Looking for the quickest and easiest way to create clear ice? There have been many options explored all over the internet, from “Double Boiling” tap water, using pure distilled water, to even setting up a massage device to vibrate the ice as it freezes. Unfortunately, all of these techniques fail to take into account the simple aspect of the way water freezes.

If you placed water in a standard can or mold, it freezes from all 4 sides at relatively the same pace. As water freezes, ice forms on the exterior of all sides, slowly pushing the colder water inwards and towards the center of your ice cube or mold. Air bubbles, minerals, and other impurities continue to be condensed closer and closer to the center of your ice block or mold. As we all know, water expands when it freezes. How does this relate to your clear ice?
When the water in the middle freezes, it expands into the already frozen ice on the outside. This creates large splits, cracks and the final hazed and impure ice cube / mold you’ve come to expect.

So, what’s the trick to creating clear ice?
After testing many different methods, we have come up with a cost-effective and efficient way to make clear ice.

You will need the following:

• Cooler
• Ice Mold or cup (We use Sumo Cubes).  You can use party cups as well.
• Tap Water (You can double-boil or use tap water if you want) Though through testing it didn’t seem necessary to do so

Depending on how much room you have in your freezer, you may have room for multiple coolers.  I would recommend that if you are making a lot, you use numerous small coolers, as opposed to one or two large coolers.  In this case I have used a 16QT Coleman cooler, available at many retailers. Start by taking the lid off your cooler.

Place your ice molds throughout your cooler to maximize as much space as possible.  If you are unable to purchase the Sumo cubes, you can always use the plastic party cups which can be purchased from almost any retailer or grocery store.  We have demonstrated what a setup with party cups looks like below.

Now you can fill your ice molds and the surrounding area.  You can use tap water depending on your location and quality of local water.  Given our location in Western Canada, our tap water is of extremely high quality. You may want to use distilled water if your tap water is of lower quality. Ensure when filling your cooler and ice molds that you leave approximately a 1cm gap between the top of your surrounding cooler water and the top of the ice mold water.   If you don’t, you will notice your ice molds / cups will begin to float in the cooler.

At this point you can place your cooler into your freezer.   Depending on the size and quality of your freezer, it can take between 24-36 hours to fully freeze.

Once you pull your cooler out of your freezer, you should have an entire block of ice, along with your particular ice mold.

In order to get your large block of ice out of the cooler, the easiest method is to turn it upside down in a sink and run hot water over the back and sides.  You may also need to press down several times in order to help push the large chunk of ice out.

Once removed, you should be left with a large chunk of ice.  In order to separate your ice molds from the remaining area which you will not be using, you need to run it under hot water.  Ensure when doing so you do not run the mold under hot water for a long period of time.  I found around 10-15 seconds was enough, though you may want to experiment with this. If you run it under the hot water for to long, your ice mold may crack. It doesn’t matter if the outside area cracks, as its only the molded ice we are concerned about.

Once you have removed your ice mold from the remaining larger chunk of ice, you may have to use a small knife or ice pick in order to remove the odd chunk which sticks to the side of the mold.

Now you can remove the ice from the ice mold. When using the Sumo Cube ice cube molds they come out of the silicon fairly easily.  If you have opted to use the plastic party cups, you may have to cut them and peel back the plastic cup. Either way, you should be left with a 99% clear ice chunk.  You will notice the bottom layer of the clear ice cube is white and full of impurities. This is because the cooler has frozen the ice in a downward direction, forcing all the impurities to the bottom rather than the center of your ice cube.

Depending on what you are doing with your clear ice cube molds, your next few steps will differ. In order to give it a clear appearance, run it under cool water.  This will remove the outer frozen area which helps to clear the ice up.

We have used our clear ice for use in our Ice Drop machine. This helps give an extremely pleasing looking ice ball, and in most cases is 99% pure. The odd air bubble remains, but in most cases is perfectly clear.

Take a look at our clear ice ball and clear ice molds, and the process we use to come to our final display!