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October 17, 2026

Nugget Report

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Nugget vs Clear Ice Makers

Two machines that solve opposite problems. One makes ice you chew, the other makes ice that refuses to dilute your drink.

By Scooter M.Updated September 2, 2026How we work
A cocktail served over a large clear ice cube

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Quick picks

Ranked. Click a row to jump to the full write-up.
#MachineBest forPrice
1
Frigidaire Gallery Countertop Nugget Ice Maker

Frigidaire EFIC255

185 W published, 44 lbs a day, chewable pellets.

Best nugget machine

#ad We earn a commission on purchases made through this link. How this is funded. Prices last checked October 19, 2026.

How each one is made

Nugget. Water is frozen into a thin layer of flakes on the inside of a chilled cylinder. A rotating auger scrapes the flakes off and forces them through a die, compressing them into soft pellets. The trapped air between the flakes is what makes the ice chewable and what makes it melt fast.

Clear. Water is frozen gradually, usually directionally, so dissolved air and minerals are pushed ahead of the advancing freeze front instead of being captured in it. What is left is dense and transparent. Freezer-tray ice is cloudy for the opposite reason: it freezes fast from every side and traps everything.

What the machines publish

A nugget machine and a clear-cube machine from the same manufacturer, compared on published figures.
MachineRated outputBinElectricalMax $/mo
Frigidaire EFIC25544 lbs/day [src]3 lbs [src]185 W [src]$4.00(published W)
Frigidaire EFIC45239.7 lbs/day [src]Not published120 W [src]$2.59(published W)
GE Profile XPIO13SCSS38 lbs/day [src]3 lbs [src]3 A [src]$7.78(nameplate)
Cost column is a monthly ceiling, not a measurement: 4 running hours a day at $0.18/kWh. Where a manufacturer publishes an actual power consumption we use it; otherwise we derive volts times amps from the nameplate, which is a ceiling the machine does not continuously draw. Here is the whole calculation.

The Frigidaire pair is the cleanest comparison available, because it is the same manufacturer with the same documentation standard. 185 W and 20 kg a day for the nugget machine against 90 to 120 W and 18 kg a day for the clear-cube machine.

Clear ice is cheaper to run and slower to produce. That is exactly what the physics predicts and it is nice to see it in a manufacturer's own numbers rather than as an assertion.

Which one belongs in your glass

What each ice is actually for.
DrinkNuggetClear cube
Iced tea, soda, waterIdeal. Chewable and it chills fastFine, and slower to chill
Whisky, spirits neat over icePoor. Dilutes fastIdeal. Minimal dilution
Stirred cocktailsPoorIdeal
Blended and frozen drinksGood. Already close to crushedNeeds crushing first
A cooler or an ice bathPoor. Melts fastGood, and slow to make in quantity
Chewing, straight from the binThe entire pointDo not

That ice-bath row is worth expanding on if a cold plunge is why you are shopping, because the shape is only half the problem and the volume is the other half: can you use a countertop ice maker for an ice bath runs the arithmetic.

The honest answer for most people

If you are here because you love chewable ice, buy a nugget machine and do not overthink it. The dilution argument is real and it matters in a glass of whisky, and it does not matter at all in a glass of iced tea, which is what most nugget ice actually goes into.

If you make cocktails seriously, buy the clear-cube machine and accept that it is slower. And if you want both, that is two machines and about 20 inches of counter, because nothing in this category does both.

The third option nobody mentions is a clear-cube machine plus a Lewis bag and a mallet, which turns clear cubes into crushed ice on demand. It is not nugget ice — crushed ice is sharp shards, nugget is soft compressed pellets — but for cocktails it is the traditional answer and it costs about fifteen dollars.

More on where nugget ice does and does not belong: nugget ice for cocktails and nugget versus bullet ice.

The picks in full

Questions people actually ask

What is the difference between nugget ice and clear ice?

Nugget ice is compressed flakes: soft, chewable, full of trapped air, and high in surface area so it melts and dilutes quickly. Clear ice is water frozen gradually so dissolved air and impurities are pushed out rather than trapped, giving a dense transparent cube with low surface area that melts slowly.

Which ice melts slower, nugget or clear?

Clear, decisively. Melting is driven by surface area and density. Nugget ice is a loose aggregate of compressed flakes with enormous surface area and trapped air; a clear cube is dense and solid. In a spirit-forward drink that difference is the difference between a cocktail and a watery one.

Is a clear ice maker slower than a nugget one?

Usually, and by design. Frigidaire's clear-cube EFIC452 is rated at 18 kg per 24 hours against its nugget EFIC255's 20 kg, and it draws 90 to 120 W against the nugget machine's 185 W. Clarity comes from freezing gradually, so a fast clear-ice machine is close to a contradiction.

Can one machine make both nugget and clear ice?

Not among the countertop machines covered here. Nugget machines use an auger to compress flakes; clear-cube machines freeze water gradually in a tray. Those are different mechanisms, not different settings.

Sources

  1. Frigidaire EFIC452 Use & Care Manual, p.10 (read 2026-09-02)
  2. Frigidaire EFIC255 Use & Care Manual, p.12 (read 2026-09-02)
  3. GE Profile Opal 2.0 Owner's Manual 49-9000029 Rev. 6, p.17 (read 2026-09-02)
  4. EIA Electric Power Monthly, Table 5.6.A, June 2026 (read 2026-09-02)