How to Make Better (Clearer) Ice at Home, According to Bartenders - New York Magazine
How to Make Better (Clearer) Ice at Home, According to Bartenders - New York Magazine |
How to Make Better (Clearer) Ice at Home, According to Bartenders - New York Magazine Posted: 13 Jun 2019 02:30 PM PDT Photo: Courtesy Focus Features Even if you've perfected your mixology skills and filled your cabinets with fancy glasses and bartending tools, your homemade Old Fashioned or Aperol Spritz will never live up to the ones served at a craft-cocktail bar if you use cloudy ice cubes that smell vaguely like the leftovers you've been storing in the freezer. As Mathew Resler, the head bartender at Bar Goto, says, "Ice is an integral ingredient when making cocktails. The appearance, dilution ratio, taste, and purity are all essential to a proper drink." Resler and the other bartenders I asked about how to make perfect ice all pointed me to journalist Camper English, who writes about cocktails and spirits and pioneered the technique that most professionals now use to make ice (after experimenting with the frozen stuff for a decade). English says he's "obsessed with clear ice" and explains that as water freezes, "the first part to freeze will be clear" as air and impurities (which create a cloudy look) are pushed away. But in typical ice-cube trays, the exterior of the cubes freezes first, pushing air and impurities to the center, which becomes cloudy. To prevent that, English created his so-called directional-freezing method, which controls how water freezes by using "an insulated container that forces the ice to freeze from the top down, with a reservoir at the bottom beneath the cubes to collect the cloudy part of the ice." Today, thanks to English's research, there are lots of products that utilize directional freezing to make clear ice at home. Here, he and three other bartenders and booze connoisseurs recommend the best ones — and everything else you need to make perfect, clear cubes. Best ice trays and moldsClearlyFrozen High Capacity Home Clear Ice Cube Tray/Ice Cube Maker While this looks like a typical silicone mold, it comes with an insulated foam tray (which ensures that ice will freeze from the top down) and a plastic reservoir underneath to collect cloudy water (there are holes in the bottom of the silicone mold for water to flow into the reservoir). English calls it "the ice-cube tray that's the best bang for your buck" and likes that it makes ice "in a relatively space-efficient way." Amanda Schuster, author of New York Cocktails and senior editor-in-chief of Alcohol Professor, also loves this "very user-friendly" ice mold. Once the cubes are frozen, she recommends transferring them to a "plastic, sealable bag instead of leaving them in the tray, where they can pick up odors and flavors." Wintersmiths IC-S Ice Chest - Crystal-Clear Ice Ball Maker Like the ClearlyFrozen mold, Wintersmiths ice molds come with an insulated container for directional freezing. "The products can be a little pricey," admits Resler, "but, from what I have seen, are some of the best on the market to date." Because ice that's directionally frozen contains less air, it's also denser — a characteristic that Sother Teague, the beverage director at Amor y Amargo and author of I'm Just Here for the Drinks, likes in his ice. "The more dense the ice, the slower the melt," he explains. "I don't want a cocktail to continue to dilute as someone drinks it." Cocktail Kingdom 2-Inch Square Ice Cube Tray Cocktail Kingdom 2-Inch Ice Ball Mold Cocktail Kingdom Collins Ice Mold To make different shapes of ice to pair with specific drinks, Teague likes using ice molds from Cocktail Kingdom. "I use large cubes for all spirit cocktails, spheres are great for straight pours of spirit, [and] spears are lovely in highballs," he says. Silicone molds like to absorb odors, so, like Schuster, he suggests keeping ice in a plastic bag to prevent it from absorbing other odors. "Sixteen [of the two-inch cubes] fit perfectly into a gallon-sized zip-top bag," he says. "I line them up in my freezer like album covers." Best coolerIgloo Island Breeze Cooler If you want to imitate Camper's initial directional-freezing experiment, you'll need a hard-sided, insulated cooler that will fit in your freezer (you'll also need an ice pick or hammer to break the giant block of ice into glass-sized chunks). Resler suggests attempting this "if you are feeling a little adventurous and have a clean freezer and a bit of patience." After filling the cooler with water, remove the top of it so ice will freeze slowly from the top down, leaving a very clear (cooler-sized) block. Brita Large 10-Cup Water Filter Pitcher Filtering water before you freeze it won't make ice any clearer, but it can impact the taste. "If you filter the water you drink, you probably want to filter the water for your ice cubes," says English, who uses a Brita filter to eliminate chloramine (chemical compounds added to water during purification). ZeroWater 10-Cup Pitcher If your water tastes like chlorine or other minerals, English suggests trying the ZeroWater filter, which he says actually reduces mineral content (unlike Brita and other similar filters). The Strategist is designed to surface the most useful, expert recommendations for things to buy across the vast e-commerce landscape. Some of our latest conquests include the best acne treatments, rolling luggage, pillows for side sleepers, natural anxiety remedies, and bath towels. We update links when possible, but note that deals can expire and all prices are subject to change. |
LEVOIT LV-H134 Air Purifier review - The Gadgeteer Posted: 11 Jun 2019 12:00 AM PDT REVIEW – When you combine a pet with a wife that has asthma, you'll find yourself in need of air purifiers. The chance to review the Levoit LV-H134 Air Purifier came along and I couldn't wait to give it a try. What is it?The Levoit LV-H134 Air Purifier is a large air purifier with a true HEPA filter that is capable of filtering a very large room. What's in the box?
Hardware specs
Design and featuresThe Levoit LV-H134 Air Purifier is certainly a large unit, and as such, it can filter a lot of air without making as much noise as smaller units. Unlike smaller units that I've had, this one moves so much air at the high fan setting that you can actually feel the airflow in the room, something my wife really likes. At 29.5″ tall, it will be primarily a floor based unit for most people, however, I found that putting it on my fireplace mantel was a nice location for it. The unit has wheels on the bottom to make moving it easier, although I didn't feel as though it was so heavy that it would require it. The filter is 14″ (35.56 cm) tall and 10.5″ (26.67 cm) in diameter, its installation was as easy as pulling the door open, sliding in the filter, and popping the door back on. This is a large filter and the unit is designed to take in air 360°, fully utilizing the cylindrical filter design. The filter is rated to remove 99.97% of airborne particles as small as 0.3 microns including Allergies and pets, smokers, mold, pollen, odor, mold and dust. The filter construction has a fine screen on the outside to trap large particles such as hair, dander and dust. The main part of the filter has a true HEPA filter, and the inside has activated carbon to handle odors. One of the neat features of this unit is that it has an indicator ring on the display that changes color based on the quality of the air. Red = Bad, orange = moderate, green = good, and blue = very good. During use, it has run at blue most of the time and only occasionally displaying green. The laser sensor for this feature seems to be located after the air has been filtered and detects the number of particles in µg within a cubic meter within 30 seconds for real-time air quality feedback. The touch display makes operation easy, a light touch is all it takes to change settings. It has three fan speeds, an auto setting, a sleep setting, display brightness, filter replacement warning, and a timer function that will turn off the unit in 1 to 12 hours. The lowest fan speed only produces 25dB noise that you can hardly hear. The auto mode adjusts the fan speed settings automatically according to the real-time air quality while saving energy. The top of the unit features a fin design that optimizes airflow throughout the room. The unit draws in air at the bottom and expels filtered air out the top. I've got several smaller air purifiers, but they don't move nearly as much air and are not as easy to operate as the Levoit LV-H134 air purifier. I'm so happy with it that I'll probably get one of their smaller units for our home offices. The filters are rated for about 6 months and currently cost $64.99. What I like
What needs to be improved
Final thoughtsI'm really pleased with the Levoit LV-H134 air purifier. It really helps clean the air as well as move air around the room to keep it from feeling stagnant. Price: $399.99 Support The Gadgeteer: The Gadgeteer's main sources of revenue are advertising and affiliate links in articles like this one. Even though we may receive compensation, we always give our honest opinions about our experiences with each product. |
You are subscribed to email updates from "air filter for mold" - Google News. To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
Google, 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043, United States |
Comments
Post a Comment