A quality ice making machine is a must-have for anyone who regularly entertains guests, drinks iced coffee or cocktails, or simply wants to keep a fresh supply of the freezer-burnt stuff at their disposal. But what factors should you consider when deciding which appliance to buy? The answer will depend on your particular needs, but convenience, production capacity, and cost are all important.
Choosing the best ice machine starts with understanding what size and shape of ice you prefer. If you’re a seltzer drinker, for example, you might want to choose a countertop model that produces bullet ice cubes rather than cubed ones. On the other hand, if you have a big family and want a machine that can keep up with demand, a built-in option with a larger storage bin might be a better choice.
The most common type of ice maker is a compact, free-standing model that can produce anywhere from 24 to 40 pounds of ice in a day. These units typically have a small storage bin that needs to be emptied often, as they only hold about half of the ice made each hour. If the bin is full, the unit stops making ice until space becomes available.
For a budget-friendly choice that still produced plenty of ice in our testing, we recommend the Igloo Portable Electric Countertop Ice Maker. This compact machine is quick and easy to use, producing its first batch of ice in just 8 minutes. It also features a handle, which makes it the most portable of the models we tested. Its only drawback is that it can be finicky with the sensor that triggers the “full bin” mechanism, sometimes falsely believing the container is full when it is not. ice making machine