Another Commercial Clear Ice Cube Tray

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As you may recall, through much experimentation I figured out a way to make clear ice at home.

I later found an ice cube tray that uses the same principle (controlling direction of freezing) to make clear ice.

And now someone just pointed me to another ice cube tray that also uses the same principle (and has the same name as the last one). The Polar Ice Crystal Clear Ice Cube Tray is more compact than the other model, but it makes just one big cube at a time.

Like the other model, this is an insulated container with a tray inside. The interior tray is perforated, so all the cloudy parts of the ice are frozen beneath the perforation and you chop it off after it's frozen.

This one costs $18.99. More info is here.

An index of all of the ice experiments on Alcademics can be found here.

Comments

18 responses to “Another Commercial Clear Ice Cube Tray”

May 28, 2012

Michael Leuchtenburg

The manufacturer’s site is here:
https://www.polaricetray.com/bamboo/
And yes, it’s the same people.

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May 29, 2012

Kevin Liu

Hey Camper,
I bought this sucker and did some extensive testing with it, and I have to say I was not impressed. The contraption is very nicely constructed with high-grade plastic and silicone, but the ice it makes is a huge pain to remove (without cracking it, defeating the purpose), and I never managed to get truly clear ice.
As I think you recognize, temperature is the primary determining factor behind ice clarity. This device tries to slow down heat transfer through insulation, but inevitably a freezer that’s too cold results in fast freezing and cloudy ice.
That, and it’s freaking expensive, slow, (2-3 days in my tests for a single cube), and incredibly bulky – the picture doesn’t do it justice. The thing is huge.
my two cents.

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May 29, 2012

Camper English

Thanks Kevin. Sounds like so far the slow freeze method you’re doing or the directional freezing (igloo cooler) method I’m doing are more practical.

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May 29, 2012

Bharat

I got one of these and was not impressed with the results. Take a look at the last image from the album featured here:
https://plus.google.com/114934772272856977590/posts/eY6QV6P2vDU
I’m going to try a few more times, but it’s essentially a smaller version of the pond ice method which works really well and produces more than enough ice for me.

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May 30, 2012

Camper English

Yep, that’s some pretty cloudy ice. Pond method wins again!

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June 18, 2012

Andrew H.

I have both the Pebble and Bamboo polar ice trays and while the former works decently well (it’s the only effective way I’ve found to make mostly-clear ice cubes in my freezer, which is way too small to fit a cooler), I have to add my anecdotal evidence that the Bamboo variant is no good.
It’s slow to freeze, makes an awkwardly sized ice cube (too big for use by itself, too small to cut up, and not even a true cube), and, most damningly—I never got a clear ice cube out of it. I think it doesn’t give enough room for the white mass to form, so the white mass mostly ends up in the main body of the cube.
Summary: the Pebble works well, but the Bamboo is junk.

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August 24, 2012

Brant

I’ve used the large cube maker and has worked out well for me. The two important factors I’ve found successful are using distilled water and letting it sit in your freezer. I.E. not opening and closing the freezer to access items.

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September 19, 2013

Onyr

What is the ‘perfect’ size clear ice cube? I’d like to get some feed back. I have several prototypes that have consistently made perfectly clear cubes, 12 or more at a time, sized 1.5″ to 2.5″. The 1.75″ to 2.0″ cubes seem to work best for me, but before I go into mass production, I’d like others’ opinions.
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10200845510953487&set=a.10200845510873485.1073741829.1035455778&type=3&theater

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September 19, 2013

Camper English

The link doesn’t seem to work from here but you should be able to post an image with an html tag in a comment here. Anyway, I like 2″ cubes; the same size as the Tovolo King Cube trays.

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