My Refrigerator Is Making Smelly Ice Cubes. What's Wrong?

Next time you shop for a refrigerator, consider buying one with a dual evaporator, where the fresh-food and freezer compartments have their own dedicated evaporators, and no air passes between the two spaces, leaving your ice odor-free. (Dual-evaporator refrigerators tend to be more expensive than single-evaporator models.)

At Consumer Reports, we’ve previously used a garlic test to identify the issue with single-evaporator refrigerators and smelly ice cubes. We filled the fresh-food compartment of a single-evaporator refrigerator with garlic, made ice in the freezer, and found that the ice didn’t just smell like garlic (and it did)—it tasted like it, too. 

To avoid smelly ice cubes in a single-evaporator fridge, clean your refrigerator’s ice collection bin according to the manufacturer’s instructions; usually, a mixture of baking soda and warm water will do. Then put baking soda boxes in both the fresh-food and freezer compartments as close to the icemaker as possible. These will absorb food odors to minimize their travel into the icemaker.