Hutzler Ice Tray, Red

Like a few other reviewers, I bought this tray to make jello eyeballs for Halloween. They REALLY made an impression, and I am happy with the way that they turned out, for the most part.My one complaint is that tray doesn't seem to stay pushed down far enough to fill the spheres completely, so some of them don't wind up perfectly round. However, since this tray was intended to be used with water (which would expand in the freezer and surely fill in that gap) then I can't hold it against them too much. Pressing the tray down with some twist ties while the jello spheres set did help somewhat.

The top does not seat well into the bottom. It teeters and totters. My first attempt produced a sort of rectangular iceberg grid of spheres. I suspected this might happen because I had already discovered a row of very tiny protrusions down the middle on the underside of the lid. I left them, thinking is this part of the "design." If it was, it is a poor design. For my second attempt, I used an offset wood chisel to shear them off. The second attempt worked out better because the lid now seated/sealed slightly better; still, getting the balls out of the tray requires some slight effort; they don't all just fall out with a twist; some stick.and you have to twist again like you did last summer. Some stick to the lid, too. The balls are 1" in diameter. The hard plastic is flimsy, in my opinion, and will probably crack eventually, under normal use. Top and bottom don't mate very well. I place a weight on the unit to improve the seal.I also have two sets of Chillz ice ball makers made out of silicone. Each tray makes 4 4.5 cm balls. The Chillz also has the issue of imperfect seating but making a perfect seal is difficult when making balls. I place a weight on this one too to press the lid down. I suspect the silicone will last a long time. The balls do NOT fall out; you must peel the silicone away from them. Because these are soft and flexible, they are wobbly. So, I set them on a small plastic cutting board for stability before placing them in the freezer.4.5 cm = 1.7716535433071"Both Chillz and Hutzler need to be placed on a flat, level surface in the freezer.The volume of the Chillz balls is ~5.5 times that of the Hutzler balls so, of course, the Chillz balls last much longer in a drink.I much prefer the Chillz balls to the Hutzler ones but I will use both.

They work great with two caveats.First off -- you don't have to fill individual spots from the top,just fill the base tray to the top, not the top of the hemispheric depressions,but to its actual top. Fill preferably with distilled or RO filtered or boiled water for clearer cubes. Then push down the top tray whichhas the holes down on it. Water will squirt out.I then use two rubber bands on either end to hold the tray together,then I place on a very flat area of my freezer, and freeze.If you don't want to do the rubber bands, just put something heavy on top ofthe tray. you will get some frozen water on top, but the little balls pop outeasily. The frozen water on top is kind of interesting ice fora pitcher or something too -- looks like a sheet with holes in it :-)Kids always want more ice to play with and that works fine.You can also try to quickly empty out that extra water, but I foundmyself with many non spherical balls.As you can see, the rubberbands or weights, and flat freezer space arethe requisite caveats. Kotobuki Sphere Ice Ball Tray, Large  and the medium size toowork in a similar fashion. I save the big ones for my scotch, and the little onesfor my kids.

I hate to admit that I spent nearly two hours of my life reading ice tray reviews on Amazon before settling for these and I'm going to guess that you're doing the exact same thing. Just do yourself a favor and buy these. End the madness!They are very unique and I've already had a few comments by guests who were strangely impressed by my round ice. You just fill the bottom part about 3/4 of the way with water and press the top part in place. Then after 8 or so hours, I run the tray under water for not even a second to loosen the ice and break it over an ice bucket. Repeat process, profit! Occasionally you'll get less than perfect ice balls, but I'm not too worried about that, half spheres still look neat, although it would be nice if the two parts somehow snapped together.

Got these to make ice obvs. You know, half the time they stick to the lid and half the time they stick to the base for no reason I can find. I tried all the ways. And they don’t come out easily at all and more often than not part stays in the mood so these partial balls come out. I have one I got at a thrift store that works great but this is a different plastic and I’d give it a “frustrating” rating.

Am making hundreds of these balls for a project at work. Fill bottom tray completely full then slowly push top tray on. Some will spout out top but that is ok. If a few have 1/8 to 1/4 " air on top is ok as ice will expand. But try to get most full. Wrap two thick rubber bands around to hold them together as balls freeze. While still together run each side under hot water briefly. Hold upside down, twist and bang against sink to break off all chunks that have frozen on top from overflow. Then open up tray and twist each piece to get balls out.Works quite well this way. But would be great if there were clips to hold the two pieces together, and if the plastic was softer and more bendable when frozen.

These are great for making pudding pops for my granddaughter! You fill the ball section with pudding, put the top tray on, insert lollipop sticks through the hole, and put the tray in the freezer. Once frozen you remove the top section and are left with pudding pops! My granddaughter loves them, and you can make several from one cup of pudding.

