My parents are building a new kitchen and my dad has gotten hooked on nibbling at that flaky ice stuff they put into soft drinks at some drive throughs. We believe it’s called “nugget ice.”
He was wondering if there are any non-commercial ice machines that made this sort of ice an if so what would be a good durable brand that would, ideally, also have a good selecion of machine sizes and looks. (We can google it of course, but we were hoping for some personal recommendations.)
This appears to be the smallest “nugget” ice maker on the planet. Usually, these things are far larger, meant for making hundreds or thousands of pounds of ice a day.
At $3,000, it’s a bit extravagant, but not unreasonable, for someone who really is into ice. It is a countertop-eater, though, and with its height, they’d need to build a nook especially for it. To feed it, they’ll need a water line and a dedicated 15 or 20-amp circuit - trivial considerations at the time of planning a kitchen remodel.
At one time I had an ice grinder, hand-cranked, which produced nugget-like ice. If you could find one, it’d be a lot cheaper than a commercial ice machine.
I just went through this search last year–I ended up getting a portable ice maker and a commercial sno-cone machine for a cost of around $800. The only nugget machines that could meet my required output were 3 or 4 times that amount. (And I searched pretty thoroughly (at least for me).
It keeps my in my fix of crushed ice, but is not quite as easy. One day my lust for ice will rise to the point where I will be a able to justify $2,500 for the real deal.
My wife went through the same thing. Once we found that the cheapest ice-makers were around $3,000, we decided it was simply more economical (even in the long run) to continue purchasing a bag of ice from the local Sonic drive-in once every couple of days.
The toughest part is during the hot Texas summer when I have to call around to all the local Sonics and find one that is willing to spare a bag of ice for us.
