Thanks sweettreat. Good question about the commercial Trimoline. I'll guess that it has a higher percentage of inverted sugar, and so its differences from table sugar will be a bit more pronounced. When you make it yourself, you can get about 85% invert syrup ... the rest is just sucrose syrup. Manufacturers probably have a few more tricks (like chemical or enzymatic catalysts) that let them invert more. The other possible variation is the water percentage. I'm not sure what's in the commercial product. The DIY version has whatever water level you want. The hotter you cook it, the drier it will be. I cook to 235–237°F, which gives a bit under 20% water. This is dry enough so that it doesn't add too much water to the ice cream, and so that it has a long life in the fridge, but not so dry that it's completely annoying to work with.
Edited to add: please feel free to ask questions like this in the comment section on the blog, also. It will help me clarify this stuff for everyone.
