commercial ice cream makers

[Karen Williams]

I am trying to decide between two commercial batch freezers for my cafe. Does anyone have an opinion about using Taylor vs. the Italian Capigiani? Thanks

[devinf]

I'm not a fan of the Taylor but I'm stuck with it. Dunno the model number, but it has a 3 qt. capacity and you pour your base in from the top. Blech. It works just fine and dandy, but cleaning it and doing large runs can be a hassle.

I've used the Capigiani (or Coldelite?) that has everything right in the front. Love it. It gets my vote and i wish i had one at work. I think it is the LB-100B model, but I'd have to check next time I run across it.

Devin

[andiesenji]

The hospital next door to my office has two of these in the cafeteria self-serve line

and one of these in the kitchen where they prepare trays for the inpatients.

I have used them when I have been involved in special events and we had the use of the kitchen and cafeteria for the evening.

I don't remember what the old machines were but these are much easier to load and clean and produce an excellent product.

The hospital cafeteria serves breakfast, lunch and dinner and is open to the public and serves a great many local seniors who are given a discount.

It is also open to staff and any doctor at any time from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m.

The ice cream machines are started at 10 a.m. and run continuously until 8 p.m.

The larger machine turns out a batch much more rapidly than the older machine.

Most of the kitchen and cafeteria equipment was replaced in 2003 when the hospital received a large bequest for that specific purpose from the family of a patient.

Edited March 19, 2005 by andiesenji (log)

[aidensnd2]

I would go for the Carpigiani. I haven't used the Taylor but I just can't imagine anything being better than the Carpigiani, beautiful ice cream.

[Karen Williams]

I'm not a fan of the Taylor but I'm stuck with it. Dunno the model number, but it has a 3 qt. capacity and you pour your base in from the top. Blech. It works just fine and dandy, but cleaning it and doing large runs can be a hassle.

I've used the Capigiani (or Coldelite?) that has everything right in the front. Love it. It gets my vote and i wish i had one at work. I think it is the LB-100B model, but I'd have to check next time I run across it.

Devin

←

Thanks for your input. I've used the little Taylor before and had the same complaints. I've never used the Capigiani before but it seems to be in alot of culinary schools and they appear to have some great support for their product. I just want the best ice cream!

[nicolekaplan]

please don't buy the taylor. i had a nightmarish experience with them and a frozen custard machine last year. i was not only miserable with the machine but displeased with their customer service. the machine broke every week, and sometimes more than once in a week(and by broke i mean it was unusable for atleast a day or two at a time) it's impossible to do business like that. i could go on about how bad it was. we finally sold it and now have a new piece. if you have any questions i would be happy to personally convinvce you of why you should get the carpigiani.

[stscam]

We've got a Taylor 104, the 3qt. machine. My preference would have been the Carpigiani, but money was tight. The Taylor turns out fine ice creams, but there's no easy way to add things like chunks and nuts and stuff. The extruder is very basic (the little gate always reminds me of Hannibal Lector's face mask, with the bars over the mouth). In terms of cleaning, it's not so bad - disassembly is pretty easy. And in terms of reliablity, it's been running well, no problems.

Still, if you can afford it, get a Carpigiani.

Cheers,

[Joe H]

I have no experience with commercial ice cream freezers BUT I've made ice cream for 30+ years with a White Mountain freezer. Hand cranked. Using pasteurized cream. I say this because this type of texture and creaminess is unparalleled. In the early '70's Steve's in Boston (later Northhampton) used a White Mountain freezer with a motor. His texture is close to what I turn out cranking by hand although he uses ultrapasteurized cream and milk. He also started franchising his stores in the mid to late '70's but, for a variety of reasons, these did not survive. (For those who know Coldstone and Marble Slab Creameries-he was the first, long before they ever opened their doors.)

My question: is this a viable alternative for you, using a White Mountain freezer with a motor? Yes, I realize you would have to pack it with rock salt and ice but the finished product is unbelievable. I believe that Steve Herrell (and a few others) still do this today. Don't laugh at my suggestion; for someone who is really, really serious about ice cream there might be some marketing value in your doing it the way grandmothers did it!

[jenifresh]

Carpigiani. I've owned four of these machines in ten years - one of them was fifteen years old and still in perfect condition. I currently use my 20 qt and 40 qt daily - I had a 2 qt also when I was just starting, but sold it. Hands down the best. I've also used Taylor and believe that Carpigiani turns out the most superior ice crystal structure.

These freezers are rarely available on the used market - a testament to their durability.

On the other hand, Taylor has a new slower speed motor (which makes much better ice cream), and they might let you try it to compare. I've always had good service from Taylor when I've asked for something.

[Karen Williams]

I have no experience with commercial ice cream freezers BUT I've made ice cream for 30+ years with a White Mountain freezer.  Hand cranked.  Using pasteurized cream.  I say this because this type of texture and creaminess is unparalleled.  In the early '70's Steve's in Boston (later Northhampton) used a White Mountain freezer with a motor.  His texture is close to what I turn out cranking by hand although he uses ultrapasteurized cream and milk.  He also started franchising his stores in the mid to late '70's but, for a variety of reasons, these did not survive.  (For those who know Coldstone and Marble Slab Creameries-he was the first, long before they ever opened their doors.)

My question:  is this a viable alternative for you, using a White Mountain freezer with a motor?  Yes, I realize you would have to pack it with rock salt and ice but the finished product is unbelievable.  I believe that Steve Herrell (and a few others) still do this today.  Don't laugh at my suggestion; for someone who is really, really serious about ice cream there might be some marketing value in your doing it the way grandmothers did it!

