A packed bed of ice stabilized with fumed silica, i.e. dry water in a solidified state, is used for hydrate formation. The bed is designed to provide a high specific surface area and a large number of nucleation sites to enhance hydrate formation rates . A batch of dry water is prepared by blending 30 g of pyrogenic silica (Wacker Chemical Corporation, HDK H18) and 600 g of water for a total of 160 s. The total blending time is split in two equal periods of 80 seconds separated by a pause of 20 seconds. The pause has been introduced to minimize the agglomeration of liquid droplets which tends to occur during blending at high RPM for long periods. Since higher mixing speeds lower the average particle size , in this study, the blending is performed at the maximum RPM value of 45,000 rpm. For comparison, in their pioneering work on dry water hydrates, Carter et al. blended for 90 seconds using an average of 19,000 RPM.