While it takes some practice to make little ice spheres with this tray, once you get it right, it’s worth it. Not only are these little ice spheres cute, they fit in stainless water bottles, and ice packs.To fill the tray sufficiently, you first have to fill the bottom tray, place the top back on, and slowly fill the tray with additional water through a few of the small holes in the top of the tray. I’ve found that I only end up with spheres if I have filled the tray so that I have water in the top tray. The easiest way to release the spheres is to run warm water over each side of the tray for a few seconds. When I decide to skip the warm water, I end up with ice spheres flying into the air and onto the floor, and they’re pretty aerodynamic.

I wanted a tray to make small frozen coffee cubes, to prevent diluting iced coffee. On a whim I decided to try this fun shape. I'm not convinced, as some say, that spherical ice makes drinks colder, but they look really cute. It took me a few minutes to get the hang of filling the tray and pressing the top piece in far enough to create perfect spheres without squeezing liquid out the vent holes. (If this happens, it's not messy because the top has a rim to catch the excess. You just remove the top, pour it back in, and try again) Also if you don't get the top properly seated in place, your ice spheres will have a little ice "collar" around the middle. With a little fidgiting I got the hang of it. The tray needs to sit perfectly flat or the liquid will not freeze evenly. I am using a chest freezer without shelves and had to balance it on top of other frozen items. so I set it on an oblong plate to keep it level while freezing and also to catch spills/overflow so I won't have frozen coffee all over my other items. Worked great.This is hard plastic rather than flexible silicone. I have tried silicone ice trays and their "floppiness" makes them hard to work with. This doesn't flex so once you get the top in place, it stays there, and you can carry it to the freezer without spilling. Twisting the tray to release the ice was easy, even for my arthritic hands. I think over time with repeated freezing and twisting, the tray is likely to crack, so like all plastic ice trays this probably will need to be replaced after a couple of years.I noticed that after my very first batch of coffee ice, the white plastic was already stained slightly brown and retained a faint smell of coffee and cinnamon after hand washing. I assume it will get more pronounced over time. I don't really consider this a fault in the product, since coffee stains and scents pretty much any container it's kept in, even stainless steel and glass. But the coffee flavor would probably carry over when freezing plain water, juice, etc. so I'm going to get a second tray to use for other kinds of ice and keep this one exclusively for coffee.It will be fun to serve colorful and flavor-enhancing ice balls in summer beverages. I haven't tried it yet but it looks like it would be easy to put a small berry, twist of citrus peel, sprig of mint, etc into the wells and freeze them inside the spheres.Glad I chose this tray! Overall I recommend this product!

When I first witnessed this tray, I was scratching my head going 'ROUND cubes? But these aren't ice Cubes at all!', having never seen nor heard of this wonderful little concept of rounded ice balls to replace the Squares and stiffs of the frozen drink enhancement industry.Pros:~ Ice-Spheres. Do I really need to say more? I do not know why, but I find the concept rather amusing, in a childish way. I will note the small spheres offer a great boon vs large ice cubes, as they 'stack' in a drink much easier then bulky ice cubes.~ The Tray itself is so far, holding together from ruthless abuse and after learning how to use it (Read the Con below), makes 21 perfect spheres. It flexes enough to easily break the spheres out, but is not flimsy by any means.Cons:~ It's rather confusing. I did not get instructions with it, and assumed you over fill the top (using the small holes on the top) to fill it. this left a tonnnn of ice on top that made it difficult to break apart. Upon studying, I realized instead you fill the bottom tray to about 2/3rds full, then press the top (holed) part snuggly down letting any excess water squirt from the holes. After a few uses, I've figured out how to drastically mimize spillage, and in turn, excess ice I need to clean when I crack this. Wish they would send a slip how to use this!Judgement:~ For the price range, it's a solid choice. There are likely better ones, but for the price, this tray works, makes a fair amount of icy spheres, and is durable enough to last.

Crazy hard to get the fill level perfect on this, and the lid pops up Very easily if over filled at all, causing the thin ice ring to connect all the balls together. BUT what else can really be expected with a large mini ball tray like this.I generally try to error slightly toward under-filling and get slightly flat tops on my ice balls, and/or I also find it helpful to put something solid and heavy on top of it after putting it in the freezer.You might think my 4 star rating and subsequent description are contrary to each other; but again, how would one really improve on a device that makes a large number of small balls at once, if perfection is what you demand you will probably have to try a mold that makes only a fraction of this many balls at once, and/or makes bigger balls which seem easier to get fill levels perfectl on.

Easy to make and great for all my drinks including soda stream bottles! May want to put under something if perfect balls are your jam but for easy ice that can fit in most if not all reusable bottles but still a good size for blending in smoothies then this is a good 8$option!And red juice in the bottom half makes easy pokeball ice cubes to entertain your nieces and nephews (I mean you can do it for your kids too, but two step ice cubes feels like a dangerous thing to start at home!)Stay hydrated friends!