ScienceFare.org, tested a method of making clear ice that another reader left in blog comments.
In this post, he discusses the science of clear ice and two methods to make it at home.
- The Igloo Cooler method, pioneered here on Alcademics. (An index of all of the ice experiments on Alcademics can be found here.)
- The High-Temperature Freezing method, in which you let water freeze into ice at just below the freezing temperature. It's also simple, and depending on your freezer may not take up as much space.
Read the post for more info.
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Another Commercial Clear Ice Cube Tray
As you may recall, through much experimentation I figured out a way to make clear ice at home.
I later found an ice cube tray that uses the same principle (controlling direction of freezing) to make clear ice.
And now someone just pointed me to another ice cube tray that also uses the same principle (and has the same name as the last one). The Polar Ice Crystal Clear Ice Cube Tray is more compact than the other model, but it makes just one big cube at a time.
Like the other model, this is an insulated container with a tray inside. The interior tray is perforated, so all the cloudy parts of the ice are frozen beneath the perforation and you chop it off after it's frozen.
This one costs $18.99. More info is here.
An index of all of the ice experiments on Alcademics can be found here.
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A Clear Ice Ball Maker You Can Buy
One difficulty with the Igloo Cooler method of making clear ice is that you get a great big block of ice at the end and have to cut it up into usable cubes yourself. I developed an ice cube tray using plastic boxes that gets the ice into long rectangles, and that's a bit closer to ideal.
But if the desired result is round clear ice balls, we need to either produce a mold that fits inside the cooler, or else carve out ice balls afterwards.
Well, it turns out that someone produced such a mold to make clear ice balls one at a time, using the same principles as the Igloo cooler method.
Alcademics reader Todd pointed me to this ebay listing for a clear ice ball maker from Japan.
As you can see, it's an insulted tube that holds a circular ice ball mold inside of it, along with extra space below the ice ball.
The important thing to note is that the ball mold is perforated. This allows any air and impurities in the water to get pushed out of it, towards the bottom of the mold, as it freezes. In other posts here on Alcademics, we've discussed that's how you'd need to build the mold in order for it to work.
It only makes one at a time, but it's pretty cool. The only not cool thing about is is the price: It's for sale at $97.60 each!
I still kinda want one.
An index of all of the ice experiments on Alcademics can be found here.
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Modern Day Pond and Lake Ice Harvests in America
I got it into my head that I want to see a pond or lake ice harvest, despite my contempt for winter.
Commercial ice harvests changed the cocktail landscape in America in the early-mid 1800s, allowing for the creation of juleps and cobblers and the popularization of the drinking straw and the cocktail shaker.
Today there is still ice harvesting on many American lakes and ponds. As far as I can tell it's more historic reenactment more than practical, with most of the places that have an ice harvest limited to a single day of the year.
Most places bring out the old tools – the long saws and the hooks – and allow people to cut up pre-scored sections of ice. Then they float it to the collection point on the lake, grab it with a hook, and slide it on a series of ramps (or sometimes pull it with a horse or tractor) into an ice house, where the blocks of ice are stacked with layers of sawdust in between.
I was looking for one that I might visit and came up with several places, so I thought I'd share them with you in case you live nearby.
Note that I first compiled this list several years ago so it's highly likely that not all of these places are still doing ice harvests.
Modern Ice Harvests
– Tobyhanna ice harvest – Near the Steamtown National Historic Site near Scranton, Pennsylvania. They run a train to the ice harvest. A write-up on the harvest is here.
– Howell Living History Farm – in Lambertville, New Jersey. I believe the ice harvest date is January 28th. In addition to harvesting, you can make ice cream with the ice. Information from last year is here.
– Curran Homestead – Located near Bangor, Maine. The next Ice harvest is on February 11, 2012.
– Cape Pond Ice – This is not an ice harvesting location, but a modern manufactured ice house in Gloucester, Massachusetts. They offer tours.
– Thompson Ice House - Located in South Bristol, Maine, which looks pretty far out there. The ice harvest is in February but the date hasn't been announced yet.
– Hanford Mills Museum – Not far from Cooperstown or Oneonta, New York. The 2012 ice harvest is on February 4, 2012. Besides the ice harvest there are vintage cooking demonstrations and lots of food for sale.
