I drink alot of water, almost always Evian. (No cracks, I really can taste a diffference, people have tested me.) And since I like to drink it very cold, I have found a very convenient way to always have chilled water that stays chilled is to fill a bottle about one-third full, then put it in the freezer. When the water in the bottle has frozen, I just pour chilled water on top of that and the water stays nice and cold to the last drop.
The icky part is this: somehow the act of freezing and defrosting the water does something strange, because the melted water looks dirty. (Again, no cracks, I am not backwashing) it appears filled with little white bits of something, I have no idea what. Since this is an absolutely consistent phenomenon that I have observed for years, there must be some predictable chemical thing going on, but I have no idea what it could be. Any takers?
Again:
Clear Evian is frozen, then defrosted. After defrosting, appears to be a milder version of the water in one of those snowball things you shake.
I don’t have a strong enough memory of the chemical process to explain it in detail, but what you see is just the minerals in the water (which is why it’s called “mineral water”) precipitating out of solution. I’m sure someone will come along to explain just how and why this happens. But for now rest assured that there’s nothing “icky” about it; your Evian is just rearranging itself.
as an experiment to confirm this, you could prepare an icecube tray by washing then pour Evian into some of the cubes and distilled water into the others and see if you see the precipitate in the cubes or the melted Evian but not the distilled water.
As an added precaution, you should rinse the icecube trays heavily with either Evian or distilled water beforehand, to make sure they’re not contaminated with tap water.
Well, um, if you washed the tray with one of the substances your trying to test, instead of being contaminated with tap water, the Evian cubes might be contaminated with distilled water, or vice versa, depending on which one you washed with. The best way to go would be to have two trays, one you will use for Evian, and one you would use with distilled water. Then, you would wash each tray with the type of water you are going to put in it. Those are just my thoughts on it. . .
Or, you could just grab the hose and open the spigot - it’s all the same stuff. Evian is just stuff that came out of a hose in France. If you like it better, that’s fine, but just remember it’s not gonna make you any younger-looking, and the only weight you’ll lose is out of your wallet
What you are seeing is the dissolved chemicals precipitating out of solution. Most likely calcium carbonate. Maybe some magnesium as well. Things are less soluble at lower temperatures.
Water quality chemists like myself call this stuff “hardness”.
Just because YOU have a feeble palate, doesn’t mean everybody else is naive!
Believe me, I can tell the difference. I dislike most water. I can’t stand Arrowhead or Sparkletts. Yech! I find that most water tastes like something. I like water to taste as much like nothing at all as possible. I find Evian comes closest among popular, easy-to-find waters. My all time favorite water is no longer available that I am aware of… if anyone knows where I can get it, let me know: it’s called ALP water.
I, too like to freeze water in a bottle then fill it the rest of the way. And I don’t like the taste of plain tap water. I use a Britta filter system, water tastes good and neutral, I save money and no floating bits.
Is Evian water supposed to be mineralized? I thought the reason Stoidela liked it is because it doesn’t have any taste? (personally, no matter what type, bottled water always smells plasticy to me)
Anyway, was wondering about the precipitate thing.
Does that mean that ice cold water is cleaner then warm water? Asking this 'cause I’ve always thought that cold water tasted better, and while this is probably in part an illusion, or maybe numb tastebuds, it’d be interesting if there was actually some physical difference.
I too think that different brands of bottled water have different tastes. My girlfriend cannot stand Evian, and I’m not crazy about it either. Volvic (another French one) is quite good if you can get it, but the Italian mineral waters are by far the most delicious. Forget the French!
If you can deal with not drinking a “popular” water, go to your grocery store, or to an auto-supply store (you heard right), and buy yourself some distilled water. Or a good water filter, Culligan or the like. I guarantee you it will taste like nothing, more than Evian does. The only taste/smell will be, as Kyber pointed out, the plastic. Can’t get away from that.
