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My Ice is Dirty

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  • My Ice is Dirty

    This was a while back but it screws me up even today.

    The way drinks work at my place is a bottle and a glass of ice for soft drinks and ice tea. Juice is in a tall glass with ice. And teapots and cups.

    So I hand over an order to a table of a family. One juice, one ice tea, two cups of tea.
    As I hand the ice tea to the mum she asks me if the juice her daughter is drinking came in a bottle like the ice tea.

    SC: Excuse me, but does the juice come in bottles?
    Me: No, is something wrong?
    SC: I think the ice is dirty.
    Me:...

    I had to get my manager over to explain. We had an ice maker in the back that we poured purified water into. IF you really wanted to, I could have gotten some out of a urinal.

    If the ice was dirty I definitely would have made sure if there were any bugs in there.

    I know it sounds like I'm in the wrong, but this moment was a big WTF moment for me.

  • #2
    While ice CAN be dirty (mold can grow in the forms the water flows into) I would assume you'd SEE it and not bring it out, especially since the way you present it (not covered in a liquid) would make it pretty obvious. Was she fishing for freebies or something?

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    • #3
      I know the ice machine (counter top) at my office was disgusting, but that's because it was never cleaned and usually filled with tap water. I didn't use it.


      And my wife did get pieces of glass in her ice when she was a child. She gets her drinks no ice...

      Still, "My ice is dirty" sounds like someone trying something.
      "If your day is filled with firefighting, you need to start taking the matches away from the toddlers…” - HM

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      • #4
        I've certainly been taught to avoid ice in other countries, as the tap water may not be safe, but if you're in a country where the tap water is generally safe to drink, and the customer is from the same country, yes, that's an odd statement.

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        • #5
          Maybe the ice was a little cloudy-looking? Sometimes water freezes clear and sometimes not. I'm too lazy to look up what makes the difference but I assume things like the temperature of the water when it goes into the icemaker, etc. But if she wasn't used to seeing it that way maybe that's why she thought it was dirty. Just a thought.
          When you start at zero, everything's progress.

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          • #6
            My understanding of clear vs. cloudy ice is that it's an issue of air. If the ice is made in a manner that keeps air from being frozen in (I once dealt with an icemaker that flowed water over a cold plate, and when the ice reached a given thickness it would heat the plate until the ice slid off onto a grid of heated wires, which cut it into cubes, then the cycle would repeat), the ice will be clear. If it's made in an automated version of ice cube trays in the freezer compartment of the fridge, the cubes will freeze from the outside in, leaving no place for the dissolved air to go, so it winds up as tiny bubbles inside the cube as the last of the water freezes.

            Also, if there's a hard-to-get-rid-of colouring agent in the water, that old-fashioned ice maker I mentioned (no longer made - wastes water) will produce colourless ice - that machine was at a fishing resort where the water supply was from a stream that flowed through a cedar forest, and the cedar colouring got "kicked away" into the waste water as water froze on the cold plate. Ice blocks (for coolers) made in what was basically an oversized ice cube tray had a slight brown tint.
            Last edited by wolfie; 04-26-2014, 05:03 AM. Reason: Forgot about colour issue.
            Any fool can piss on the floor. It takes a talented SC to shit on the ceiling.

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            • #7
              Quoth MoonCat View Post
              Maybe the ice was a little cloudy-looking? Sometimes water freezes clear and sometimes not. I'm too lazy to look up what makes the difference but I assume things like the temperature of the water when it goes into the icemaker, etc. But if she wasn't used to seeing it that way maybe that's why she thought it was dirty. Just a thought.

              I've noticed that with my water bottles when I put them in the freezer. And while I'm aware that water exapands as it freezes, I'll drink it down to about the top of the label before I put it in to freeze, leave it for around 3 or 4 hours (max at home, at work around 1 1/2 to 2 hrs in the ice cream freezer) and voila, I've got a bottle of ice slush that I can work on for at least the next couple of hours.

              But I've noticed that it's easier to freeze them so I can bust up the ice if I set the bottle upright in the freezer drawer in the kitchen as opposed to on its side (my office fridge has a small freezer compartment and it's not tall enough to stand up the bottles upright.)

              But I'm still curious as to why sometimes my icy water will turn out more clear than other times. Could temperature have a part in that?
              Human Resources - the adult version of "I'm telling Mom." - Agent Anthony "Tony" DiNozzo (NCIS)

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              • #8
                I don't care enough about clear ice to have ever tried it, but I was told that for clear ice you need to use hot water in the freezer. Someone can let me know if that works out, .
                Pain and suffering are inevitable...misery is optional.

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                • #9
                  Quoth NecessaryCatharsis View Post
                  I don't care enough about clear ice to have ever tried it, but I was told that for clear ice you need to use hot water in the freezer. Someone can let me know if that works out, .
                  I have always heard that is the case. I think the hotter water gives the air more time to move out of the water and not be trapped. You could probably just let the water sit for a while before putting it in the freezer to get clear ice.
                  "I don't have to be petty. The Universe does that for me."

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                  • #10
                    The hot water=clear ice thing is partially correct. If you boil the water, a lot of the dissolved air will be forced out of the water. No air in water = clear ice. This wastes a lot of energy and takes much longer though.

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                    • #11
                      Expanding on what Cole's Law said, the hotter a liquid gets, the less gas per unit volume can be dissolved in it. Ever noticed that your hot water looks a bit milky, but your cold water is clear? That's because the amount of dissolved air in your tap water is more than can stay dissolved at the temperature of your hot water, so it comes out of solution in the form of tiny bubbles. Same reason warm soda goes flat faster than cold soda.

                      Boiling the water gets it as hot as possible while still remaining liquid, "evicting" as much of the dissolved air as you can.
                      Any fool can piss on the floor. It takes a talented SC to shit on the ceiling.

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