Alcademics

Category: ice

  • Does Hot Water Make Clearer Ice Than Cold?

    I have been doing experiments at home to try to get the clearest ice possible. So far my experiments have compared:

    I have not yet had success. Will the third time be the charm?

    (*Update – You might want to skip to this index page to see conclusions reached after many experiments.)

    This time I compared hot water to cold water to see which would freeze more clearly. The theory is that hot/boiled water has less trapped oxygen in it, and thus will freeze clearly because there will be less air bubbles.

    As I previously saw no significant difference in ice clarity between using tap vs. distilled water, I began with unfiltered tap water. One batch of water I left at room temperature. The other batch I boiled for several minutes. I put them in the freezer while the hot water was still hot. Here is what happened on three separate attempts:

    Hotvscold123

    The cold water actually looks a little more clear, but this could be because when the center of the hot water finally froze, it burst. I can't guess why this is because it's not like I have a super refrigerator that freezes ice in ten minutes.

    Another theory about why the first experiment failed is that as the hot water cools down in the freezer, it reabsorbs oxygen and acts just like cold water. To test this, I repeated the experiment, this time covering both plastic tubs with the lid before freezing.

     

    Coveredhotcold12

    Here the hot water ice looks slightly more clear than it did when it was uncovered. However, I'm not seeing a significant difference in hot vs. cold water, though the covered hot water may be just slightly clearer.

    Conclusion: Hot water does not freeze significantly clearer than cold water, even when the vessel is covered to reduce oxygen re-absorption. 

    In all of these ice experiments so far, the major cloudy factor in the ice has not been cloudiness throughout the ice, but a cloudy spot in the center of the ice. This spot is assumed to form due to the order in which ice freezes, from the outside-in. The oxygen migrates to the liquid part (in the middle) until it is the last part to freeze.  Kold-Draft ice machines produce wonderfully clear ice cubes in part because they freeze the ice in layers- water is sprayed in layers from the top down, so that oxygen is never trapped.

    Is there a way to freeze ice in a home freezer similar to a Kold Draft machine? Can we manipulate the way water freezes or change the shape of the container? Can we vibrate the container or stir the water so that the surface stays liquid and freezes last?

    We shall see, in future ice experiments.

    *Update – For a solution to the ice problem, see this post for a method that works. Also, an index of all of the ice experiments on Alcademics can be found here.

  • Does Distilled Water Freeze Clearer than Tap Water?

    In my last set of icesperiments, I froze, melted, and refroze (tap) water to see if it became clearer on successive refreezings. It did not.

    This time I compared tap water with distilled water to see if one would freeze more clearly than the other. I froze it, then melted and refroze it four more times. Though neither froze super clear, there were differences:

    DistilledVsTap 

    The tap water seems to freeze either clear or not clear, where the distilled water freezes in more of a bubble starburst. But in the end I'd say there's not enough of a difference to matter. 

    After the break, a closeup of the distilled vs. tap ice.

    The icesperiments shall continue!

    An index of ice experiments on Alcademics can be found here.

     

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  • Does Refreezing Ice Make it Clearer?

    I am trying a series of experiments to find the best and most practical way to make clear ice in my home freezer. Future experiments include distilled vs. tap water, boiled vs. not boiled, hot vs. cold water, different shapes of containers, etc.

    For this experiment, I started with plain tap water. I then froze it, took a picture, let it thaw back into liquid, and repeated the process. 

    The test was to see if freezing and refreezing tap water would make it become clearer on successive freezings (due to the release of oxygen trapped in the ice) each time. 

    So did it become clearer? The short answer is No. The long and visual answer is below.

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  • Moldy Ice

    I got these alphabet ice molds on Amazon.

    Iceicebaby500

    They're fun because I can send love notes to myself in my cocktails, and leave subliminal messages in other peoples' drinks.

    The item description says they can also be used in the oven and for things like butter molds and chocolate, but that sounds hard. I'll stick to ice. because I'm cool like that. Get them here.

    An index of all of the ice experiments on Alcademics can be found here.

  • Easter Ice

    CleareggssYou know how I made those cool ice balls before? Well, they really come out looking more like eggs, which inspired me to make some ice eggs for Easter cocktails. Again I just used water balloons filled at the sink.

    Note: I experimented with water to see if the powder inside the balloons was changing the taste of the drinks. It does a little, but this can be softened. Since I have to fill these from the tap, the influence of tap (versus filtered) water is present. But I noticed a big improvement when I rinsed these balloons after freezing to remove a slight plasticy taste. So: rinse before filling, then rinse the outside of the ice after freezing.

    Then I got to thinking: clear eggs are boring. This is Easter, after all, and the only thing good about Easter is decorating Easter eggs. (Revision: the brunch drinks are another good thing.)

