Commercial grade ice machine for home.

[The Woo]

Greetings.

I've no affiliation with this company but am just sharing what seems to be quite good value for a fairly large commercial quality ice machine.
A mate who does commercial shop fittings forwarded it to me suggesting it's great value.

http://www.factoryfast.com.au/p/120k...-cube-machine/

Cheers.

[marto78]

I have been looking at some of the ones on ebay but don't know where to hide it from the missus. This one does 50-65kg/24hr period and is only $499

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/NEW-PolyC...item4166264536

Or there are these portable bench top ones for $150 delivered that I have been looking real hard at:

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Auto-ICE-...item35bcff8003

[TREVELLY]

Silly question maybe but what is wrong with freezing a bucket of salty water then when you need it run the hose on it to crack it then smack it with a hammer?

I assume the ice is for fishing esky?

Chest feezers are cheap and they store bait too.

[The Woo]

Yeah I dunno Trevally. We've always made our own ice but I think aussies are going farther affield to find fish, like the Yanks have been doing for years now.
Longer trips out wider require plenty of ice.

I just saw a discussion of here somewhere a while ago and wanted to share it.

[lucee81]

it has been said that making your own ice in ice cream tubs etc can damage fillets in the esky and using cubed ice does not....
now is this true i dunno i use coke bottles etc and 1 bag ice from servo and when on the make a ice slurry with the washdown pump in the esky when i have something to put in the esky.
but i always carry 1 food esky and 1 bait/fish esky when going for the day...

[team_mongo]

Marto, I bought a fleabay Ice machine for about $150, works well. Have over 30kgs of ice in the freezer at any time. Remember, ice machines give you 'wet' ice, which is just at freezing point. It melts significantly quicker than ice from the freezer.

Trev, there are a couple of problems with block ice.
When I go out to the shelf, its a 40nm run each way, and I cruise at about 30-35kts. I dont like the idea of 2-4kg ice blocks bashing around in the underfloor iceboxes on the way out. Same applies when I run back in, I dont want my fished smashed up by large blocks of ice.
Second reason I use cube ice is the lids to the underfloor iceboxes are smaller than the cavity itself, so arranging large blocks of ice around some large fish is problematic. With bag of cube ice, its easy to cover the fish. Some boats are just not suitable for block ice.
Third, cube ice cools the fish quickly.

TM

PS I've been looking for a bigger machine, and as WOO put up I reckon 100+kg/day machine is the go, with a 50kg bin.