For years I have used the cheap plastic ice cube trays in my freezer. Recently I’ve gotten tired of them because the ice is difficult to remove and the trays add a plastic taste to the ice. Also I switched to Klean Kanteen bottles recently after all the talk about BPA in plastic water bottles. So I thought that now would be a good time to switch to a stainless steel metal ice cube tray to go along with the steel bottles.

After looking around I found that there are not very many manufacturers of metal ice cube trays. I only found one ice cube tray made out of stainless steel. Unfortunately it is somewhat expensive, but considering it will probably last for decades I went ahead and purchased it.

I ordered it with the cheapest shipping on Sunday night. It was at my house in Washington state on Wednesday. Super fast shipping! The ice cube tray is stamped with the company name Onyx. The tray looks very nice and seems to be of high quality. It has a handle to release the ice which is so much easier to use than twisting the old plastic trays.

I only bought one because the price was on the higher side. I may eventually order a second one so that I can make more ice. In my search for a new ice cube tray I found that there are vintage aluminum ice cube trays that are available on the secondhand market. Personally I would avoid those because aluminum could possibly leach into the ice. Stick with stainless steel because it has been shown not to leach into water or ice.

Update 8/15/2009:
I’ve used the ice tray over the last few weeks. The only problem I’ve had is that it is sometimes hard to get the ice out (I have the same problem with plastic trays too). I think the key is too not overfill the tray. If you put too much water in then there is too much ice to crack when you use the handle to get the ice out. By putting less water in it takes less effort to get the ice out. Also running a little tap water over the frozen tray, top and bottom, seems to help get the ice out.

With all the news recently about the chemical BPA in plastic water bottles, I started looking for an alternative. I just want a water bottle that doesn’t leach chemicals that also has a lid so that if it falls over it doesn’t spill water everywhere. Some of the stainless steel bottles look nice but they are expensive and even metal could eventually leach chemicals.

The next alternative I looked into was glass. Glass seems to be the safest material for water storage. The strange thing is that there seem to be very few manufacturers of glass water containers with lids. The only one I can find is here.

In reading the reviews of that water bottle I found an alternative. Voss water sells Norwegian water in what appears to be the exact same bottles. You can buy a 24 pack of Voss water here. But unless you need 24 bottles of it you can also go to Cost Plus World Market where they sell individual bottles of Voss water. The water is pretty expensive at over $2 per 375ml container, but since you’ll reuse the bottle many, many times it is actually a pretty good deal.