– Brookfield Ice Harvest – In Brookfield, Vermont, a ways from Burlington. Not sure of the website or the exact date, but last year it was January 29. Call 802-276-3959 for information. Some details here. "Activities include ice cutting and ice boom demonstrations, an ice-hauling contest, a chance to try hand-made snowshoes and view ice sculpting."
- Longfellow's Wayside Inn – In Sudbury, Massachusetts. Nothing on the calendar yet, but last year they did ice harvesting.
- Old Sturbridge Village – In central Massachussetts. Had ice harvest demos in the past, I don't see any on the calendar for 2012.
- Ice Alaska – This is more of an ice carving celebration/competition near Fairbanks. The park is open February 28 – March 25, 2012. They harvest ice from an on-site pond with a more modern tool that looks like a saw on legs. I don't know if the ice harvest is demonstrated for the public or not.
I haven't seen any case where it's a public event, but some Amish people harvest ice. There are some good write-ups online.
Saranac Lake Winter Carnival in upstate New York builds an ice palace every year and cuts ice using a 1930s power saw. A good article with pictures is here. (Thanks to commenter Climber9 for the tip.) I'm not sure if the ice harvest is open to the public or not.
Thanks to Kevin Sargent for pointing out the following additional ice harvests in New Hampshire:
Muster Field Farm in North Sutton, New Hampshire, has an annual ice harvest on its calendar of events.
Squam Lakes in Holderness, New Hampshire has an annual ice harvest operated by "Rockywold-Deephaven Camps along with David White, of the White Forest Farm." I'm not sure if it's open to the public but check the link to see.
The Remick Country Doctor Museum & Farm in Tamworth Village, NH has an annual Ice Harvest & Winter Carnival.
Kline Creek Farm in Winfield, Illinois has an annual ice harvest. In 2019 it was Feb 1-3. (Thank you Holly.)
Please let me know in the comments if you find any others.
An index of all of the ice experiments on Alcademics can be found here.
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How Machine Ice Is Made
These are a few ways that ice was and is made, which I learned from the awesome book Ice: The Nature, the History, and the Uses of an Astonishing Substance
by Mariana Gosnell.
Slushie Method
The first way is just like making ice cream the old-fashioned way: snow or cold water mixed with salt can become colder than freezing. So if you put a cup full of water (or ice cream ingredients) and stir the supercooled salt/water mixture around it, the water in the cup can turn to ice.
Expansion of Gases
As vapor and expands into a large space the molecules speed up, and to do so they take heat from the surrounding environment. This is similar to how evaporation of sweat cools you off – the liquid turns to gas and expands into the air.
Early ice machines taking advantage of this property used pistons that compressed air then released the pressure. The air expansion would pull heat from its surroundings – in this case a container of salt water – and that salt water would turn a pan of water into ice.
The next generation of ice machines used other gases instead of plain air- ether and ammonia for example. They still do.
Vintage Block Making
The Ice book also described an ice block-making operation from the Millersburg Ice Company in Ohio. They use large metal pans filled with city water that are lowered into a lake of salt water cooled to 12 degrees Fahrenheit. The pans of water then freeze from the outside-in.
Into the center of each pan they put an air hose to keep the water moving. As ice likes to be a pure crystal, the ice forming first is crystal clear, leaving most of the minerals in the water trapped in the liquid center portion. Before the block of ice fully freezes, they suck out the mineraly water and replace it with more city water. They say it looks less cloudy this way, though the center core is still a bit cloudy.
Making Ice Cubes – Bag Ice Method
Some commercial ice machines make ice in the following way: Water runs across vertically-positioned, cooled plates. Ice forms on the surface. When it reaches the desired thickness, they poke it with knobs that break it up into cubes. This ice is bagged and sold.
Making Ice Cubes – Clear Method
Other ice machines make clear cubes in the following way: Regular water is sprayed upwards onto cooled plates. The plates are cooled only to 32 degrees Fahrenheit – freezing temperature. At this temperature water freezes but minerals generally do not, thus the minerals drain off while the ice that freezes is nice and clear.
Making Flaked Ice
Flaked ice is the kind you see at fish markets- smaller than cubes but less dense than crushed ice. This is made in a machine that sprays water onto a cooled, rotating drum. After just a thin layer of ice forms, the ice falls off the drum and shatters.
An index of all of the ice experiments on Alcademics can be found here.
