Large-scale, industrial ice cream production

[tb86]

any tips for ice cream / sorbet production on 100 gal per day production, as it applies to storage and stabalizer usage to prevent ice from forming while being stored??? i am expanding into wholesale i have plenty of exp with small batch production but always produced on a daily basis or used paco jets, so never needed to really get into the storage of finished product any reading suggestions would help as well

[pastrygirl]

Wow, that's a big leap! I imagine 100 gallons a day is a whole different animal. If I were you I'd probably buy whatever technical/industrial manuals I could get my hands on. For storage, you're going to want to freeze that stuff really cold, the colder it is, the slower the ice crystals grow.

Good luck!

[paulraphael]

We used to make up to 120 gallons a day, using three white mountain 5 gallon rock salt and ice freezers. It wasn't pretty, and a day rarely went by without a couple of broken gears, but the ice cream was good.

The shop used a commercial base that was customized for us by a local dairy. It used egg yolk for the emulifier and the usual natural gums for stabilizing.

The key to good texture was the hardening cabinet ... I think it was about minus 60 degrees F. We emptied the soft ice cream from the machines into 5 gallon tubs and stacked them into the hardening cabinet. After 24 hours in there they were hard as granite. Then they rotated into the walk-in freezer (probably around zero degrees) and after a day or two in there they rotated into the scooping cabinet (probably around 5 or 10 degrees).

We also sold pints, paked by hand right out of the machines and hardened in the pint containers. These were retailable. I don't know how long the shelf life was supposed to be. In general the ice cream didn't last long. We dated the tubs and didn't like anything to stick around in the store longer than a week, but I don't know if it would actually get icy a few days past that.