I Googled this, so please don’t give me the spiel about chemicals leeching into the water. I’m not looking to drink it.
I’ve got a new fridge, and I’d like to take the opportunity to make my new chill chest work as efficiently as I can. I’ve heard that one thing to do is to keep the freezer full. Since it will take me a while to build up my stocks of leftovers and fropi, I figure I can get some bottled water and at least make a start.
However, it strikes me as a bad idea to put a full bottle of water into the freezer, what with water expanding and all*. Should I pour some out of the water before freezing the bottle? If so, how much?
*In fact, one of the very last things my old chill chest performed to specifications on was to blow the top off a bottle of root beer I put in the freezer to quick-chill for drinking then forgot about for 4 hours.
I’ve done this before, and yes, you should pour out a bit so the bottle doesn’t explode or blow outwards. If you put it in full, it will expand. Just take one sip off the top, that should be plenty.
We did this all summer as kids when we were sailing. In a quart milk bottle, leave the water level about an inch below the lip, and DON’T PUT THE CAP ON until it is solid.
I haven’t decided exactly how I’m going to do the actual containers. I don’t drink soda or bottled water, so it’s not like I’m going to naturally accumulate much in the way of used bottles. I could get ziploc containers, which would be more orderly and reusable for other purposes as I fill the freezer up with other materials, but like I said, I haven’t really decided.
Frozen bottled water is a very useful way of keeping a lunch pail cool and having a nice cold drink at hand. I have wonderful water right out of the tap here and reuse all kinds of plastic bottles. The new green bottles are a bit of problem when it comes to freezing them as the bottoms will not hold the proper shape after being frozen.
That being said, they are not as green as other sturdier bottles that are reused many times.
I never heard that particular spiel before (just the one about reusing them causing nasty things to grow in it over time) so I googled it, and several of the links that came up for me say that the chemicals leeching via freezing is a hoax.
Almost any place that sells bottled water probably also sells bags of ice. With those you not only don’t have to worry about this, they are already frozen and so save you money by reducing the load on your freezer.
And when you do have leftovers to put in the freezer, you can take out a few ice cubes to use in a drink!
I have an awesome photo somewhere (probably at my ex-wife’s house) of a bottle of beer that froze in a hotel “refrigerator” which was obviously overachieving. It looks like that time-warped reactor breach from TNG’s “Timescape” episode.
You could always put a few bricks in there? In sandwich bags so they don’t contaminate anything. Might not be as prevalent in the US but here in the UK you’re never far from an old red brick lying around in the garden, partially buried or something.
