Crushed Ice Machine

Going to be entertaining a party of six for 2 weeks. Expecting to be making a lot of tiki drinks - mainly from Trader Vics recipes. Most of these recipes call for shaved ice, and I have read a lot of your posts that say that shaved ice makes all the difference. Normally, for just the 2 of us, with the occasional drink, we just use a hammer to pound out some cubes in a plastic bag .... Does anyone have a suggestion for a shaved ice machine or something? Thanks!

edit to my post - I found out I am talking about crushed ice - not shaved ice

[ Edited by: ronrocks56 2011-08-17 14:33 ]

I can't recall specific drink recipes for shaved ice (think Sno Cones). However,I always use crushed ice (3/8"). Do you have a refrigerator that makes crushed ice? A neighbor? That will work fine for a party. For home use, I use a vintage Ice-o_Mat. There are also electric counter top models.

I have a Ninja XL blender and it kicks serious butt on ice. It has multiple blades along the central axis which circulates the ice while it crushes it. You let that sucker run for 20 seconds and you've got a blender full of snow.

When I searched for shaved ice machines, I kept getting snow cone type ice makers - that can't be right. So I went back to the Trasder Vic's recipes - they do call for 'shaved' ice (Mai Tai, Rumg Keg, etc.) - but - in the intro section of the book there is a write-up on 'Ice' - and it refers to 'shaved or crushed ice' as the same type of ice. So now I am searching for automatic crushed ice makers. The reviews on the ones around $50 keep saying that they break anywhere from 2 weeks to 3 months, and that you can only put in 1 or 2 cubes at a time. So, guess I should be looking at something a little more expensive maybe.... I know my blender isn't made to handle crushing ice.

Save your money! Get a manual ice crusher and get cranking before the party. 6 people isn't that much.

http://www.tikicentral.com/viewtopic.php?topic=31935&forum=10&hilite=ice%20crusher

I like the vintage electric Oster ice crushers - I have a blue snowflake model from the 1950's - works great. They run in the $10-20 range on ebay.

A hammer and a trash bag full of ICE, get to crushing! :)

And a :drink:

I've used a Waring Pro ice crusher for 5 years. Just keep putting the ice in. The tray holds about 6 drinks worth.

dude, your blender can do a good enough job. thro in regular ice and put it on pulse for 5 secs, or, hit pulse five times for one second each.

Your a lazy bunch :)

dang, man, we's gotta measure out all those dashes of Pernod, and make all that cinnamon syrup and vanilla syrup and rock candy syrup and honey mix and whatnots, we caint be foolin round with no ice smashin!

:lol: :lol: :lol:

And a :drink:

Vintage Ice-O-Mat. Brilliant machines.

On 2011-08-17 17:18, ikitnrev wrote:
I like the vintage electric Oster ice crushers - I have a blue snowflake model from the 1950's - works great. They run in the $10-20 range on ebay.

These do make great crushed ice, but mine kept getting jammed, resulting in much swearing by the operator. So I bought a Waring Pro, which also made great crushed ice, faster and in greater quantities. Until a little plastic (plastic!!) part inside - that holds the thingamajig in place so it can do its crushing magic - stripped and now... no more crushing. It's been a while now and I'm too lazy (incompetent) to fix it. I think the problem was I was feeding it ice cubes that were too large (square cubes from Tovolo silicone trays) and it just wore out.

I now use the ice crusher on the fridge. Not as uniform with the crushed ice pieces, but it's oh-so convenient.

Shaved ice is not crushed ice, although most of us I presume use crushed/ground/chopped ice instead. Shaved ice behaves differently than otherwise pulverized ice in drinks, but last time I checked, decent ice shavers were so expensive I just settled for a heavy duty blender to chop it up. Sometimes I'll make a large block of ice and shave it by hand. Pain in the ass, but it does remind me why VJB,Jr called for shaved ice in the Mai Tai recipe rather than crushed.

We just got a Ninja, for Xmas works GREAT! Thortiki

I've had many Trader Vic drinks at the restaurants and have tried several methods to make shaved ice like they serve. Refrigerator ice crushers are much too coarse but are a good starting point for manual crushing. A Lewis bag and wooden mallet work O.K. but I get nearly perfect results with a Deni ice crusher I bought at Bed Bath and Beyond for about $32 after coupon. It doesn't make snow (thank goodness, Mai Tai's are not slushies). I put two crescent shaped cubes at a time from the refrigerator, it makes a racket but in short order I have enough ice for my wife and I. It would be tough to use for a party. I'd like to try the Waring Pro someday. I've priced commercial flake ice machines online but $3000 is too high for my limited use so I'm happy with the Deni!

[ Edited by: TropicDrinkBoy 2013-01-23 01:00 ]

I have 3-4 ice-o mat's, 3-4 ice-o matic's, and a couple others I can't recall the names of. Some work better then others, some just look cool. The huge "Rival" ice-o-matic I keep cuz it sounds like a WW2 rotary airplane engine as it winds up before it's ready to get to work. I get the best results using a Sears brand Ice-A-Mat.I like using ice from Costco. It's very hard,clear fresh tasting ice and already coarsely broken so it doe not jam up the crusher like cubes sometimes do. I suspect the Sears crusher is superior to the others because the blades are probably sharper-otherwise they are identical. I only use the crusher when crafting Mai Tai's for 6 aficionados or less. For other drinks I use the Costco ice outta da bag.
Cheers

[ Edited by: nui 'umi 'umi 2013-01-22 21:20 ]

Using crushed ice from a refrigerator can be a dilemma because the chunks are often too big or too small. My Whirlpool Gold fridge does a decent job, but still, a few large chunks do pass through. I have bought three different vintage Oster blender-attachment ice crushers (eBay!) and they work surprisingly well, although there is slush created in the process. I've come to recognize that crushed ice, generally, unless you make it by hand in a towel with a mallet and hand-select the non-powdered ice, or unless you have some sort of high-end machine, will inevitably be so-so and water down your drink. But then, a watered-down drink is also tied to how quickly you comsume it no matter how good (or bad) the crushed ice is. And for certain drinks I have switched to using ball molds now. (The world of using silicone ball molds is a whole other topic. There are a lot of crappy ones being sold, and I had to invest about $100 until I settled on a brand of ball molds that work "mostly" well and didn't leak and had a good size.)

