Alcademics

I've been working on methods to more easily produce huge 3" or so cubes that I can then use to carve into ice diamonds or put into an ice ball press to make spheres. 

Previously I was trying out inserting dividers into the cooler to make the ice blocks and this works pretty well. But recently I've returned to one of the earliest clear ice hacks that I first tried in 2010! I purchased plastic boxes that are sold both at The Container Store and TAP Plastics and used them as ice cube trays. The original post is here.

For these new experiments, I purchased larger square boxes, and drilled holes in the bottom of them. This maximized the clarity of the ice made in the boxes. 

In this round, I set the boxes atop a riser, so that the cloudy part of the ice that forms would be below the plastic boxes. In the picture below, the gray thing is the riser (a silverware drawer organizer) and the cubes were set atop it. This is the whole block after dumping it out of the cooler. 

You can see a finished giant cube in this picture below. 

I think that one may even be a four-inch cube, which is bigger than I need it. But the three-inch ones made for easy ice spheres in the press and I'm getting better at carving ice diamonds too. 

There's a fun slow-motion video of this ice diamond here.

Going forward, I may use these boxes but I'm going to try to fill the whole cooler with them or make them more efficient somehow. 

Update: I bought more boxes and it turns out that 6 boxes fit exactly into my cooler. 

The boxes measure 3 7/16" x  3 7/16" x 6 5/16" tall (box M103 here)

I drilled holes in the bottom and set them on a riser in my cooler. The ice came out cloudier than I want it. I don't think I jostled the cooler too much while it was freezing so I'm not sure if I just need more holes in the bottom or if maybe my riser is too fine a mesh. 

Really what I should try is cutting the bottoms off these boxes entirely, but they're hard to cut. 

In any case, here is what it looks like: