Pacojet Competitor? The Ninja Creami

[andrewk512]

On 5/18/2022 at 8:32 PM, JoNorvelleWalker said:

Modernist Pantry has done a comparison of the PacoJet and Creami...

 

https://blog.modernistpantry.com/wtf/the-secret-of-ninja-creami-vs-pacojet/?utm_campaign=205602_KI 20220518&utm_medium=email&utm_source=%24DOTDIGITAL%24&dm_i=6MV2,4EN6,1AFSF4,L7ZS,1

 

 

Now I need to get my Pacojet savings account started back up again....

 

Wish they had tested the Lite Ice Cream button though

[ElsieD]

11 minutes ago, andrewk512 said:

 

Now I need to get my Pacojet savings account started back up again....

 

Wish they had tested the Lite Ice Cream button though

 

I wish they had tested all the buttons and explained the differences between them.  For example, if you have two batches on the same item, what happens if you run one batch through Ice Cream and the other one through Lite Ice Cream.  But then, that wasn't the point of the exercise.  I'd still like to know, though.

[Kerry Beal]

7 minutes ago, ElsieD said:

 

I wish they had tested all the buttons and explained the differences between them.  For example, if you have two batches on the same item, what happens if you run one batch through Ice Cream and the other one through Lite Ice Cream.  But then, that wasn't the point of the exercise.  I'd still like to know, though.

I'm guessing that's a test one of us could do if we were to make a big old batch of something and run one container through each. How many containers do most of us have?

Edited May 21, 2022 by Kerry Beal (log)

[Smithy]

26 minutes ago, Kerry Beal said:

I'm guessing that's a test one of us could do if we were to make a big old batch of something and run one container through each. How many containers do most of us have?

 

I have 3; that's what came in the kit so most of us probably have at least that many.

[andrewk512]

Yeah I wrote a comment that they should've tried the Lite Ice Cream function, I figure they are just looking to prove to chefs that a Pacojet is still needed in a commercial kitchen though. I could see people trying to run small kitchens with a Creami

 

I have 5 containers. I'd be open to trying it but then what do I do with 5 pints of the same ice cream? 😛

(And I still have to fulfill my promise to spin frozen orgeat...)

[ElsieD]

All I can find are 3 but I know there are more.  When John gets home tomorrow I'll get him to check the "high" cupboards.

[ElsieD]

Just now, ElsieD said:

All I can find are 3 but I know there are more.  When John gets home tomorrow I'll get him to check the "high" cupboards.

Edited to add:  I did make a custard based Salted Caramel Ice Cream the other day.  I put it in two Creami pints.  The contents of one I will spin on the Ice Cream setting on the Creami.  The second batch I froze in my Breville ice cream machine.  I'll compare the two probably tomorrow.  I was interested in the differences in texture and scoopabillity of the two.

[Kerry Beal]

So typically on eG I'm the enabler not the enablee! However that bloody link above to the comparison between the CREAMi and the Pacojet reignited my desire for a Pacojet that I must confess has been brewing for a number of years. I've kept an eye open for used units for a long time - but none has jumped into my lap until now. 

 

I wandered in to Nella (a restaurant supply) the day after I watched that video - of course they didn't have one to examine - but I texted @Alleguede and asked if he knew of anyone who wanted to get rid of one that he knew of - and within an hour I had agreed to drive to Toronto today and pick it up. 

 

So it's set up downstairs beside the CREAMi and by tomorrow I should be able to try it out. 

[cdh]

14 hours ago, andrewk512 said:

Yeah I wrote a comment that they should've tried the Lite Ice Cream function, I figure they are just looking to prove to chefs that a Pacojet is still needed in a commercial kitchen though. I could see people trying to run small kitchens with a Creami

 

I have 5 containers. I'd be open to trying it but then what do I do with 5 pints of the same ice cream? 😛

(And I still have to fulfill my promise to spin frozen orgeat...)

Yeah... the review has a slightly biased feeling to it.  "Yeah, it kinda works, but THE REALLY GOOD STUFF comes from the machine 30x the price..."  The fact that they admitted it works counts as a real win for Ninja, I think.  And chef-guy's admission he bought one for his home kitchen too.

