BIG nICE BALLS !!! SEE OUR PICS !!!
Bottom Line: this makes good CLEAR ice in very nice looking uniform spherical ice balls. Results might vary and will depend some on your circumstance (your water, your freezer, some of our freezer locations worked better than others, etc.) This product does come with useful instructions and has tips for adjusting your water type to help, like using bottled mineral water. We have a very robust water softener that gives us very soft low mineral content water, so I have tried a few “recipes” with our tap water. BEST/EASIEST METHOD for me: use bottled water.HOW THIS METHOD WORKS – EXPLAINED (we hope this information is helpful in your decision)First consider how ice is typically formed in the freezer. The water cools and freezes right? Yes, but it generally cools from all sides with the ice/water boundary moving from the outside going inward. Water generally has some dissolved air and as it turns to ice the dissolved air/gases stay in the water and not the ice, until the air/gases have nowhere left to go surrounded by ice and just become trapped air in the ice. So generally the typical freezer ice cube forms with some clear ice around the outside with a bunch of bubbles inside.Well this type of ice cube maker controls the moving direction of the water/ice boundary so tiny cloudy bubbles end up in the ice underneath the ball, not in the ball. The stainless steel cup is double walled so it gives some insulating properties to the lower area. The ice ball mold is held in top portion of the cup, with water remaining below the ball mold in the cup. As the water loses heat through the top mostly and cools, the ice begins forming at the top then freezes going downward. The insulating cup helps this water/ice boundary move downward instead of from all side going inward (which would trap dissolved air and leave bubbles in the middle of the cube). The hole in the bottom of the ball mold allows the dissolved air (that stays in the water) to end up in the last pocket of water, in the cup and below the frozen ball. As this last pocket of water freezes it traps all the remaining air/gasses that have come out of solution in the piece of ice in the bottom of the cup, not in the ball mold just above. Clear ice ball. Enjoy !We hope this information is helpful in your decision. Cheers ! !
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M
Matthew E.
February 27, 2025
Read instructions and pay attention to pics & reviews. It works if you do it right.
Ok. I have plenty of ice makers with lots of sizes and shapes, and I really really REALLY wanted to like this item. I live alone and have a small freezer, so the size was more important than the 1 ball every 24 hours. I just wanted a nice clear ice ball for my old fashioned, is that too much to ask?So, I filled the container to above the min line, slowly immersed the rubber mold into the container, and put it in the freezer. After 24 hours, I could hardly hold myself back waiting for my nice clear ice ball. I pulled up the mold, opened it, and got...reverse moe from the three stooges. The entire bottom of the ice ball was white streaks and if turned upside down looked like moe howard's bowl cut turned white. I was devastated. Two more tries in two different states and two different kinds of filtered or unfiltered water, and I got the same results. I was just about to give up and write my 3-4 star review and be done with it, but I took a look at the other reviews and saw perfect results in pictures. There had to be something I was doing wrong.One more try, this time since the pictures I saw had the rubber mold stick up and out of the silver container about 1/4-1/2 inch (coincidence that this is about how much of my ice ball had while moe hair?) so I pushed it down only until the water started coming up out of the top of the mold, and not all the way down. 24 hours later, I was the proud owner of a completely clear ice ball. AND THERE WAS MUCH REJOYCING.So, if you are having trouble with not getting clear ice, remember that pushing the mold all the way down might be causing the problem. For me, I'm waiting for my 2nd completely clear ice ball with far more optimism than before.
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Almost completely clear and no seam lines
This is a long review, but I felt it was needed if you're actually going to spend double-digits on a device that makes a single piece of ice, so here you go:I've had multiple different "clear ice" molds and this one comes the closest so far to what I would expect when you talk about amateur-made clear ice. Even when using plain tap water and being very lazy about preparation, the ice balls from this mold came out better than my other ones. And since I rated the others 4 stars (for being better than their non-insulated counterparts), this one by default bumps to 5. When I released the first sphere I produced, I uttered to myself, "dang, son.." and immediately had visions of recreating the glass sphere scene from the classic film The Labyrinth. Subsequent ones were clear or very close to clear.. there were a couple with some tiny bubbles from the bottom, and I think the common factor was that I ran the faucet fast and the aerator had kicked in.. they work better if I run the tap slowly when filling. My guess of why this one works better than my other molds is that this one is cylinder shaped and is made of stainless steel, whereas my others are insulated foam of one type or another, in a bulkier, asymmetrical container.The biggest caveats of this mold are that it's a little more tedious to fill than my foam-based insulated molds (marginally; you just need to be slow.. or if you're impatient like me, you could just work in the sink and deal with the water mess), it can be tricky to seal/release the silicone part because there aren't really any handles, so you need moderate dexterity, and the "garbage ice" is tough to release. At first I thought I would be clever and use stainless steel cup as a tumbler of sorts, and pour myself a beverage with the dual purpose of loosening the ice puck while simultaneously having something to do while prepping the next batch of ice, however 9/10 times, it is still stuck in there by the time I'm done. Another review says to just pour some hot water in there and wait a minute, and so far that seems to be the most time-effective method.Some other things:- it comes with some nice looking little tongs which are basically useless; they don't grip the sphere well at all. But the product pics have been updated with tongs with black ends.. maybe those ones will be better?- I ordered this one, listed as model ZZ01, and the model ZZ02 from the same maker to see if there was any difference, and from what I can tell there is not.- I had the privilege of ordering this for review, so the ~$20 cost at time of order is not a factor in my review. BUT that being said, I only rate items 5 stars if I would recommend them to friends/family, or purchase it again with my own money, and this fills that criteria. You could consider it sort of a luxury purchase, but for me, after dividing the cost by the number of ice spheres that I've created that have made me happy, I quickly began to rationalize the investment. I would also say that having more than one ice mold is a lot more useful, because these take slightly longer to freeze; it normally takes like a day and a half for me.
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