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Adulting

Guest Post: Make a whole bunch of ice ahead of time!

Thank you so very much to Devan T.-L. for the excellent guest post! I need to start doing this.

Until about a year ago, I never followed this advice myself, but once I did, it changed me for the better. Making lots of ice ahead of time is merely one facet of full-on preparedness (one of the most important parts of adulting, IMO), but since I don’t have the time, inclination (or ability) to teach such a thing, I’ll stick with the ice for now.

You could just let your ice sit in its trays, disappearing a few cubes at a time until you curse yourself for having empty trays, at which time you may (or may not) fill them back up, waiting an hour or two for them to fully freeze, at which time the whole cycle starts over again. You might happen to have a fridge/freezer with the icemaker built into it, but chances are, if you’re reading a blog post about how to make a bunch of ice, you are slaves to the trays like the rest of us.

A better way to go about things would be to empty out your trays into some kind of a container as soon as the ice cubes are frozen, then filling them back up with water (and repeating a few times). Look at it this way: There are times when you need ice; there are also times when you do not need ice. Unless you have a household full of people who need extra-cold drinks at all times (or unless you have some kind of black market organ-harvesting business on the side), your not-needing-ice to needing-ice ratio should be pretty high. Why not maximize this time by making more ice than you currently need?

It’s simple to do, but a little hard to remember at first until you get the hang of it. First, fill up your trays (I prefer Tolovone Perfect Silicone Ice Cube trays because they pop right out without any slivers, plus they make geometrically perfect cubes). Check on them after an hour, and if they’re not frozen enough to pop out of the trays without breaking, keep checking every 15-20 minutes. Once they’re ready, put them into some kind of container that can close up. A medium-large Tupperware container works well, but personally I prefer a gallon-sized freezer bag (because if any of the ice starts to stick together, you can easily swing it against the side of the fridge to break them apart).

Once your ice is frozen and in your container, do everything in the last paragraph over again until you’ve got at least 5-6 trays worth of ice in your container. Then, fill up the trays once more, and just leave them be. These’ll be the ones you go to first, and once they run out, you can use your reserves in the container while you’re waiting for the trays to fill up/freeze again. Once your bag gets down below half its volume, start putting a few more trays worth back in. 

If you do this right, you should NEVER have to worry about running out of ice again, whether it’s when you’re making drinks for your friends or just making sure that your iced tea isn’t simply “cold tea”.

P.S.: If you entertain guests a lot (or if, like me, you enjoy a drink now and again), try freezing some mixers (cola, OJ, sour mix, etc.) in your trays and empty them into some quart-sized bags. Nothing’s better than a well-mixed drink that never tastes watered-down.

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  1. xandgunn reblogged this from adulting and added:
    Adulting is my new favorite blog. Seriously, I am always out of ice.
  2. Devan Thayer Lund submitted this to adulting
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