Pacojet Competitor? The Ninja Creami

[ElsieD]

Yesterday I made the raspberry ice cream using a recipe from Rose's Ice Cream Bliss.  I put 1 cup in a Creami container and put it in the freezer.  The rest I churned in my Breville ice cream maker.  Today, I spun the half pint in the Creami on ice cream.  It was way too soft so it is being re-frozen.  The ice cream churned in the Breville was perfect.  How does it happen that the ice cream setting on the Creami turns my ice cream into gloop?  It has happened before and now I'm wondering if next time rather than using the ice cream setting I should use another setting?  The lite ice cream perhaps?  Any ideas?  This is a custard based ice cream if that makes any difference.

[ElsieD]

3 hours ago, JoNorvelleWalker said:

For US readers the prime day price is $129.99.

 

I had to remove my creami (I'm tired of typing uppercase) chocolate from the blast freezer to make room for six pints of prime day McConnell's.

 

 

$355.70 on Amazon.ca  Sold and shipped by a third party.  Wonder how many they'll sell?  4 in stock at the moment.

[blue_dolphin]

@ElsieD, have you checked the temp of your base before you spin it?  

Mine tend to fluctuate between -2 F and -10 F and I can see a difference in consistency within that range.

 

[ElsieD]

18 minutes ago, blue_dolphin said:

@ElsieD, have you checked the temp of your base before you spin it?  

Mine tend to fluctuate between -2 F and -10 F and I can see a difference in consistency within that range.

 

 

 No, I never have.  I don't know much about the science behind this stuff (accountants seldom do) but the rwo Creami pints were sitting side by side in the freezer and both had been in there 24 hours.  Can the temps be different?

[blue_dolphin]

12 minutes ago, ElsieD said:

 

 No, I never have.  I don't know much about the science behind this stuff (accountants seldom do) but the rwo Creami pints were sitting side by side in the freezer and both had been in there 24 hours.  Can the temps be different?

No, I'd expect 2 beakers sitting side by side, filled with the same volume of mixture and frozen for the same length of time to be very similar, if not the same and I’d expect both to behave similarly when spun in the Creami on the same cycle. 


 

 

[cdh]

The Gelato button is supposed to be the go-to for custard bases... Give that a shot and see if it helps. 

[andrewk512]

5 hours ago, ElsieD said:

Yesterday I made the raspberry ice cream using a recipe from Rose's Ice Cream Bliss.  I put 1 cup in a Creami container and put it in the freezer.  The rest I churned in my Breville ice cream maker.  Today, I spun the half pint in the Creami on ice cream.  It was way too soft so it is being re-frozen.  The ice cream churned in the Breville was perfect.  How does it happen that the ice cream setting on the Creami turns my ice cream into gloop?  It has happened before and now I'm wondering if next time rather than using the ice cream setting I should use another setting?  The lite ice cream perhaps?  Any ideas?  This is a custard based ice cream if that makes any difference.

Need to test pre and post temps

A compressor ice cream maker can make a much colder ice cream if you leave it in for long enough, whereas the creami  can only make a warmer ice cream

 

Migoya's Frozen Desserts recommends all pacojet ice creams to be frozen at least 1 hr before serving to account for the softness. I do agree with this a bit, you never know what's gonna come out of the creami, sometimes the ice cream needs hardening

[JoNorvelleWalker]

4 hours ago, ElsieD said:

 

 No, I never have.  I don't know much about the science behind this stuff (accountants seldom do) but the rwo Creami pints were sitting side by side in the freezer and both had been in there 24 hours.  Can the temps be different?

 

When you say two creami pints, which two creami pints?  You only mentioned one above?

 

[ElsieD]

10 hours ago, JoNorvelleWalker said:

 

When you say two creami pints, which two creami pints?  You only mentioned one above?

 

 

Sorry, I put the Breville churned ice cream into a Creamiint as well.

[ElsieD]

13 hours ago, cdh said:

The Gelato button is supposed to be the go-to for custard bases... Give that a shot and see if it helps. 

 

Will do, thank you.

[ltjazz]

Hey all, I just grabbed a Creami and was looking for best practices for using the machine. What types of ice cream or gelato bases does it perform best with, and what setting seems to process ice cream/gelato the best? 

 

I would say I'm definitely looking to do something more like a dense, flavorful gelato with less cream (which seems to be what this machine excels at.) I do have a Lello Musso with a compressor, but it seems to work better for high fat/traditional ice cream.

 

I'd imagine, though included recipes for the creami are relatively simple, some basic ice cream science by uising invert sugar/milk powder/stabilizer might go a long way here in helping to reduce ice crystals further?

Edited July 14, 2022 by ltjazz (log)

[blue_dolphin]

4 hours ago, ElsieD said:

 

Sorry, I put the Breville churned ice cream into a Creamiint as well.

OK. I misunderstood….maybe I still do 🙃 but it sounds like you prepped a mix, froze some in a Creami beaker and churned the rest in a Breville.  The churned stuff was perfect and you subsequently packed it into a Creami beaker and stored it alongside the other, still unspun  beaker. 
We don’t know the temp of this perfect ice cream either direct from the Breville or after freezing. 

At some point, you spun the reserved aliquot with the Creami.  This yielded glop. 
We don’t know the temp of the Creami glop, either pre or post spin but from experience, we know that the Creami heats up the mix anywhere from 10-15 degrees F per cycle depending on the cycle and contents so we can be pretty sure the glop is 10-15 degrees F warmer than the Creami beaker of Breville-churned perfect ice cream that was alongside it in the freezer. 
I’d suggest checking temps with a thermometer if you are going to compare a mix churned/spun by different methods. 
 

