How to cast clear ice!

This will demonstrate how clear ice may be produced at home.  The real secret is to keep the water moving.  Slow moving water may freeze to fast where, fast moving water may freeze to slow.  Sometimes the application of tiny amounts of heat at the circulatory end is needed.  This facilitates the slowing of the freezing process and insures a bottom up freeze.  Your equipment is easy to get and once a small chest freezer is found your good to go.  Luge, columns, spheres and plates may all be produced, prepped and stockpiled in small home use quantities.  I will not cover carving or sculpting as these are abundant on other sites.  At this writing my position is sous chef at a vineyard and winery in the central mid-west.  Some of the pictures show my works walk in coolers and freezers.  The actual casting is done the pictured 7.0 cubic foot chest freezer you would use at home.  The picture is an example of what you may do simply.  No carving. No sculpting.  No fancy electronics.  JUST ICE.

Step 1: Equipment

1 chest freezer..........................................                     free-180.00
1 aquarium power head...modified......                     free-  19.00
1 6" X 2.5' length SS duct for hvac...modified...                     6.95
1 6" SS duct cap                                                                          4.85
1 tube clear silicone, squeeze type................................         2.95
some form of insulating cap...foam, cardboard...etc..         free
siphon or large baster..............check the kitchen.........         free
1 strip aluminum or other hanger for power head...            6.95
                                                                                                    =====
                                                                              low end        21.70
                                                                            high end      200.70

Most of this equipment can be found for free or nearly so.

Comments

[elb]

added an edit to correct missing letters and pictures. Thanks.

[lemonie]

Ultrasonic baths are quite good for degassing water.

L

[elb]

P.s. got to try your squid pasta today.

[elb]

This was considered sometime ast year. I left it for three reasons, cost, complexity and possible heat production. This has not been tested but, my eye is looking out for a few free or yard sale jewelry ceaning units. Just a note here, the opportunity to talk to a chef instructor who taught ice carving, he broight up the heat issue as well. It may be nessacary to degas before freezing. Not sure it's needed. If you have experience with that process please coment further.

[lemonie]

The baths can "knock" air out of water fairly quickly, vacuum-filtration is also good.
But if you're getting good results it may not add much value. Boiling can help too.

L

[elb]

vacuum-filtration.....would this help with particulate matter at the molecular level i.e. salts, calcium, iron. Etc.?

[lemonie]

If you want really nice super water for e.g. HPLC where dissolved-gas and "crap" can cause problems, you might vacuum-filter distilled water through very fine filters and then purge it with helium. It's a bit extreme but the vacuum sucks dissolved-gas out (if the filters are close and take a lot of sucking-on).

L

[Skymeat]

I've been chomping at the bit to try something like this. A cheap pump like (http://www.harborfreight.com/two-stage-3-cfm-air-vacuum-pump-66466.html) this is supposed to go to 25 micron which is better than 99.997% vacuum. I'm pretty sure that would be about as good as it gets without some really high tech stuff.