How Long for Ice Cubes to Freeze?
If you’re a lover of cold drinks of all varieties then it’s likely that you’re also a lover of ice cubes. Unfortunately, not enough people do their research and ask themselves the question “How long for ice cubes to freeze?”, before inviting their friends round to enjoy a round of cold ones.
What do we mean? The drinks are ready, but the ice cubes to go with them usually aren’t. We want to help you overcome the practical difficulties involved with freezing ice cubes to ensure that the next time you’re having drinks with friends, the ice cubes are ready when you need them.
How Long Does It Take for Ice Cubes to Freeze?
There are a few different factors to consider when it comes to the time for ice cubes to freeze. Usually, expect it to take 3 – 4 hours to fully freeze an average set of ice cubes. This is based on an empty food compartment and a freezer that is set to exactly 0 degrees Celsius.
Firstly, how big are your ice cubes, or that is to say, how big are the squares in your ice cube mold? It probably stands to reason that the bigger the cubes are the longer it’s going to take to freeze them. Add an hour or two for larger sized cubes.
Next in line is the freezer compartment you place them in. If you add room temperature food into the compartment whilst your cubes are forming, you’ll increase the temperature and slow down the process by up to an hour.
Tips for Freezing Ice Cubes Faster
These tips should help you get access to your cubes faster:
- Use hot water
Believe it or not, hot water actually freezes in about half the time of cold water due to heat gradients within the liquid molecules that lead to heat escaping more rapidly and therefore temperature dropping faster once the tray is in the freezer.
- Avoid placing room temperature food nearby
Don’t put any room temperature food near your ice cube tray once it’s inside the freezer to avoid increasing the temperature.
- Use freezer ice
When you’re in a hurry and freezing cubes isn’t an option and you’ve got a freezer that’s prone to over freezing, you can simply scrape the excess ice away to use instead of waiting for the cubes to harden.
- Purchase an ice cube maker
Alright, this is cheating. But it’s guaranteed to deliver ice cubes exactly when you need them no matter how much time you’ve got.
Conclusion
We hope that the information we’ve provided you with about ice cube freezing times today in conjunction with our tips for speeding up the process has helped to make serving refreshments a little less stressful for you.
None of our tips beat advanced preparation, and the simplest way to ensure that you’ve got ice cubes when you need them is to make them well before serving your refreshments.