Edited May 22, 2022 by cdh (log)

[Kerry Beal]

Woot has refurbished CREAMis  on for $99 - 109 - here.

[andrewk512]

american only

[ElsieD]

18 hours ago, andrewk512 said:

american only

 

If you are near a US border town, you can have it shipped to the UPS office and pick it up there.

Edited May 23, 2022 by ElsieD
Fixed a typo (log)

[dtremit]

On 5/14/2022 at 7:19 PM, andrewk512 said:

What are people's thoughts on chamber vacuuming the ice cream after processing? Or maybe even drilling a hole to attach a food saver hose attachment to the pint container for use during processing? Am I asking for trouble? I want to get rid of the air holes that make the final product difficult to smoothly quenelle

 

I don't think the air hole idea would work; I think it would just pull in air around the motor shaft at the top of the container. Chamber vac might work — or even putting the pint in a FoodSaver canister after processing.

[ElsieD]

Here are two small scoops of the same ice cream.  The one on the right was churned in my Breville, which has a built-in compressor.  The one on the left had one spin on the Ice Cream setting on the Creami.  The one on the right was normal, firm but scoopable.  The one on the left was very, very soft, almost melty.  I'm letting that one defrost completely, refreeze it and spin it on a different cycle.  Ice Cream Light, maybe.  Will report back.

 

t

[ElsieD]

Just now, ElsieD said:

Here are two small scoops of the same ice cream.  The one on the right was churned in my Breville, which has a built-in compressor.  The one on the left had one spin on the Ice Cream setting on the Creami.  The one on the right was normal, firm but scoopable.  The one on the left was very, very soft, almost melty.  I'm letting that one defrost completely, refreeze it and spin it on a different cycle.  Ice Cream Light, maybe.  Will report back.

 

t

 

[Anna N]

I am the lucky recipient of product from @Kerry Beal’s ice cream makers. Tonight I sampled butter pecan ice cream. One was churned using the ninja and one using the Pacojet.  Initially I favoured the one made using the Pacojet but the more I sampled them the less I was inclined to choose one over the other. All I know for sure is that consuming two servings of butter pecan ice cream is probably not the smartest thing I’ve ever done— no matter how good they were.

[blue_dolphin]

31 minutes ago, ElsieD said:

 

Were they both at the same temp when the photo was taken?

[Kerry Beal]

Don't have pictures as I was taking video and I'm not cognizant of how to fish a picture out of them!

 

As Anna mentions above I played with two containers of the same base - one done in the CREAMi on Lite plus respin and the other container in the Pacojet, one cycle using pos pressure to add overrun. The base was originally in one of the CREAMi beakers. I had noticed in the 2008 Starchefs presentation that Kriss Harvey suggested you could freeze in pint deli containers and just pop them in the Pacojet beakers. Since everything in Pacojets literature says you can't do that - I decided to drop Kriss a line and confirm. And indeed he said it was fine - just make sure that the empty beaker is straight from the freezer (essentially you use hot water to coax the base out of the deli container and putting the wet around the edges chunk sticks it down nicely to the ice cold beaker. So much for the no empty air spaces you must avoid since there is empty air all around! He suggested if it starts to move inside the container as it spins then you need to reverse - but that didn't happen. 

 

So the Pacojet takes longer to go through it's cycle but it's considerably quieter than the CREAMi and doesn't do the bump and grind when the blade first hits the product. The Pacojet batch was much softer and fluffier coming out and was not suitable to scoop into my little Tovolo containers right away. I stirred in the pecans and popped the bowl into the freezer for 20 minutes or so until it was.

 

Hubby liked the batch with overrun more than the CREAMi batch - but he did eat all of both of them!

 

I had 4 mangos lying around ripening and I sliced them up and put them in an immersion blender beaker and blended them with sugar heavy simple syrup, a bit of white rum and the juice of a lime. I also added a bit (or should I say a bit too much) sorbet stabilizer. This I froze in a deli container before I picked up the Pacojet so I would have something to play with as soon as possible. Again heated to get it out of the initial container and then stuck down to a frozen Pacojet beaker. Texture is all wrong - it's like a mousse rather than a sorbet - nothing wrong with the flavor though. I wonder what the texture would have been had I spun it without the added air?

