ice cream temperature

[opossum]

Howdy,

I have had good success making ice cream with my kitchen aid mixer attachment, however recently I purchased a Cuisinart ICE-50 and while I do like the speed of it (which is why I purchased it), I think it drops the temperature of my slurry too fast. Granted, I'm not making gallons at a time or have a pro model, but I can dream...and I digress.

Therefore, I am working with taking the mixture out of the machine before it thinks (machines think?) that I should i.e. the blades stop. Where I'm running into trouble is that I think my freezer is then taking over and is too cold bringing the ever dreaded ice crystals into play from the rapid drop.


What temperature would you all suggest that I put my freezer at...and yes, I'm willing to devote my entire freezer to ice cream.

[sen]

0 F (-18 celcius) for home storage
-10 F ( -23 celcius) extended storage

ice cream should avoid being thawed, re-freezing, which creats ice crystals in fine ice cream. and diminish its quality

[Mrs.Butterworth]

IIRC acording to Alton Brown's special on ice cream what causes ice crystals to form is chilling the ice cream too SLOWLY when churning it. The faster it freezes, the better! I am a firm believer in this because when I make ice cream with the ICE-20 I get much better results when I make half-batches. Full batches always come out grainy because they can't freeze fast enough.

[Blueicus]

Agreed, reminds me of a classic little thing to do with liquid nitrogen... make ice cream out of it. Although I never attended those sessions, I hear the ice cream made with liquid nitrogen is of good quality and you will get a very smooth mixture (as long as you keep mixing the mixture around to break up large ice formations).

[opossum]

Howdy,

I'll go buy a meter for my freezer, so I can set it correctly, thanks.

I've watched the Alton Brown episode Churn Baby Churn several times & I'm not sure I've viewed the Churn Baby Churn, 2. I will have to watch again as I thought he said the key was to bring the slurry to a freeze slowly; hence why he let's it cool on the counter & then moves it to the fridge overnight before putting it in the machine. He also suggests doing this to allow the flavors to infuse.


I can allow the ICE-50 to bring the mixture to a complete hardness, if needed.


Well, you've given me something to do some tests with...thanks!

[Mikeb]

Originally Posted by opossum

Howdy,

I'll go buy a meter for my freezer, so I can set it correctly, thanks.

I've watched the Alton Brown episode Churn Baby Churn several times & I'm not sure I've viewed the Churn Baby Churn, 2. I will have to watch again as I thought he said the key was to bring the slurry to a freeze slowly; hence why he let's it cool on the counter & then moves it to the fridge overnight before putting it in the machine. He also suggests doing this to allow the flavors to infuse.


I can allow the ICE-50 to bring the mixture to a complete hardness, if needed.


Well, you've given me something to do some tests with...thanks!

The reason you put the iced cream base in the fridge overnight is so that it's as cold as possible, so that when you do put it into the iced cream machine it will freeze as quick as possible.

The method I've used (with great success) in professional kitchens:

- Make anglaise base
- if you're doing chocolate then add base to the chocolate
- chill on ice water as quick as possible
- If you're doing a fruit iced cream then add the fruit and mix with a hand blender once the base is cold, if you add the fruit to a hot base it gives it a 'cooked' taste (not as nice IMO - iced cream is supposed to have a cool, refreshing taste)
- refrigerate overnight (helps for the reason I stated above, as well as developping flavour)
- put the cold mix into the iced cream machine
- take out of the machine when it's a soft-serve kinda consistency, and put into your freezer

[Mrs.Butterworth]

Originally Posted by Mikeb

The reason you put the iced cream base in the fridge overnight is so that it's as cold as possible, so that when you do put it into the iced cream machine it will freeze as quick as possible.

The method I've used (with great success) in professional kitchens:

- Make anglaise base
- if you're doing chocolate then add base to the chocolate
- chill on ice water as quick as possible
- If you're doing a fruit iced cream then add the fruit and mix with a hand blender once the base is cold, if you add the fruit to a hot base it gives it a 'cooked' taste (not as nice IMO - iced cream is supposed to have a cool, refreshing taste)
- refrigerate overnight (helps for the reason I stated above, as well as developping flavour)
- put the cold mix into the iced cream machine
- take out of the machine when it's a soft-serve kinda consistency, and put into your freezer

Preach, brotha! Halleluia! That is precisely the tecnique I have arrived at after a lot of trial and error. The only two big steps you left out that I find important are to scald the dairy before making the anglaise, and temper the hot dairy into the yolks before heating the anglaise to that "just right" consistency as opposed to adding the dairy cold.

