Hollow Ice Cubes Explained: Causes, Aesthetics, and Melting Issues

Hollow cubes of ice have an empty center. This is the reason why cubes lose their strength and beauty. This type of poor quality ice can be caused by a variety of different reasons, including clogged water filters in home ice makers, incorrect temperature regimes, water line deformation and others. 

If your ice cubes are hollow, most likely you face a number of troubles because of this. For example, your cocktail is not as aesthetic, as you wish or ice melts so quickly, diluting your tasty and exquisite drink. And if you can still survive a spoiled drink at home, then bars and restaurants need to take care of their reputation.  

Here are the most popular reasons for hollow ice cubes. Let’s learn them carefully to avoid hollow centers and make aesthetic and tasty drinks. Be sure, it will help you to impress visitors and form the reputation of the real cocktail craft professional.

How Ice Machine Affect Hollow Cubes

The first thing to note is the quality of your equipment. Try to buy an ice maker from a reliable manufacturer. This approach will help to get a professional ice machine with wear-resistant spare parts. 

Talking about of how ice machine can affect on hollow ice, it’s impossible not to say about such nuances, like:

• Low water flow – one of the common reasons for poor quality ice with an empty center. This can happen when a water filter is clogged, broken water supply valve or kinked water line. 

• Extra low freezer temperatures – these conditions lead to rapid and uneven freezing. So, the outside ice cube surface freezes first, but when the inner water freezes, it expands and pushes the liquid to the surface.

• Air bubbles – if some air is trapped during the fill cycle most likely you will get hollow ice cubes from the ice maker, because air bubbles get pushed to the center. 

So, a high-quality ice maker with serviceable, correctly connected spare parts, water filter, flushing the system, right temperatures and no bubbles during the fill cycle allows to create the ideal ice cubes.

Water Quality  

Keep in mind that some minerals or impurities can affect the freezing process and be the reason for irregular ice cubes formation. To avoid this problem use a water softener or filtration system, like reverse osmosis to improve water quality. Don’t forget that sometimes you need to clean the water filter or replace it to maintain the water system. This approach makes it possible to create the ideal ice cubes for cocktails.

Fast Freezing Cycle

If your ice machine is making hollow ice cubes, pay your attention to the freezing regime. Rapid freezing is one of the most common reasons for ice cubes with hollow centers. When the water freezes too quickly air bubbles may be inside the cubes, causing them to have the hollow center. Most ice makers have a fast freezing regime, which is not the best variant for aesthetic and high-quality ice cubes.

There is no doubt that hollow ice cubes have a negative impact on a variety of different aspects. Most likely if you are a bar or restaurant owner, you have faced these troubles at least once. So, let’s talk more about why hollow ice is the real problem for bartenders during the luxury cocktails appearance. 

Aesthetic Issues

Talking about the art of cocktail crafting it’s impossible not to talk about the aesthetic component. Unfortunately, hollow ice cubes can spoil the aesthetic appearance. The main reason is insufficient strength. Usually ice cubes with hollow centers break as soon as they hit the drink. In this case, there is no question of an aesthetic drink with ideal and transparent ice. 

Melting Problems

When your ice cubes are hollow be ready that they will melt quickly in the drink. This fact negatively affects not only the aesthetic aspect, but also the cocktail taste. Fast melting ice cubes dilute cocktails making the taste less bright and rich. 

Impact on Craft Beverages and Customer Experience    

As a bar owner you know that luxury and mesmerizing cocktail presentation is an integral part of beverages crafting art. Aesthetic drink appearance can impress visitors from the first sight and make them return to your bar again and again. Ice with a hollow center can ruin the cocktail serving because of fast melting and extra fragility.

Clear ice is what you really need to create aesthetic drinks both at home or in the bar. Ideal, transparent and slow melting ice makes your cocktail tasty and unforgettable. But have you ever thought about when hollow ice cubes can be useful? Let’s talk more about it to form a clear understanding of how to use hollow ice with maximum effectiveness. 

When Hollow Ice Can Still Be Useful

If a batch of ice comes out hollow, you can always use it as follows:

• Fast drinks cooling – try this type of ice to make some drinks cold in a rapid way. It will be the best variant for those beverages that can be diluted. 
• Making hollow ice spheres – create ice balls and fill them with a cocktail. Be sure, it’s one of the most impressive drink presentations. 

Hollow ice is safe for eating and drinking, even though it’s not the best item for slow-melting beverages, so use them for an interesting cocktail appearance via ice balls.

As it was told earlier, to avoid hollow ice cubes, you need to take care of the water supply line, sufficient water flow and the right temperature regime. 

But one more important aspect is the overall quality level of the equipment. Try to cooperate with a reliable manufacturer to get the ideal ice maker for your business. For example, BF Tech is a professional producer of equipment with high-quality ice maker assembly. This company offers a variety of different goods to ice production and make perfect cubes.

BF Tech assortment includes:

• Ice Block Maker P30 – small and compact version of ice block maker machine, which is suitable for small restaurants, HoReCa and beginner bartenders. The equipment provides crystal-clear ice with dense structure and without the hollow center.
• Ice Block Maker P150 – thanks to the slow-freezing method, this equipment makes it possible to create transparent and aesthetic ice cubes with no hollow center. P150 is the best variant for medium-size bars and businesses.
• Ice Block Maker P300 – a version of P150 with double ice productivity is a real find for big restaurants, bars and manufacturers. Forget about hollow ice cubes and provide impeccable cocktail presentations, unforgettable ice sculptures and others.

Why Clear Ice Is Preferred in Bars

Transparent, crystal-clear ice without hollow center is what bars are really needed to impress clients with tasty, aesthetic and non-diluted cocktails. The more quality drinks are, the more attention from the audience bar will get. It’s worth saying that beverage presentation is one of the important aspects during customer care to build a good reputation and permanent client base. This is the reason why bars always prefer clear ice.

Hollow ice cubes can negatively affect a drink’s appearance and taste. That’s why most bartenders and bar owners try to avoid this trouble. For this take care of   temperature range, correct connection of ice maker spare parts, water quality with the help of reverse osmosis system, water pressure issues, the right water dispensing and also about ice maker machine quality.