I always thought the key to getting clear ice was to boil the water first so the oxygen goes out of solution.
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Experiments in Making Cocktail Ice
61–70 of 75 posts
Re: Experiments in Making Cocktail Ice
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
I had a very expensive old-fashioned once where the bartender chiseled a sphere of ice out of a block. It took about five minutes. The diameter was about 8cm or so. He created a very spherical sphere. I twizzled it round and round but could not detect any eccentricity. Clearance in the tumbler was even at all orientations. A carved duck might be more immediately impressive, but the sphere did blow my mind. It was a v…
Spheres have less surface area which reduce the watering down of the drink. Edit: though I would bet that’s less of a factor than the initial temperature of the ice and the liquor.
Almost all of the cooling ice provides is due to melting: the heat capacity of the ice itself (energy release due to temperature change) is much less than the latent heat of fusion (energy release due to melting).
Look at the huge jump at 0 deg C in this diagram: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9d/Heat_cap...
It takes less heat to warm ice from -100 C to 0 than it does to melt ice at 0 C to water at 0 C.
Re: Experiments in Making Cocktail Ice
#63Cocktail ice should be formed like a duck, swimming on the beverage.
Today's your lucky day. There's a guy on YouTube who has been playing around with this at home and various other shapes - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnotAvxKhPY
Re: Experiments in Making Cocktail Ice
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
Water expands when it freezes, in my head thermos is an extremely rigid structure, how do you stop it from rapturing?
Well you make sure it isnt baptized. But also as the ice freezes I believe it becomes more buoyant and that rigidity causes the ice to be lifted up when it exerts force on the thermos interior.
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Re: Experiments in Making Cocktail Ice
#65Former bartender here. Having nice cocktail ice chunks at home isn't as complex as this might make it seem. No need for a clunky box in your freezer or costly gizmos. I keep a travel-sized coffee thermos in my freezer with about 2-3 inches of water at the bottom. Takes 18-24 hours to create one chunk. If you time it right, 90% of the water freezes, and the water impurities pool at the bottom – pop out the frozen chun…
In the lab one of the cool things is to take a 100 mL pyrex tall-form (Berzelius) beaker about half full of DI water and set it on top of a little slab of dry ice which is at the bottom of a small bowl.
Then pack some crushed dry ice around the beaker and the water starts to freeze quite quickly from the outside in.
When the frozen water is about 5mm thick, remove the beaker, pour out the liquid water and return the beaker to the dry ice nest until it's quite a bit colder.
The ice in the beaker continues to shrink and can then be removed from the beaker "mold" as a shot glass made of ice.
Caution: do not handle it with bare hands, nor consume any contents at this point until it is no longer very far below 0.
Best to allow these ice glasses to "warm up" to a comfortable temperature in an ordinary freezer before use.
It will then withstand pre-chilled liquor for a number of minutes after serving.
Re: Experiments in Making Cocktail Ice
#66I’ve purchased this one[1] and it makes almost perfect cubes of ice that are very clear and melt evenly and slowly. In my cocktail glass it is so flat that the whiskey does not permeate the bottom. The result is a beautifully clear square in the center of my glass when looking at it from above. Trick is to let the ice temper for a few minutes to acclimate to the room temperature before pouring your drink over it. Oth…
The margins on that must be incredible. An ice cube tray plus some foam packing material, for $40. Didn't even bother to encase the foam in a blow-molded shell like a cooler.
I would have thought so, and that still could be true, but the knock off brands are nipping at the heels on price. Curious.
Re: Experiments in Making Cocktail Ice
#67I’ve purchased this one[1] and it makes almost perfect cubes of ice that are very clear and melt evenly and slowly. In my cocktail glass it is so flat that the whiskey does not permeate the bottom. The result is a beautifully clear square in the center of my glass when looking at it from above. Trick is to let the ice temper for a few minutes to acclimate to the room temperature before pouring your drink over it. Oth…
Unshortened link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B078ZM3F8G
Re: Experiments in Making Cocktail Ice
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well you make sure it isnt baptized. But also as the ice freezes I believe it becomes more buoyant and that rigidity causes the ice to be lifted up when it exerts force on the thermos interior.
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Where does this perception come from? HN upvotes humor all the time, the bar is just slightly higher than some other sites - which is IMHO a good thing because endless pun threads quickly become tiring.
Re: Experiments in Making Cocktail Ice
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
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Where does this perception come from? HN upvotes humor all the time, the bar is just slightly higher than some other sites - which is IMHO a good thing because endless pun threads quickly become tiring.
I see humor downvoted all the time, with occasional lecturing of how it’s not appropriate here. Not to mention the chastising you occasionally see for not using an overt sarcasm indicator (Some folks are strangely zealous about that one).
Re: Experiments in Making Cocktail Ice
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
That isn’t the issue. The problem is an ice shell initially forms, then the water inside the shell needs to expand as it freezes but it has no where to expand. This creates internal stress and micro fractures and the resulting ice crackles due to internal stress. Clear ice requires a directional freeze.
Hm. This internal stress issue you describe might be a thing, but I'm pretty sure bubbles exsolving during freezing is also a thing. Most of the times I tried and failed to make clear ice there were obvious bubble exsolution trails.
I’ve been making clear ice for a decade. Even gone as far as an aquarium bubbler and nichrome wire setups. What you think are obvious bubbles are not actually bubbles.
Just put a double walled insulated cup in the freezer. The internal stress explanation accounts for 98% of the result when you think through how the crystal growth happened.