Making a block of perfectly clear ice 

This is quite the rarity: A NileRed creation where you can actually do it at home. SAFELY.

I love how NileRed is a safety conscious responsible science communicator while NileRed Shorts is HowToBasic in a labcoat.

He was so impressed, he didn't even shatter it against the floor at the end. That says a lot.

If the bubble in ice is the result of air being trapped, what would happen if you vaccum chamber the water then freeze it. Would it have different results?

you know the product is genuinely impressive when Nile doesn't destroy it in the end

Nile's solution to fixing something ugly : H A M M E R

"I'll break this ice carefully" said NileRed calmly.

There's a bar I go to that used to do this exact process for old fashioned cubes. I noticed how clear the ice was and the bartender explained this exact process with the cooler and freezing the top layer. He cut the cubes with a bread knife to make a line, then tapped the knife with a rubber mallet to separate the ice.

The uneven cut is because the ice wasn’t tempered before you tried to cut it. Leave it for half an hour after it’s popped out from the cooler and each cut will be far cleaner.

Nilered: “I got carefully rid of it" The excess ice: “With a HAMMER??"

1:17 Nile: And I carefully got rid of it. Also Nile: *Proceeds to hammer the living soul out of the ice*

"I carefully need to get rid of it." Dumbledore said, calmly.

Whenever NileRed says "carefully", a hammer is the next thing we see.

For 2 seconds I thought you were gonna say "And I think that it almost looks fake...that's because it is fake"

you should re-do this but flatten all the sides with an hot iron, like an actual clothes iron. it makes the sides perfectly flat so there's even less distortion. makes it look like a piece of glass

My man really just made a Minecraft Glass Pane

I can't believe NileRed is doing cocktail tricks now. That clear ice is just hard to resist, I guess.

Directional freezing. I do this to make translucent ice for my cocktails. My current method is puncturing small holes on the bottom of silicon ice molds and placing them inside a cooler without its cover. It makes getting the ice cubes out a lot easier than carving them from big chunk of ice.

You can get cleaner cuts by letting the ice block sit out at room temperature for 20-30 minutes. This is tempers the ice and you’ll know it’s tempered when it’s no longer frosty looking and has a wet appearance. I do this to make clear ice for my cocktails. It’s simple, easy and so satisfying. Love the video!

If you don't have enough space in your freezer for a whole cooler you can also just do this with a Yeti tumbler or any other insualted thermos. Comes out drink sized too so you don't even have to cut it up to use it in your cocktails.

This is the only video that outside of science

Man is answering the questions we all didn't know we needed

*"I need to CAREFULLY remove the the unfrozen water"* *Gets a hammer from thin air and mercilessly destroys half of the ice* I have started a war in the replies 💀

I love how NileRed makes these shorts videos and he is also showing people about all these quick science videos for example he could make a video for 2 minutes about a rare chemical but I love your videos NileRed!

If you don't have cooler yourself. A plastic ice cream package wrapped in thick towel works well too! Edit: and you can cut the ice with a bread knife that you don't mind dulling a bit. After you have cut the clear ice, you can put it back to freezer and it will stay clear. To prevent the ice cracking, keep the ice in room temperature for a minute or two, before dropping it into a drink.

I do this all the time. I like to use a bread knife, a small wooden mallet, and an ice pick to shape the results. You can get wax stamps and heat them with a blowtorch to emboss it as well.

Wow that is amazing. It’s funny how ice can turn from a blurry chunk of coldness, then turn into something almost crystal clear.

Nilered : "i will carefully take out the ice" Also nilered : proceeds to smash the ice

There is actually some measurable effects of using this clear ice in drinks compared to cloudy. The lack of air bubbles makes the ice denser and thus melts slower + has more total cooling capacity. Also, it just looks sick 🥵🥵

I love how Nile can never escape making longer videos. It's his shorts channel but it's almost 3 minutes long

As an ice it makes me super happy to watch this

POV: you're looking for the comments saying "bOiLinG iT is FaSTer"

There was a Scientific American article I read long ago that made a convex lens from this bubble-less ice and used it to take some pictures in a dark chamber. The refraction index of ice is quite different from glass, and it gave some weird photos.

