Make Clear Ice!

Have you ever notice that the ice that is served in a glamorous restaurant is clear, compared to the ice cubes from the ice trays in your freezer that are usually cloudy and white? Well now you can learn how to Make Clear Ice! First of all, what causes the ice cubes to be white rather than clear? Well, it is mainly due to the impurities in the water. Cloudy ice also melts faster than clear, pure ice. Making clear ice cubes is not likely something most people usually think about, we just make our ice from the water from the tap, and use it in our drinks or to cool down once it is hardened by the subzero temperatures. But you can make clear ice like you see in restaurants and it really isn't that hard at all.

So if the cloudy, whitish ice cubes are the ones that have impurities, to make clear ice cubes you need to use filtered boiled water and NOT tap water where dust and other minerals can be present. Tap water itself, can give you those murky looking ice cubes, whereas the boiled filtered water products the clear ice cube. This brings up a point about the benefits of drinking filtered water. You can also get a water filter like a Brita, water filters eliminate chemicals and bacteria from your drinking water. Here's another fact for you, do you know which will freeze faster...boiling hot water or tap water? If you said the boiling water you are right! If you want your ice cubes to freeze more quickly, boil the tap water, which also purifies the water, and then transfer it into the plastic ice cube tray as soon as possible. You can do it so without the fear of melting the plastic as well. Most ice cube trays are made out of a durable enough material that they will not melt or crack under heat or freezing temperatures. Making ice cubes is no longer confined to the rectangle ice cube maker either! Now, you can purchase ice cube moulds in so many shapes and sizes and have designer ice cubes! There are actually a commercial insulated ice trays you can buy at your local department store in the shapes of hearts, stars, and various other shapes.

Ice has been on our planet since perhaps before humans even existed and has been used in a variety of ways. Ice is created when water reaches a freezing state, usually below the temperature of 32 degrees Fahrenheit. The molecules in the water actually move slower as the temperature decreases and loose their energy. When you think about it, even in our modern day culture, we use ice for a multitude of things. We can, of course, add it to our drinks to cool them down, or put some ice in a bag and put it on a sprained ankle or a injured body part to relieve swelling in the body. We use it to fill up our coolers in the summer, so that our food and drinks can stay cold even on the hottest days. We also can use it to make desserts in which the shaved ice is mixed with a syrup to make snow cones or shaved ice treats. And to think that all of that and more can be done with frozen water and that you can make it easily and for free right in your own home. Maybe use this as an experiment to try out with friends or with your kids. It would be fun to see how true it is that tap water makes the cloudy ice cubes and the filtered or purified water makes crystal clear ice cubes. Have some fun in your kitchen and see how it all works. Enjoy!