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I've always just put an ice cube in a ziplock bag. If it isn't square, that means it's melted & refrozen. The marble trick seems like it's probably more sensitive, but I also don't have marbles and film canisters laying around.

Low effort too: I just look at the ice in the bucket rose if it's frozen in a blob - or a pool of frozen water at the bottom. :)

This is a tip EVERYONE should know and I still do this! I use a half filled bottle of water, a small rock, and mark safe/not safe so anyone who's not me knows which way it should be.

Pretty sure it was my great-grandpa who taught me that.

I remember that my parents' old freezer had something like this built-in (using colored liquid instead of the marble, but the principle is the same). Seemed like such an easy and obvious feature.

I love low-tech solutions like this.