1:13 I carefully got rid of it. *destroys with hammer*

You know if you use an uninsulated container you get really cool stuff? I once sterilised a waste paper basket to use to make ice for a party, filled the whole thing and put it in the freezer. After 24h it had a sphere of water in it that hadn't frozen so I got the idea to drill a small hole in it then fill up the center with vodka orange which we drank. It looked so cool, like a big orange trapped in ice

I once found the clearest ice i've ever seen outside in a small river (LITERALLY AS CLEAR AS THIS AT LEAST) It was so cool. I couldn't even see it at first, i was just wondering why the water in that area took a weird path

Man that freezer is hella fast. It made the water ice in literally 5 seconds.

0:06 people on twitter when someone has an opinion

never knew i needed to see a perfectly clear block of ice but here we are

0:14 To get started you need to get started.

0:55 When you’re taking a phat shi....

*drops it at the end*

I always love the “I carefully did x y z -“ *cuts to hammer footage*

Somehow the restaurants always have clear ice

0:58 Me on the toilet

This was a beautiful episode just like you, BlueNile, and Robo-RedNile

Traditionally clear ice is made by freezing from the bottom up so it’s a single crystal front. The cooler acts to insulate the sides so the ice grows from the top down. Had you let it finish freezing the bottom likely wouldn’t have been as clear as the top

As you may know, under ideal conditions, water crystallizes into hexagonal shapes. This is most readily apparent with snowflakes. However, when I was a teenager, we must have had absolutely ideal conditions outside for a couple of days - air just below freezing and absolutely no wind. What resulted was the top 4 inches of our pool froze into - not a clear slab - but vertical hexagonal columns, like pencils. It was like a million perfectly formed and transparent glass pencils were aligned vertically on the top of the pool. I grabbed a handful of them and played with them in amazement. I'm a PhD chemist who has made crystals countless times, and the old adage is that the best crystals are made by accident. Forgotten solutions sitting in the back of your hood with the lid ajar, etc. It is even more satisfying if you have a pile of crystals on a large (100 g to 2 kg) scale. I never lost my love for a big tray of crystals. The satisfaction of working them around a tray out of a vacuum oven - hearing the shhhh shards of glass sound. The light refractions. Awesome. While I have made some perfect crystals for x-ray diffraction purposes, possibly the most beautiful crystals I ever made were some aldehyde - I forget which. Something like 3-(3,4,5-trimethoxy)phenylpropionaldehyde. Maybe it wasn't that because that probably wouldn't crystalize out of a heptane solution. But whatever - around 80 g of whatever it was in a liter of eluent from a column chromatography. I left it over a weekend. When I came back the crystals were this dazzling dendritic (tree branch-like) structure that filled the flask, like a tree covered in frost, with a greenish-blue tint in the supernatant from trace chromium from the oxidation. It was absolutely beautiful. This would have been in perhaps 2004 so I didn't have a phone to take a picture. It broke my heart to dump it out and evaporate it down, although I did grab a small sample of the crystals before I did.

"I carefully got rid of it" *ABSENT MINDFULLY SMASHES ICE WITH HAMMER*

“And I carefully got rid of it.” *starts aggressively hammering the ice*

2:21 that one water drop from the ice: aight Nile ima head out you do you

I just love how the ice is so clear and can see perfectly.

I just love how Nile is a man of science...But sometimes he just reverts to old times of "Haha, hammer go smash"

“It almost looks fake” Me quickly looking at the date so it is not April 1

2:30 , i trust him at this point 😂😂

1:53 Disclaimer: No ice are harmed during making this video 😂😂😂 LOL

Can we just appreciate how this man was holding the ice with his bare hands to give us a better look

It's all fun and games until you chuck it onto someone

2:05 "and i was able to chop it into four large chunks." *Proceeds to make a cold beats*

When I was working at a butcher shop a few years ago, I was told to fill the large metal tubs with cold water specifically, to make the ice freeze clear. I have followed with that rule of thumb ever since and it hasn't steered me wrong.

