How To Make Clear Ice Cubes

Apparently you've noticed what a number of other people have also noticed ... that when you get ice cubes in a drink at a restaurant, they're sparkling clear. When you make ice cubes in trays in your own home, they are white or a more murky color. So you're wondering why that is. And more importantly, you want to know what you can to make clear ice cubes in your home. Making clear ice cubes at home is difficult but it's not impossible. It requires using the right products to start off with and using the right freezing process.

One of the main reasons that ice cubes in restaurants are clear and your own ice cubes are not is because the restaurant ice cubes start off as much purer than what you're probably using in your home. Most people just take their frozen ice cube trays and run them under their tap water and then stick that in the freezer. If you've ever looked at a glass of your tap water, you'll know that the swirling things inside it aren't exactly conducive to making clear ice cubes. The water itself isn't clear, how would the ice cubes ever be clear?

So the first thing that you need to do to make clear ice cubes is to use clear water. This means that you should use distilled water. Buy the pure stuff in the bottle at the store. If it's clear in the bottle, it's going to be clear in a glass. But don't stop there. You should take the pure water that you've bought, put it in a clean pan (preferably one rinsed out with this same water) and boil it. This helps to get rid of all of the excess minerals that can cloud up your water and make your ice cubes less clear.

Starting off with clear water is only the first part of the process for making clear ice cubes. The other part is the freezing process. If you really want to get clear ice cubes every time, you're going to need to throw out the cheap plastic ice cube trays that came with your freezer and invest in a pricier kind. No, it's not because more expensive is equivalent to better. It's because you need a specific kind of ice cube tray to make clear ice cubes. You see, part of that clear quality comes from the way that the ice forms. A clear ice cube is formed in layers with low exposure to air during the cooling process. You can purchase special trays and contraptions that will help with this.

If you don't want to foot the bill for special trays, you can increase the clarity of your ice cubes by using clean trays and a slow cooling process. Professional restaurants use a cooling system that involves circulating the water so that it's running as it cools. You can create a system like this in your home if you're creative. If not, stick with metal ice trays which you clean with purified water before every use. Add the distilled and boiled water and freeze. You're ice cubes may not be restaurant-quality clear but they should be a lot clearer than they have been in the past.