    So after filling my balloons with water but before tying them, I added a drop of food coloring to the balloon stem then tied them up. The results are awesome!

    Coloredeggss
     Glasseggsangles Coloredeggsglasss
     
    An index of all of the ice experiments on Alcademics can be found here.

  • Ice As Art

    Gawking at ice isn't just for cocktail nerds anymore!

    BoilerStrachanIce1

    I saw this art review in New York Magazine of an exhibit at Boiler in Williamsburg.

    In 2004, Strachan cut a 2.5-ton block of ice from the Alaskan Arctic, shipped it to the Bahamas (where he’s from), and exhibited it there in a hermetically sealed refrigerated room powered by solar cells. Pictures suggest that it was interesting there; now, installed in a former boiler room, it’s like hell freezing over. Far above the case two fans blow two flags: one at the current wind speed of Mount McKinley, the other at the Bahamas’ Nassau airport’s. The piece looks like a weird cryogenic chamber and touches on environmentalism, earthworks, entropy, autobiography, and race (making an oblique reference to Matthew Henson, a black explorer who was with Robert Peary at the North Pole).

     

    It seems kind of ironic to ship arctic ice to the Bahamas and then Williamsburg to show the plight of global warming, but whatever.

    I can't help looking at the picture thinking it would make a cool feature at a bar. Instead of the walk-in vodka freezer, you have a see-through ice room with someone in there hacking up a giant ice block for cocktails. For more ice ideas, see the Index of Ice Experiements on Alcademics here. 

  • Ice Balls Made Easy

    While everyone in their right mind would love one of those fancy giant ice ball makers that go for $1300 and up, they're not the most practical solution for the home mixologist.

    [Note: since this post went up we've come up with lots of great solutions for clear ice balls and other ice technology. Check out the Ice Experiments Index Page.]

    So I used my superbrain and did all sorts of math with equations and integrals and all, and came up with a way to make these at home:

    Orbsinbowl
    Threecubesshortglass Iceinglass
    (glasses by CB2, by the way)

    To see my highly scientific secret method, continue reading after the jump…

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  • The History of the Ice Trade

    Frozenwatertrade I recently finished reading The Frozen Water Trade: A True Story by Gavin Weightman. The book is the story of Frederic Tudor, whose wacky idea of cutting ice in winter from ponds in Massachusetts and selling it to people in warmer climates in the summer turned into a 100 year industry until refrigerated ice became readily available. Tudor's ice was shipped as far as Martinique, India, San Francisco (around the tip of South America where there was plenty of ice already), New Orleans, and throughout the American South.

    Of course, my interest in the book was purely cocktail-related. The sale of ice was directly responsible for the creation of drink categories including juleps, cobblers, and smashes, and created the need for cocktail shakers as well as straws. Iced drinks became popular with Englishmen in India, but didn't catch on in England (not for lack of trying to sell it there). American cocktails stood out from English and other ones in their need for ice (as evidenced by books like Recipes of American and Other Iced Drinks), and grew in format and in number because of this ingredient.

    As we know the cocktail was an American invention and probably its first native cuisine, we can probably chalk up a lot of the credit for America's famous drinks and bartenders (pre-Prohibition) to this one guy who created a world-wide industry out of nothing but freebies- frozen lakes, sawdust to keep it cold through the summer, and room in ships' holds as ballast on trading routes.

    The book itself isn't the "page-turner" as described on the cover, nor does it delve too deeply into the discussion of the impact on cocktails, but with an understanding of what came later in American cocktail history, it's fascinating for its implications. 

    An index of all of the ice experiments on Alcademics can be found here.

  • San Francisco’s Next All-Star Bar

    I recently spoke with Erik Adkins (Slanted Door, Flora) who is the bar manager of the soon-to-open Charles Phan (Slanted Door's chef/owner) restaurant next to the Soma Grand building on Mission Street. After much wavering on the name (the code name was "Phantom" at one point, get it), they seem to have settled on Heaven's Dog. That's pretty rock and roll.

    Kolddraft-cubeAlso great is the list of bartenders who've signed on to take shifts at the place:

    The restaurant should be opening in early January. Adkins tells me that they'll keep the drink menu at a reasonable 12 or so drinks "focusing more on execution than on unusual recipes." They'll also have an emphasis on quality ice, with a Kold Draft machine for cubes, plus a freezer dedicated just to ice that they'll use to make spears for tall drinks and chunks for some of the rocks drinks.

    Brrr, who's thirsty?

  • Nerdiest Text Message of the Week

    Kolddraft2
     SAN FRANCISCO– New bar Gitane on Claude Lane has received delivery of a Kold Draft ice machine, according to reports to the Alcademics wire service.
    —

    The saddest part about this text message is not that it was sent, but that I was excited when I read it.