freezing things [water + olive oil]

Factual Questions
1

What would happen if I put water in my ice cube trays and then put some drops of olive oil in them and put it in the freezer?

2

Why don’t you try it and let us know?

3

You would have ice cubes with a layer of olive oil on top of them.

4

A layer of gross congealed olive grease, actually.

5

I’m not sure how this would liberate anything, but you could try…

6

What result might you be hoping to obtain?

7

Ultra-slick ice?

8

Edited thread title to fix spelling and clarify subject.

Colibri
General Questions Moderator

9

Would the oil freeze?

10

According to this site:

I don’t know if that helps answer you’re question or not.

11

It freezes, but before freezing it will become a kind of opaque paste. It looks similar to lard. I regularly make sundried tomatoes and store them in olive oil, and then freeze. Containers in the fridge to thaw or for shorter term storage get a bit sludgy but turn back into normal looking and tasting olive oil when they warm up.

12

The original title of the thread, before colibri fixed it, was “freeing things.”

Gfactor
General Questions Moderator

13

Thanks, Gfactor. It was kind of a stupid joke, but at least no one will be wondering what the damn hell I was talking about.

14

I’ll volunteer to remain wondering what the damn hell you were talking about. I don’t mind. :slight_smile:
*I get it, I promise.

15

If the OP was wondering about whether freezing has any effect on the miscibility of oil and water, the answer is “no”. In fact when water freezes into ice, it rejects virtually any substance that was dissolved in the water, typically forming a mass of pure ice crystals intermixed with the foreign substance.

16

Oh, and if the OP was asking about whether the oil and water affect the freezing point of either (the way alcohol lowers the freezing point of water) the answer to that too is no.

17

An Iron Chef America episode repeated a few weeks ago had olive brine ice cubes used to chill a martini. Sounded pretty yummy! Semi-frozen/frozen olive oil, not so much.

18

In fact, that’s one of the easier methods for hardening alcoholic drinks. Leave a bucket of hard cider on your back porch overnight in winter, skim off the ice from the top in the morning, and you’re left with apple jack.

19

IME, olive oil (extra virgin) freezes to something similar to candle wax. It is something hard that keeps its shape but you can easily carve it with your fingernails.

So you should end up with an ice cube with a top layer of this waxy frozen oil.

I have wondered about this myself for the only reason that I thought it would be a solution to the problem of sublimating ice cubes that result in ice slivers at the bottom of the ice cube tray.

It does, of course, create even bigger problems if you plan to use this ice cubes for a drink so it seems like this is a solution to a problem I have not yet found.