On 2013-01-23 04:09, AceExplorer wrote:
... And for certain drinks I have switched to using ball molds now. (The world of using silicone ball molds is a whole other topic. There are a lot of crappy ones being sold, and I had to invest about $100 until I settled on a brand of ball molds that work "mostly" well and didn't leak and had a good size.)

And what brand was it?

Oh, don't answer here, answer in the Silicone Mold topic (just created)...
http://www.tikicentral.com/viewtopic.php?topic=44686&forum=8&0

The Waring Pro is pretty good -- I drop two crescent cubes from the fridge at a time and it crushes consistently. I've had it for four years now.

I also sometimes use a hand-cranked machine IKEA made, called the Groggy! It's good for snow, and the small, bullet shape makes it easy in your hands. But it's only viable for a four-person cocktail party.

Hi folks!

I presume this should go in this thread? Please let me know otherwise.

I haven't seen any discussion related to which (if any) ice crushers are the most quiet and apartment friendly - any/all thoughts?

I have a Deni 1 speed, and every time I use it my wife rushes out with a concerned look. I'm pretty sure it's because of the ice crusher. I'm pretty sure my neighbours aren't too excited about the sound late at night either...

When I went to Trader Vic's in Bangkok, they had a Cone Of Silence on their blenders. Try as I might, I haven't found any commercial products along these lines - pointers anyone?

Cheers!

On 2014-10-21 16:15, theregoesnorman wrote:
Hi folks!

I presume this should go in this thread? Please let me know otherwise.

I haven't seen any discussion related to which (if any) ice crushers are the most quiet and apartment friendly - any/all thoughts?

I have a Deni 1 speed, and every time I use it my wife rushes out with a concerned look. I'm pretty sure it's because of the ice crusher. I'm pretty sure my neighbours aren't too excited about the sound late at night either...

When I went to Trader Vic's in Bangkok, they had a Cone Of Silence on their blenders. Try as I might, I haven't found any commercial products along these lines - pointers anyone?

Cheers!

My vintage one is as quiet as a wood chipper!

Perhaps you should pre-crush? One of the advantages of my vintage Oster is you can put the chipper over an ice bucket and knock out a huge amount fairly quickly.

Other option I have employed mainly by accident (over-bought for a party). We have a deep freeze in the basement and I keep a bag of Sonic ice in there. Ice pellets. If you don't have a Sonic, you may be able to get it by the bag at the grocery store's seafood section. There are places around with pellet ice and if you have the space in a freezer, you can keep it on hand. If you try to crush your own and store it you'll just have an iceberg as it will just fuse together once frozen.

This is the way to go

Takes a large Block of ice sold at the store

[ Edited by: Longboard 2014-10-22 08:18 ]

I'm probably going to regret posting this, but I use one of these:

http://www.margaritavillecargo.com/party-machines#prefn1=mgvSeriesType&prefv1=Bahamas%E2%84%A2

Fill the hopper w/cubes, use the "shave only" switch and in a few seconds I have a blender jar full of shaved ice. Used it just last weekend for ice for a couple of Molokai Mikes. I picked mine up barely used on craiggy's for 50 bucks. And when the mood strikes, it makes great Margaritas and Pina Coladas.

howlinowl

On 2014-10-29 01:24, howlinowl wrote:
I'm probably going to regret posting this, but I use one of these:

http://www.margaritavillecargo.com/party-machines#prefn1=mgvSeriesType&prefv1=Bahamas%E2%84%A2

Fill the hopper w/cubes, use the "shave only" switch and in a few seconds I have a blender jar full of shaved ice. Used it just last weekend for ice for a couple of Molokai Mikes. I picked mine up barely used on craiggy's for 50 bucks. And when the mood strikes, it makes great Margaritas and Pina Coladas.

howlinowl

I had one of those for a while. Loud as fuck. Scared the cats and children.

It makes too fine of ice for what Tiki drinks call for. Slushy stuff. But better than cubes.

For general use around the home and bar....

Crank one direction for coarse, the other for fine.

The coarse is about like what you would get out of the door of your 'fridge.

The fine is just about perfect for Mai Tai's and related drinks.

I can run several pounds of ice through this in short order, I once challenged my Snowflake machine and beat it by almost double in a 10 pound race.

Still not what you want to do for a party of more than five or six people, but for general use this machine is awesome and comes in several colors if you look hard enough.

Word of caution for you.... do not try and crush your ice and then put it back in the freezer. Not with this kind of grinder at least. The ice comes out very wet and if you go back into the freezer you wind up with a nice solid chuck of chipped ice. Grind what you need as you need it. Trust me.

Heh....I just purchased an old ice-o-mat just like the one above at the goodwill. 8 bucks. Haven't tried it out yet.

I'll still use my Margaritaville blender to make shaved ice. It really seems perfect for a Molokai Mike.

About 10 years ago, I used to have a Rival Ice crusher. You want to talk about scaring children? It used to scare me! Looked and sounded like this one:

http://youtu.be/BbkXfsCGR0A

it used to walk all over the counter and make that god awful groaning sound when empty.

One day, I came home and my wife threw it out. She found it in the kitchen cabinet, didn't know what it did and figured she didn't need it...

howlinowl