A couple days ago I dumped all my ice because it smelled like, oh, garlic-flavored ball sweat. This is neither the flavor nor aroma I want in my beverages. So I made a new batch a few days ago and guess what? It stinks, too.
I know, I need one of those boxes of baking soda for the freezer (there’s one in the refrigerator and most of my frozen food is in sealed bags), but that doesn’t help me right now. Then I thought about how fresh ice doesn’t taste bad, as it doesn’t have time to absorb the odors. Maybe a little while freezing, but ice freezes from the outside in.
So I tried a simple experiment: I threw in 2-3 times the ice I needed in a colander and ran it under water until it shrunk to about half volume. Amazingly, it worked! You can actually wash the stink off of ice. Now my iced tea tastes like tea and not Shaq’s jock after a trip to The Stinking Rose and a playoff game. Huzzah!
I know this seems completely obvious, but I’ve never witnessed anyone doing this or talking about it, so I thought I’d throw it out there.
Another blow against the forces of evil. And I think it’s fairly safe to blame the stinky ice problem on the Bush administration. I’m not joking: around my house we make it a fun pastime to try to blame everything on Bush. This started after the potency of the latest hurricanes was blamed on the Bush policies that allow global warming to worsen and spike up the surface ocean waters in the gulf of Mexico. Ergo, stronger hurricanes.
We could blame his administration’s poor record of manufacturing oversight on this country (eg: poor inspections, etc) and that is how the bad design and manufacture of fridges that allows stinky ice to exist.
I’ve been breaking my noggin’ trying to blame California earthquakes on Bush but have not had much success. Maybe some California Democrats can help me (I am a registered independent).
On a lighter note, I have found some fantastic Japanese ice cube trays that will make ice on various fantastical shapes: 8 oz balls or rocks, tiny slivers that can be put inside bottled water, poker shapes for your weekly game. And since most of these trays have an upper and lower half, there would be no chance to let the stink in. I will bring one over for on-site testing.
Something else that helps: put the ice in a ziploc bag right after you make it. For one thing, you can store more than just what you’ve got in the trays. For another, unlike those little tubs that you put in your freezer to store ice (maybe you don’t personally, I’m just saying, I’ve seen them), they keep the stink out.
Incidentally, you should submit this to Hints from Heloise, but only allow it to be run if she includes the line about the garlic-flavored ball sweat. 🙂
Good point about the bag, but my fridge has an automatic ice maker/dispenser. Otherwise that would be a better solution.
I’m sure Heloise wouldn’t mind including the analogy, but being a classy lady she’d want to use the term testicle perspiration.