 

Edited July 14, 2022 by blue_dolphin
Clarify….or try to 🙃 (log)

[ElsieD]

4 hours ago, blue_dolphin said:

OK. I misunderstood….maybe I still do 🙃 but it sounds like you prepped a mix, froze some in a Creami beaker and churned the rest in a Breville.  The churned stuff was perfect and you subsequently packed it into a Creami beaker and stored it alongside the other, still unspun  beaker. 
We don’t know the temp of this perfect ice cream either direct from the Breville or after freezing. 

At some point, you spun the reserved aliquot with the Creami.  This yielded glop. 

That is correct.

 

4 hours ago, blue_dolphin said:

we know that the Creami heats up the mix anywhere from 10-15 degrees F per cycle depending on the cycle and contents so we can be pretty sure the glop is 10-15 degrees F warmer than the Creami beaker of Breville-churned perfect ice cream that was alongside it in the freezer

I did not know this.  Next time I'll take temperatures.  My ice cream right now is -7 Celsius, 19.4 F.  

[blue_dolphin]

21 minutes ago, ElsieD said:

That is correct.

 

I did not know this.  Next time I'll take temperatures.  My ice cream right now is -7 Celsius, 19.4 F.  

Yeah, I need to get myself a little Ninja notebook to record this stuff. I always check the temp before and after spinning but generally don’t write it down with the volume, recipe, cycle, etc. I need to start doing that!

[cdh]

6 hours ago, ltjazz said:

Hey all, I just grabbed a Creami and was looking for best practices for using the machine. What types of ice cream or gelato bases does it perform best with, and what setting seems to process ice cream/gelato the best? 

 

I would say I'm definitely looking to do something more like a dense, flavorful gelato with less cream (which seems to be what this machine excels at.) I do have a Lello Musso with a compressor, but it seems to work better for high fat/traditional ice cream.

 

I'd imagine, though included recipes for the creami are relatively simple, some basic ice cream science by uising invert sugar/milk powder/stabilizer might go a long way here in helping to reduce ice crystals further?

I've been using bottled kefir as the base for fruity treats, and augmenting it with lactose free half and half.  My recipe goes like this- put 100g of sugar plus a random hunk off of the cream cheese brick plus about 25g of some booze or other into the creami pint, then nuke it for 15 seconds.  Add kefir and any chopped up fruit up to about half way and blitz it with the hand blender until blended to your preferences... top up with half and half and stir a bit to combine everything. Freeze for 24 hours, spin.  Works very nicely.  I've been playing with adding a pinch of xanthan, though I don't know what it difference actually makes. 

Edited July 14, 2022 by cdh (log)

[weinoo]

Bastardos!  The Amazon Prime day sale finally roped me in at $129 (cheaper than a meal out even at our cheap places).   And yesterday I was rearranging cabinets and storage, trying to figure out where it will go.

 

 

[rotuts]

mine is classified as

 

Art.  

 

electrical and cranky back issues in the kitchen 

 

currently

[rotuts]

@JoNorvelleWalker 

 

Art is long , Life is short 

 

the iC  ( as art )

 

possibly along with the AnovaOven

 

will get their Time 

 

as personal assistants 

 

in the kitchen , for sure .

[ElsieD]

I have frozen peaches.  Can I thaw them then blitz them in the vitamin, sweeten to taste, freeze and then spin it on sorbet?  

[blue_dolphin]

1 hour ago, ElsieD said:

I have frozen peaches.  Can I thaw them then blitz them in the vitamin, sweeten to taste, freeze and then spin it on sorbet?  

 

I've made sorbet from frozen pineapple.   I don't see why it wouldn't work for peaches.  You probably don't even need to thaw all the way.  

I recommend adding a tablespoon or two of fresh lemon juice when you are balancing your sweetness.

 

[ElsieD]

49 minutes ago, blue_dolphin said:

 

I've made sorbet from frozen pineapple.   I don't see why it wouldn't work for peaches.  You probably don't even need to thaw all the way.  

I recommend adding a tablespoon or two of fresh lemon juice when you are balancing your sweetness.

 

 

Thank you!  Would the lemon juice would also keep the peaches from turning brown?

[blue_dolphin]

Just now, ElsieD said:

 

Thank you!  Would the lemon juice would also keep the peaches from turning brown?

Sorry, I don't know.  I use it just to brighten the flavor.

[Smithy]

3 hours ago, ElsieD said:

I have frozen peaches.  Can I thaw them then blitz them in the vitamin, sweeten to taste, freeze and then spin it on sorbet?  

 

Yes. You might want to sweeten them more than "to taste" because, according the manual (and things I've read here) the sweetness is damped a bit by cold. At a first guess I'd suggest using the same amount of sweetening you'd use if you were canning in a simple, light syrup. I've only done it with canned mangoes, though, so I'm not speaking from experience.

[blue_dolphin]

5 minutes ago, Smithy said:

 

Yes. You might want to sweeten them more than "to taste" because, according the manual (and things I've read here) the sweetness is damped a bit by cold. At a first guess I'd suggest using the same amount of sweetening you'd use if you were canning in a simple, light syrup. I've only done it with canned mangoes, though, so I'm not speaking from experience.

Very true. If you are sweetening to taste, the final tasting should be when it’s as close to freezing as possible. At that point it’s easier to mix in simple syrup than sugar, though you can certainly use plain sugar for the initial adjustment of you prefer. 
 

The CI sorbet link that @weinoo posted previously in this topic is an excellent starting point. 

[weinoo]

39 minutes ago, blue_dolphin said:

 

The CI sorbet link that @weinoo posted previously in this topic is an excellent starting point.

And I’ve been using that as a guideline for like 25 years!