The Clear Ice Maker That Already Exists

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So you know how I've been working for months on a way to make clear ice, and figured out that the best way (so far) to do it is with an Igloo cooler?

It turns out that someone else thought of that at least a couple of years ago. The Polar Ice Tray is basically a high-design cooler that separates the cloudy part of the ice from the clear part.

They accomplish this with an interior perforated bucket of sorts. The last part to freeze, the bottom, will have all the cloudy parts in it, and that is below the bucket.

According to the instructions, you break off the cloudy part outside the bucket after it is frozen.

Pretty cool. More information is here.

It looks like it works as well as my Igloo cooler method, and is just a bit smaller holding about 2.5 cups worth of ice. I've got more experiments to do though…

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

ice tray making clear ice cubes

Comments

24 responses to “The Clear Ice Maker That Already Exists”

November 24, 2010

Dagreb

Thta looks suspiciously like some Tupperware I’ve got…
Experiments await!

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November 25, 2010

Tony Harion

I really like the design. And if it wasn’t for the fact that I’d be spending $60 on an ice tray I would probably get one.
Just didn’t get why the chose to put a video of ICE TRANFORMERS fighting in the kitchen on their website.
Nicely made video, but weird marketing choice, really..

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November 26, 2010

Jen Caputo

Well, I decided to bite the bullet and buy one for my hubby for Christmas. Gotta try it out! I’ll let you know.

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November 26, 2010

Camper English

Please do!

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December 13, 2010

Andrew Ho

Well! I ordered one of these and it arrived, and it works pretty well! It’s not entirely perfect (takes a long time to freeze, sometimes there are still largish bubbles on the bottom, and now I need to learn to carve ice cubes). But it makes beautiful chunks of clear ice with minimal work, which is pretty cool.
I’ll post a full review with photos at some point soon and put a pointer here.

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December 14, 2010

Camper English

Cool- thanks for the info!

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December 26, 2010

Jackie Patterson

Camper, thanks for this post! Felix got me this tray for Christmas!! xoxo jp

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September 15, 2011

Jen C

I just realized we never came back and updated our thoughts on the Polar Ice Tray. It does make some nice big chunks of ice, (which any tupperwear could do) and they are kind of clear. Far from perfect and I wouldn’t really consider this a worthy investment.

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February 21, 2015

Amber W.

I bought the polar ice tray that produces two round clear ice balls. This does work like the video with one small snag-it leaks out the sides. I have discovered it’s really a two step process. Here’s how to fix the leak problem.
1. Fill it up (but not to the absolute top) leaving 90% of the top portion of the silicone ball not filled with water.
2. Let freeze 6 hours.
3. Use a small plastic syringe (found at the drug store for $2) and use it to inject the rest of the silicone balls with water through the tiny hole at the top. Fill to absolute capacity.
4. Insert back into freezer for the remaining 6 hours.
Viola! Two perfectly frozen round clear spheres of ice.

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February 21, 2015

Camper English

Thanks Amber – I literally just scheduled a post to go up about the new ice ball maker 5 minutes ago.
I have only used the maker once and it worked fine but will look for the problems you experienced, then reschedule that post for later on after trying it a few more times. Thanks for the note!

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November 2, 2016

Casey Conner

Check out https://www.iceicemaybe.com we are working on a new commercial grade ball maker that uses this method!

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November 2, 2016

Camper English

Let me know when it launches – would be glad to give it a try/plug.

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