The machine comes with a four-cube mold; you can also separately purchase a Collins mold that makes three ice prisms for a taller glass. The molds are made of a thick silicone—much thicker than most standard ice molds. Once you fill the mold with water, you simply place it in the inner compartment, close the lid, press the knob, and let it do its thing. You don’t need to use filtered water. The tap will work just fine with your water source because all the impurities in the water, like minerals and gas, will be removed. I tested cycles with both filtered and tap water and the end result was the same.
Each cycle takes between eight and twelve hours to complete. That’s a pretty long time. It depends partly on how cold the water you fill the mold with is and the temperature of the surroundings. Ideally, the Klaris would have a shorter time frame to complete the cycle. There is a timer that shows how much time has elapsed, but not how much time is left.
In my apartment, where the air temperature is around 21 degrees Celsius, the Collins stones took about ten hours, and the standard cubes about eight. I’ve heard anecdotes that during the winter in cold regions, it can take as little as five hours.
Because it takes so long, I forgot to pick up my ice right away a few times; the feature
that allows you to keep it cold for up to five more hours comes in handy here. The only time
I completely forgot to check it even after the delay, everything went back to liquid water,
So I started again. Obviously, you need to plan a bit if you have a specific event you want to attend.
Use the ice for… The delay features in general are a great touch and help you time your ice making time.
harvest, as it sometimes ends overnight.
Making things clear
But since the machine plugs into the wall, I’m not sure why there can’t be a feature that keeps it cold until you open it again. How does it work? Water freezes layer by layer from the bottom up, which is known as directional freezing. (You can’t achieve this with a mold in a standard freezer because cold air is coming from all directions.) At the same time, an impeller-type device inside the lid spins the water, which circulates impurities up and out of the bucket. This motion provides the necessary constant agitation, eliminating the chance of impurities settling to the bottom.
The impeller needs to be submerged in the water, so you need to fill the mold with water up to the fill line, which is higher than where the ice will eventually end up. When the cycle is complete and you open the lid, it almost looks like nothing happened because there is a layer of liquid water on top of the clear ice. This water holds the impurities. Then, you take the mold out and dump that water into the sink. You turn the mold upside down and twist it and push a little bit to get the stones out. You need to separate them from each other with the plastic dividers that are in the mold. These can be a little flimsy and you don’t get any more, so I try to be careful not to break them.