[Mikeb]

Originally Posted by Mrs.Butterworth

Preach, brotha! Halleluia! That is precisely the tecnique I have arrived at after a lot of trial and error. The only two big steps you left out that I find important are to scald the dairy before making the anglaise, and temper the hot dairy into the yolks before heating the anglaise to that "just right" consistency as opposed to adding the dairy cold.

Sorry, I assumed that making the anglaise base would be pretty strait-forward and not require explanation.

Method 1:
- Heat up milk, cream and glucose
- once it reaches 35 degrees celcius add stabiliser (usually a mixture of pectins) and sugar
- Once it reaches 40 degrees celcius add egg yolks
- Cook to a temperature of 85 degrees celcius

Method 2:
- scald milk, cream and glucose
- mix together egg yolks and sugar
- temper egg yolks by very slowly pouring the hot cream mixture over them
- return to the heat and cook to a temperature of 85 degrees celcius

[bandregg]

There was an article in the New York Times recently about Joel Robuchon and his newest restaurant openning in New York City. One of his last minute changes was to not make ice cream in the professional machine because the ice cream got and/or was stored too cold. It didn't melt the way that he wanted at service. His quote (paraphrased) was "Ice cream is supposed to be creamy not solid like ice."

[opossum]

Howdy,

WOW!

That was some fantastic information there and more than I could have hoped for. Breaking down exactly how to make an anglaise was most helpfull. While I have made them before I am a man of science, always have been always will be, & that is one reason I like Good Eats so much. Alton & his crew break down the science of cooking & tell me why I do things & why those things do what they do. For some reason I think I should have thrown in a "Do Wa Ditty" there some where.

Things like 85 degrees I can understand & monitor, however coat the back of a wooden spoon leaves things open to interpertation, which I would like to earn the ability to do some day.

I have looked through every ice cream book at the local bookstore (Powell's), yet none of them have given me info like this.

Happer Camper!

I appreciate your time, energy & willingness to share your knowledge, folks.

[castironchef]

From the transcript of Churn Baby Churn II:

"Wow, who knew the scientific community was so passionate. There is one thing that we can all agree on and that is that chilled mixtures freeze faster when they're churned than non-chilled mixtures; and that means that they have a finer ice crystal structure\; and that means they have a better texture."

[Mrs.Butterworth]

Originally Posted by Mikeb

Sorry, I assumed that making the anglaise base would be pretty strait-forward and not require explanation.

Method 1:
- Heat up milk, cream and glucose
- once it reaches 35 degrees celcius add stabiliser (usually a mixture of pectins) and sugar
- Once it reaches 40 degrees celcius add egg yolks
- Cook to a temperature of 85 degrees celcius

Method 2:
- scald milk, cream and glucose
- mix together egg yolks and sugar
- temper egg yolks by very slowly pouring the hot cream mixture over them
- return to the heat and cook to a temperature of 85 degrees celcius

Not all of us here are experts, TYVM Not all ice cream recipes emphasize the important points of how to make anglaise properly.

[opossum]

Howdy,

Very true, Mrs. Butterworth, however my question was answered that I originally posted. Then we kind of moved the thread off in this direction & now here we are, but as you stated & as I have mentioned several times in my posts...I'm a noob.

I did make 2 batches of Blackberry ice cream (with farmer's market blackberries) & 2 of Vanilla today. Tomorrow I try & make my pistachio, almond-amaretto-chocolate & a Pina Colada version I've been thinking about. I did the almonds & pistachios tonight, so tomorrow they should be ready to use.

Whew...being in the kitchen for 5 hours today wiped me out. Props to the peeps out there that do it every day!

[scott123]

Besides freezing ice cream as quickly as possible, there are ingredients that can be used to facilitate smaller ice crystal formation. These ingredients include:

Dried milk
Emulisifiers (such as lecithin or additional egg yolks)
Gelatin
Soluble fiber gums (xanthan, guar, cellulose gum)

The soluble fiber gums are especially helpful at creating smaller ice crystals.

Besides controlling the ice crystal size, you can limit the amount of ice in ice cream by adding freezing point depressors. Sugar is already being used for this purpose, but you can increase the freezing point depression by subbing some of the sugar with invert sugar, glucose syrup or regular (non high fructose) corn syrup.

[opossum]

Howdy,

That is interesting information, Scott. I've seen Gelatin used in vegetarian ice cream & Emulisifiers mentioned in some. These are things I haven't used as of yet, but have read about gelatin in one of my cake books.

Smooth is great, so I shall begin working on learning more about that.

Thanks!