 

I also made the liver pate but I'm pretty sure the step where it was sous vided wasn't sufficient as it was pretty much pourable - so jars into the sous vide at 64º C for 90 minutes tonight and we'll see if it is properly set in the morning. 

 

 

[andrewk512]

Did you compare the temps after processing? I wonder if the Pacojet is softer due to longer processing time warming it up more

[Kerry Beal]

12 hours ago, andrewk512 said:

Did you compare the temps after processing? I wonder if the Pacojet is softer due to longer processing time warming it up more

It drops about 10º C per cycle.

 

Actually this morning the mango was quite firm - it's a bit elastic from the stabilizer - but otherwise quite fine!

 

 

 

 

[ElsieD]

12 hours ago, blue_dolphin said:

Were they both at the same temp when the photo was taken?

 

They were, yes.  By that I mean they were scooped at the same time.  But, I did not take the actual temperature.  Never thought of doing that.  Before I re-spin the one that I ran through the Creami yesterday, I'll take the temperature of both the Breville batch and the Creami batch.    i'll also take the temperature of the Creami batch after spinning it.

[lindag]

Just now, lindag said:

This afternoon I mixed up a copycat recipe for Ben & Jerry's French vanilla ice cream.  I like the simplicity of the recipe; it used whole eggs, milk, cream, vanilla and sugar and that's all.  Tomorrow, I will spin it.  Vanilla is my friend's favorite so I made up two pints.  Still haven't tried the peach but it's probably going to be next.

 

[Kerry Beal]

 

Water and steam blanched asparagus stalks (the tough bits) - added to a veloute sauce - sadly made with a chicken stock that was a bit dark - so it's not as pretty a green soup as it could have been with a different stock. 

 

 

Vanilla ice cream - got a bit scorched in the thermomix 

 

 

Now the Pacojet comes with rings that let you rinse and more thoroughly clean - I perhaps should have done that after the asparagus - cause this lovely vanilla ice cream has a hint of asparagus flavor - however hubby mentioned it tasted a bit like burnt wood so I guess the scorch disguised the asparagus for him. 

 

 

 

Looks better now 

 

 

Put together strawberry and rhubarb last night - it was only -6º C when I processed it this am. It was too much for the container and I needed to remove some. Reprocessed when I got home from work this afternoon. 

 

 

 

Had some ginger getting older on the counter so I peeled it and added water.

 

 

So sometime I'm going to see if I can find an old silicone ice cube tray to pack into - or just scoop bits into plastic wrap and make up a bag of bundles for the freezer. 

 

[ElsieD]

On 5/23/2022 at 10:49 AM, ElsieD said:

 

They were, yes.  By that I mean they were scooped at the same time.  But, I did not take the actual temperature.  Never thought of doing that.  Before I re-spin the one that I ran through the Creami yesterday, I'll take the temperature of both the Breville batch and the Creami batch.    i'll also take the temperature of the Creami batch after spinning it.

 

Note :  I'm quoting myself so if anyone reads this, they will know what I 'm talking about.

 

The temperature in the Breville processed one was -7C.  The pint that I had previously spun was -8C.  I went to spin the Creami batch yesterday but it looked nice and smooth.  I had a scoop of it and it was perfect, creamy and scoopable.  Since it was next to perfect I decided not to re-spin.

[blue_dolphin]

2 hours ago, Kerry Beal said:

So sometime I'm going to see if I can find an old silicone ice cube tray to pack into - or just scoop bits into plastic wrap and make up a bag of bundles for the freezer. 

I’ve made ginger paste in my little wet grinder and pressed it out flat inside a zip top freezer bag. Easy to break off as needed. 
 

 

2 hours ago, Kerry Beal said:

Now the Pacojet comes with rings that let you rinse and more thoroughly clean - I perhaps should have done that after the asparagus - cause this lovely vanilla ice cream has a hint of asparagus flavor - however hubby mentioned it tasted a bit like burnt wood so I guess the scorch disguised the asparagus for him. 

To funny!  I wondered about the cleaning aspect WRT the Ninja. There’s only so much of that drive screw that you can access to clean. I’m wondering what may be on the rest of it after spinning the chicken liver 😝