We drink cranberry juice. To fill in the empty spaces and build up the bottom of our chest freezer, I freeze water in the 64 ounce cranberry juice containers. They lay flat and fit perfectly between the dividers. This helps to keep the freezer full.
When the summer garden starts coming in, I remove the ice containers as needed. When defrosting the freezer, they are not as heavy and hard to handle as the gallon milk jugs I was using.
These containers of ice also work well in the cooler when we are traveling.
I thought *I* was the only one who did this! It's also a really good idea, for those inopportune times the power goes out- it's not often, but boy when it DOES happen, those ice jugs come in handy. I've also frozen smaller Coke-sized bottles for small ice needs, as in for an injury like a sprained ankle, or to cool off something in a larger tub the ice bottles come in handy.
You are right about not filling the bottle to the top. Ice does expand. Thank you for adding that comment. I also have some Gatorade bottles of ice in the freezer and as you said, these smaller frozen containers do come in handy.
