What are the attributes and how can you get them to enhance the drinks in your bar or restaurant?
It's common to see chefs, cooks, bar and restaurant owners of all types and sizes, always looking for the best options. best ingredients to serve the best dishes to their customers. It's no different in the world of drinks. However, there is one item that can often go unnoticed: ice.
Who hasn't had a drink with the wrong temperature or even a watery drink? If you ask “those who understand the subject”, the answer is unanimous: the perfect ice should have three main characteristics: pure, solid and transparent.
Often omitted from the answers, but just as important as these three characteristics, is the cost of this ice. And because of the price, the other features end up being left aside.
Now that you know what the attributes of the perfect ice are, learn the secrets to achieving it.
Purity
Most bartenders say that ice is the soul of a drink. So it can add value or take all the flavor out of the drink.
We've been taught since we were children that water should be colorless, tasteless and odorless. It's no different with ice, even if it comes from a good source, it's important that the raw material is really pure. The perfect ice is one that doesn't transfer aroma or flavor to the drink.
When we talk about purity, we're also talking about what the eye can't see, such as bacteria. Homemade ice, even with filtered or tap water, can acquire aromas when it is taken to the freezer (because it is close to and shares space with other foods) that will be transferred to the beverage served.
According to health legislation, bagged industrial ice must be made with filtered water, but this can be compromised during transportation and storage. Not to mention all the risks of contamination due to the various manipulations it undergoes until it reaches the counter and the glass.
Purity comes first through efficient filtering that reduces the calcium and chlorine content that is so prevalent in tap water in Brazil. As a second step, the ice must be formed in such a way that there is no possibility of any kind of impurity being decanted into the cube, as can happen when we use ice cube trays at home, for example. For this there is a technology developed in Japan where the ice is made vertically with the water flowing over the ice at all times, preventing any impurities from being stored in the cube.
The room where the ice is stored must be specially treated so that the ice remains pure. For this, the walls, which are not only thermal insulators, must also be treated with antibacterial agents. A technology has recently been launched that generates an ozone shield around the ice storage space that prevents any type of infection by external bacteria, even with continuous access for removal.
Solid
The basic function of ice is to freeze and keep drinks cold. However, there are two factors for this function to be carried out with maximum efficiency. The ice should chill the drink quickly and take as long as possible to melt.
Flaky or crumbly ice can easily make a drink watery, weak, tasteless and spoil the whole customer experience. And clearly, that's not what we want.
The more solid the ice, the faster it steals heat from the liquid in the glass, freezing it quickly and effectively. Solid ice changes the customer experience, freezing the drink that has just left the counter before it even reaches the customer's table and melting completely, often only after the customer has already consumed the drink.
Transparent
Have you ever noticed that ice cubes made in ordinary freezers are all whitish or opaque? The whitish parts are usually formed by tiny oxygen bubbles. The more bubbles, the less dense, the whiter and faster the ice will melt.
The solid ice is translucent, totally transparent, emphasizing the drink and enhancing it.
Bagged ice (the kind sold at gas stations) is always made with filtered water, but its storage conditions - especially during transportation from the factory to the freezer - are not always suitable. It usually melts and freezes again, so its shape and structure are compromised.
Cheaper
Cheaper is not always synonymous with lower quality. This is exactly what happens in the production of ice in bars and restaurants.
More and more bar owners are discovering that producing their own ice can save them money, in addition to the benefits of pure, transparent ice
This is what we see in the case of the Sociedade Hípica de São Paulo restaurant, where the switch from bagged ice to ice produced in the restaurant itself resulted in annual savings of an incredible 29,000 reais in nine months on ice alone.
This means that it is now possible to make your own ice in-house at a cost of around 10 cents per kilo of ice, This means increasing the margin on drinks without changing the final price. This means increasing the margin on drinks without changing the final price.
All the aforementioned attributes of perfect ice: pure, solid, transparent and obtained at a low production cost, are possible using the best of Japanese ice-making technology. Hoshizaki machines are the best-selling in the world and the reason is simple: very low operating costs and ice that impresses even the most inattentive customers.
To find out more about how bars and restaurants are innovating with visual appeal in their drinks, saving money and having the security of serving pure ice, free from impurities and contamination, talk to one of the experts at Macom-Hoshizaki, the world leader in ice machines.
