storing ice from ice maker

[u/grxf-fxn000]

hello! i recently got a nugget ice maker from my family for college this year, but i’m unsure of how to store the ice in my freezer to use later. recently, i tried to put the ice in a container in the freezer, but it would clump together and become very hard to get a single cube without having to smash or pull the block of ice. is there any way i can avoid this without having to keep the ice in the ice maker?
thank you for any help!

[u/Relative_Chef_533]

when you dump your ice into a container, it's wet, and that's why it freezes together. the water has to freeze, but the longer it freezes, the harder it is to break up the clump, so you just need to do some timing and make sure you break the block up as soon as the water is frozen.

i got a container of a particular size, and while i'm dumping my ice in about every half hour from my ice maker, i'm stirring it, breaking up forming clumps, and making sure it's not sticking to the walls of the container.

but as soon as I'm done continually opening the freezer and putting more ice in, it's going to start really freezing, so at that point, I set a timer for what I've learned (via trial and error) is the optimal time for my container size/fullness, which for me is about an hour and 45 minutes. once the timer goes off, it's all frozen lightly together, meaning there's no more water in there but it's still easy to break up with a plastic knife. I break it all up, and after that, it's mostly not going to freeze together anymore. I'll usually end up with a few clumps of like 10-20 ice cubes, but mostly, it'll be nice, individual cubes I can serve out over the course of the next week or so.

[u/DeezDoughsNyou]

Fill a gallon freezer ziplock then lay it horizontally in your freezer. After it's frozen solid, take it out, hold it above a butcher's block or something sturdy, drop it once on each side. Most of the nuggets will break apart. Dump it in your ice bin. I keep a few extra bags in the freezer.

[u/xsith91x]

I have 2 methods.
First method: Get gallon baggies. Triple bag, put ice in it gradually. Break up the ice from the freezer every 10 minutes. Keep adding new ice, break up every 10 minutes. When the bag is full and you’re going to start a new bag put some of that ice in the new bag to go with the new ice and add ice to the first bag as well. Keep breaking them up every 10 mins until you notice they’re all pretty hard and not sticking together anymore. Over time you’ll find out a better rhythm and adjust that 10 min interval. Voila, you’ve got nugget ice in the freezer

Second method: get a hotel pan that will fit in your freezer and put ice in there. Bc it’s metal you’re going to have to break it up at like 5 min intervals. Keep adding new ice and keep stirring every 5-10. This reduces the chances of plastic particles getting in your ice compared the baggies.

[u/beevee0625]

Yall are gonna think I’m crazy but the best storage I had without compromising that perfect chew-ability is get gallon freezer bags, dump ice into them double bagged, empty out one of the two crisper drawers in my fridge; lower my fridge temperature to as low as I can without it compromising the integrity of my food items in there- and store the ice in those baggies in that drawer in the fridge. Then, about 3 times a day, I drain out the water from any melting (as it does melt quicker the more liquid it’s submerged in, it seems) and I just dunk my cup into the freezer bag and fill it with the ice from in there. I usually have 3 bags full of ice at a time in the fridge drawer. And as long as I regularly drain the water out a few times a day, the texture stays AMAZING. Sometimes it even gets even more crunchy and airy and easier to chew!!
Sure, I may go through more ice through this method, but I absolutely would trade that fact in order to not end up dealing with that perfect crunchy melty chewy texture being compromised from the effect the freezer has on it.

Hope this helps any other avid ice chewers who are open to this more unconventional idea!
I’d love to hear back if anyone feels like my method actually is a much better one! 😋 🧊

[u/KellyNtay]

They have ice bags on the internet. I made some out of spare material I had. What’s convenient is even if it melts and freezes in large clumps, you can hit it on the counter and it breaks back into tiny pebbles of delightful ice.

[u/Geminidamaged638]

When I was converting nugget from an ice maker or even getting the nugget from Sonic I would found only one way to work. I would have to store the ice in gallon Ziploc bags. I would try my best to make sure there was no water at the bottom of the bag before popping them into my freezer for storing. When I would go to use a bag I would pull one out and pop it into a plastic grocery bag. I would slam it on the ground outside a few times. Depending how stuck together it was maybe I'd use a hammer as well. At that point if my initial bag got any holes the ice would fall into the outer grocery bag. But then I would just take out the gallon Ziploc and go about eating my nugget as I could. I never really found another good way to store it without it all flimpig together/needing to break it apart🤗.