Making Clear Ice Cubes, Just Like the Professionals

Did you ever look at the ice in your glass at a restaurant and marvel at its clearness? My ice at home never looks that way, you might have thought.

Probably true, but there is an easy way to have professional looking (and tasting) ice.

But here's the catch: you must use distilled water.

Cloudiness comes from dissolved air and other impurities in your tap water. But even using distilled water is not enough; it needs to be boiled in order to remove the air molecules.

However, while most people agree that boiling (at least once) is a necessary step, the consensus ends there. Some people think it is imperative to put the ice cube trays in the freezer while the water is still hot, but others believe it's best to let the water cool first. You'll have to try this for yourself and see what works best. Either way, your ice is guaranteed to be clearer.

So, this might be dandy for you and your four little ice cube trays, but what about restaurants? With the volume of ice they use, there's no way the busboys are sitting in the kitchen boiling pots of water to make ice. No, no, they have commercial ice machines that work differently than your everyday ice cube tray. The kind we all have in our freezers freeze from the outside in. Through that process the air molecules get trapped in the center, which causes the cloudiness.

Commercial ice makers avoid this problem by one of two ways. Either the water freezes in layers so the air has time to escape (the same concept applies to icicles, which are also clear), or they use trays where the water freezes from the inside out, also allowing the air to escape.