Clear Ice

Is clear ice needed for cocktails? No. Does it make a difference? absolutely! There are about three major differences between a clear ice brick, and what ever comes out of your refrigerator freezer. First, the ice brick is going to melt far slower, causing less dilution. Second, you will have significantly less “freezer flavor” as well as flavors from your impurities. Third, its going to elevate presentation, not only will it look nice, you can also use your ice brick to float garnishes.

Step 1:

Directional freezing is the only way you get clear ice. Period. Want to fight me about boiling water to get clear ice? Scroll down to the bottom and I’ll prove otherwise.

So how does directional freezing work? You can spend 100 bucks on a fancy mold, or you can just use a cooler. First step, take the lid off and fill up the cooler, leave about 2 inches of space at the top.

Step 2:

Put the cooler in the freezer, you don’t want all the water to freeze, just about 80% of it. In my freezer this takes about 36 hours.

Step 3:

Pull the cooler out of the freezer. About 80% will be frozen, the other 20% liquid. I find letting the cooler sit for about 10 minutes helps the block slide out of the cooler.

Step 4:

After a bit of waiting, flip the cooler over on to the cutting board and press lightly on the bottom of the cooler. The ice brick should slide right out. Do this in the sink as that other 20% will go everywhere.

Step 5:

On the left side you will see the bubble that didn’t freeze. You are going to want to shave all this off with either a knife or a saw, I find a saw works best.

Step 6:

Now that we have removed the waste, we are left with a clear block we can cut up.

Step 7:

Cut into strips with your saw.

Step 8:

Then cut into cubes.

Step 9:

Now that we have clear cubes, we can shape them however we like.

Boiling Does Not Work:

Someone always wants to tell me boiling water will get you clear ice, or just to use distilled water as it won’t have any impurities. Let me disprove both of those notions right now. From left to right we have boiled, filtered, and distilled water. Each was placed in a plastic container and put in the freezer. As you can see, not one of these came out clear.