I’m aware of a few different ways to make perfectly clear ice, but each has its own tradeoffs.
I’m also aware of a whole bunch of different ways people claim to be able to make clear ice, but I’ve been unable to replicate.
What are you doing? Does it require special equipment? Do you recommend it?
I use directional freezing with a small, cheap 6-pack Igloo cooler that fits easily in my kitchen freezer. But I quickly got tired of carving ice.
To save time and effort, I picked up a couple cheap silicon ice cube molds that fit snuggly in the top of the cooler. I drilled 5 holes (~1mm each) in the bottom of each cube so that the gasses and minerals could drain through the bottom of the mold as the water freezes. Now I can simply drain the water, remove the molds, break away the excess ice, and pop out perfect cubes without having to do any carving.
It’s a very cheap and effective solution. And I regularly use the cooler as a regular cooler. It makes 12 cubes at a time and takes 16-24 hours to freeze. That’s plenty fast enough for me.