Carving Big (and clear) Ice Cubes

After much experimentation I have found one method to make big clear chunks of ice. That method is to put water in a cooler in the freezer, then chop off the top clear layer. Now the trick was to get this into useful sized cubes for glasses. 

*Update 2021: A better post on cutting up clear ice is here.

Starting with the slab of ice (this one about three inches thick),

I used a heated bread knife to score the ice just about 1/8th of an inch,

Then tapped the scratch in several places with an ice pick and found it separated really easily.

And I got the whole thing chopped into long spears.

I use these really long ones in a tall glass

and scored and cut the rest of the spears into big fat cubes.

Hooray! Time for a drink.

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