apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

That chipper is also sold by Scharffen Berger chocolate as a chocolate chipper, used to break up baking bars to put into cookies. I never thought about using it for ice. For what it's worth, it only worked moderately well for chocolate so I gave it away.

http://scharffenberger.com/prodinfo.asp?number=CHIPPER

you buy really large pieces of chocolate, huh?

Immediately empty your plastic bag of ice into brown paper bags before placing in your home freezer. Will never stick together - it's amazing.

I'm thinking the old, time-tested method of hitting the bag on the floor sounds is winning out over jabbing at it with a little ice pick for 20 minutes.

...or you could put the bag inside a pillowcase, smash it on the floor, and save seven bucks ;.

I give the ice bag a few smacks with a hammer to loosen it up. Sure, it sometimes makes tiny little holes in the bag, but never enough to really break the whole thing.

i put it on the counter and karate chop it a few times with my bare fist... my wife uses a rolling pin.

I use the hammer trick, or if it's still breaking apart into large chunks I'll take a knife to it, psycho style... a butter knife will work just fine and you won't end up dulling your more expensive knives (or making a trip to the emergency room)!

We're the people that bang on counters, the garage steps, or drop repeatedly on the kitchen floor!

I am intrigued by this brown paper bag business!

I worked at a grocery store for ten years, and I would get mad at the baggers for breaking up the ice when they removed it from the freezer for the customer. They thought they were doing a favor for the customer.....plus boys like to break things.

Breaking the ice before getting it home to the freezer causes the ice to melt faster.

We make sure to bust our ice up before entering our house... the front porch steps work great, as did the bike rack at our old apartment.