2:35 respect for holding the ice with your bear hands

Finally a nile red experiment thats safe to do at home

Anyone remember when the mythbusters were trying to make a death ray out of ice and they struggled super hard to make a clear one without bubbles. And this mans just does it first try?

1:36 is it singing or

Ain't nobody gonna talk about the amount of time he holds a chunk of ice in his bare hands

1:37 - Bro, you cutting towards yourself is giving me major anxiety.

*video starts* *hammers ice and smashes it* ah yes, the chaotic opening scene.

The end was so calm. I was thinking for sure he'd throw it...I'm shocked😂

1:58 that's what she said. Btw gr8 vid

Ok

Absolutely all of us know what Nile is gonna do wen he say "do something carefully"

0:48 sounds Ike the halo 2 sniper

regular ice isnt ugly, this aspect ratio is

That was surprisingly a lot more simple than I expected it to be

Nile: “and I take rid of it carefully” Also him: *smashes it with hammer*

I'm just too distracted by the fact that you held a huge chunk of very cold ice with your bare hand. What a legend

Finally! A Nile red experiment witch doesn’t require any chemicals!!!

"i need to carefully remove the unfrozen water" Him: *Gets A Hammer And Smashes it* The Unfrozen Ice: *Why JUST WHYYYYY*

Him : It’s full of bubbles and I think it’s really ugly The ice block: *and I took that personally*

"I think it almost looks fake" *"don't throw it don't throw it"* *doesn't throw it* yay

1:38 the drill (or smth else) singing is perfect👌👌👌

The poor ice 😂 ice is now ugly. Amazing video anyways

Nile: And now I'm gonna gently take away the extra ice Also Nile: Continuously smashes the ice with hammer

WHOOOOOOOA it’s so glossy and clear 🤯

“Regular ice is so ugly, I want to to be *perfect* 😀”

Thanks for showing this Nile! It reminds me of this Christmas event me and my family went to where they built a castle and slide out of ice, and my mind was blown over how clear the ice blocks were.

This video is: ✔ Life changing ✔ Informative ✔ Inspiring ✔ Heartwarming ✔ Useful ✔calming ✔Enjoyable ✔ Other

The perfect piece of ice doesn't exi-

“ I CAREFULLY got rid of it” *hits ice with hammer*

The extended silence at the end was the scariest thing ever

NileRed: “and i **carefully** got rid of it” Also NileRed: *SMASH THE ICE WITH A HAMMER*

I love when Nile says he did something very carefully you know that hammer is about to coming crashing in 🤣

The whole sequence at 0:55 is genuinely the funniest thing i’ve ever seen ice do

2:16 arent your hands getting cold by the ice i dont know just asking (because I think it might be fake) NO DONT TAKE IT SERIOUSLY I AM JUST KIDDING

I just love how 'carefully' Nile does stuff😂

The clarity is thanks to annealing, not just avoiding dissolved gas. The cooler insulates the water so that it cools slowly enough to form clear amorphous ice. Essentially you’re making glass from molten water instead of silica.

“This is just some regular ice. But it’s filled with bubbles, And I think it’s really ugly” **procceds to brutally murder the ice in an instant** The ice: *EmOtIoNal DaMaGe*

I make clear ice in the regular refrigerator compartment, not the freezer. Plain cold tap water works fine. Use a plastic cup filled pretty much to the rim (perfection is not required at all.) Then place the edge of the cup right where the cold air blows into the refrigerator. After a day there will be a nice clear medallion, after a few days it will be several times as thick. I'm serious. The trick is to have the air blow over the surface of the water. I keep a cup going and every few days put the clear ice in the freezer to serve guests. BTW an ice pick and a wooden crab cracking mallet come in handy, tap tap not jab jab. The worst water to use? Seltzer. It makes one big white blob. Maybe I'll try boiling seltzer. What's really nice is tonic water. Make a pitcher of gin and tonic or vodka tonic and use those ugly but flavorful pieces of ice to keep it cold in the pitcher, and some clear ice to keep it cold in the glass. Too bad it's Tuesday morning!

2:08 So are we not gonna talk about the fact it sounds like a reference to “Industry Baby”

love how he does things carefully