51–60 of 75 posts
I've been making clear ice at home for a while--it's a great party trick and much easier to do than it seems. The best part is chiseling ice cubes from a large clear block of ice: use a serrated knife and a hammer and you will end up with perfectly square blocks of ice.
When I was working on an ice climbing robot we spent a lot of effort trying to get large blocks of clear ice to test on. The thought was that we wanted repeatable experiments. But then we realized that perfectly dense water ice is so hard and tough that our robot would not be able to get an ice screw into it. So we ended up trying to make something more similar to glacial ice. To do that we bought a nugget ice machin…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think the idea is leaving it open so it freezes from the top down. From what I've read there, the trick of clear ice is directional freezing. I've seen some other ideas like freezing water in a camping cooler with its top open.
That's what I thought the idea was, too. But then, why aren't my ice-cubes made in the regular fridge tray clear? The same principle should apply: they should be clear at the top, where the tray is open.
In an insulated vessel, the sides and bottom remain liquid until the frozen portion grows down from the top, pushing the cloudy bit to the bottom, which you can then just lop off.
> My big discovery of what became known as directional freezing was in 2009, and now it's used all over the world in smaller cocktail bars, in homes, and in the form of many commercial ice cube trays (none of which are owned by me, sadly).
Interesting…
Former bartender here. Having nice cocktail ice chunks at home isn't as complex as this might make it seem. No need for a clunky box in your freezer or costly gizmos. I keep a travel-sized coffee thermos in my freezer with about 2-3 inches of water at the bottom. Takes 18-24 hours to create one chunk. If you time it right, 90% of the water freezes, and the water impurities pool at the bottom – pop out the frozen chun…
It's S1E1, I believe it is available on Amazon. You might be able to find excerpts on youtube.
I’ve purchased this one[1] and it makes almost perfect cubes of ice that are very clear and melt evenly and slowly. In my cocktail glass it is so flat that the whiskey does not permeate the bottom. The result is a beautifully clear square in the center of my glass when looking at it from above. Trick is to let the ice temper for a few minutes to acclimate to the room temperature before pouring your drink over it. Oth…
Major hassle though. And is the aquarium pump food safe? Probably better to go with the directional freezing method.
Regardless, I'm pretty sure Camper English mentions this somewhere in his archives - he's tried every single method as far as I can tell. He is the godfather of clear ice.
Anyone being successful with some diy Peltier or compressor solution to make big blocks? I need big blocks, more than my freezer can cope, but not enough to justify couple of thousand EUR worth of machine.
Can you justify a few hundred for a big chest freezer and a cooler? Then you can use the cooler method described in this link or in one of the other comments from ir77 on this thread. But just put the cooler inside the big chest freezer. https://www.alcademics.com/2010/08/a-homemade-giant-crystal-...
A second hand ice cream maker could provide the cooling power.
I always thought the key to getting clear ice was to boil the water first so the oxygen goes out of solution.
That isn’t the issue. The problem is an ice shell initially forms, then the water inside the shell needs to expand as it freezes but it has no where to expand. This creates internal stress and micro fractures and the resulting ice crackles due to internal stress. Clear ice requires a directional freeze.