←

I appreciate your respect for the old ways and it really tugs at some heart strings. Unfortunately I have two months of high season and tight labor markets so some sacrifices need to be made. We will be sourcing alot of our ingredients from local dairies and farms however. Have you ever used cream-line milk to make ice cream?

[simdelish]

Am in the position to suggest/request what IC maker I want for new job/new kitchen. Of course I know paco-jet is cool, (don't know if there are different models? and are they way more expensive than every other manufacturer?)... but what else does everyone have? What do you like/dislike and why?

My last job had an incredible machine, it was some intials, like CDR or somesuch... can't remember, but it was Italian, and it made the best IC ever. Only problem, it needed "cooling down" in between batches... so I had to time my production and could only spin a batch in the morning, and then again in the afternoon before I left.

thanks in advance

[tan319]

The Pacojet is LESS expensive then a Carpagiani(SIC?) or a Taylor.

A Taylor or Carpagiani will run, for a countertop model in between 5.,700 & maybe 7,000.

The Paco will cost you about 3,500 with some beakers included, 4 to eight, I think.

The rest are extra.

But you have to have freezer space for the beakers, both deep and service.

You want the beakers kept at about 10 to 20 below zero, and after you "spin" it, want them at 0 to 10(?) above, I believe.

The beakers will cost you some bucks, depending on how many ice creams and sorbets you want to offer, but what we did in the place I was at that used a Paco was, we put our mixes into those clear plastic quart containers wih covers, for storage, and then warmed them just enough to dislodge the mix into a Paco beaker.

It took some getting used to but in the end I felt the Paco was the business!

You'll need some time to get used to it, your formulations would probably change.

In any case, It would probably be best advised to go with something that can be easily serviced. Getting our Paco serviced out of Miami was a bitch, not so much because of the people doing it out of New Jersey (it was just parts, and then he walked us thru the machine getting taken apart and put back together), but because UPS screwed us not once but twice in a week!

Whether it's a Taylor or a Carpagiani or a ColdElite, you have to have someone who can service it in two hours,4 hours max, with parts in stock.

My fave batch freezer is the ColdElite, mainly because of the way you get the mix in the machine.

Both the Taylor & the ColdElite turn out great product.

I'd love to work with a Carpagiani, have always heard great stuff about it, just nowhere then closer Houston to where I'm at currently.

Best of luck, you're a lucky person!!!

[akwa]

i am a diehard paco fan for cost, speed, versatility, etc

however, it is not a practical machine for a high volume operation, in my opinion

carpigiani makes a suite, or set of three machines,

a pasteurizer

a maturer

and of course a batch freezer

although it can run towards 100k, it is absolutely a bangin system and can generate 10 or more liters, three at a time, and can properly be programmed to run and transfer machines automatically

for a production and taste warhorse this system is incredible

you can run an entire gelato shop with one suite

a blast freeze and a display

ted although a rose would smell as sweet by

coldelite is the micro carpigiani for distribution in the us

[tan319]

ted although a rose would smell as sweet by

coldelite is the micro carpigiani for distribution in the us

←

Talk to me!!!

Do you mean coldelite is by carpigiani?

If you could elaborate, kind sir

Oh, BTW, you could sign me up for the suite, can I pay later???

[akwa]

ted i wanted to clarify before making precise statement so heres

text from the carpigiani usa website:

im too ass backward to know how to make those fancy links

so ill just paste

Carpigiani was formed in 1946 with the goal of producing and marketing the first automatic machine to make hard ice cream: the Autogelatiera. In the 1950's Carpigiani grew substantially, opening offices in France, Germany, and Japan; in 1964, the company opened facilities in New York, under the branded equipment name of Coldelite.

In 1991, The company moved to Winston-Salem, NC, its current headquarters. In 2000, Coldelite adopted the original company name, becoming known as Carpigiani Corporation of America.

[ohmyganache]

I have a Cattabriga at work, it is an old model from the 80's and it makes really nice IC and sorbet but I dont think they sell them in the US. It uses anti freeze to cool the bowl and then you have to change it once every week-two weeks depending on how nasty it got. I have a serious love/hate relationship with this machine.

http://www.cattabriga.net/index.html

That is there website if you are interested in seeing it, whenever I have restuarant friends come in that is the highlight of the tour because everyone that I know has heard of this machine. It stands up right, the bowl sits in this antifreeze/water mix and spins. It is kind of more trouble then it is worth but it does make a nice textured IC.

Mrs. Ohmyganache

aka. Jill

Pastry Chef Hawthorne Lane Restuarant

[simdelish]

I am bumping this up, as I am still interested in what people have out there.

What do you have? Do you like and why? How much does it hold, and what volume do you serve? Anything I should stay away from?

thanks

[Steve Klc]

Sim, you're obviously thinking of this from the immediate perspective of your new job and the restaurant you are opening. I've opened three restaurants and had to make a decision how to approach ice cream/sorbet production and it is not easy--much of it depends on the number of seats, what the rest of your equipment budget is (i.e. for freezer space) and the decision-making process is ultimately out of your hands unless you are an owner.

When I opened Zaytinya a few years ago, I somehow managed to talk Jose Andres into buying two PacoJets because I really wanted to work with them heavily. As you know, the restaurant is very large, 225+ seats and almost always packed out, a thousand covers on Friday or Saturday. The advantage of a tabletop batch freezer is you can do your ice creams and sorbets the traditional way, with stabilizers, you can follow the clear FPS Jacquy Pfeiffer formula method to calculate what % you need of different sugars, you can keep gallons of the stuff frozen in perfect shape assuming you have the freezer space and the cooks don't keep opening and closing the freezer and putting their hot stuff in to cool down with your ice cream.

Being inherently stubborn, though, I felt like we had to pioneer a volume approach for the Pacojet, since we were able to get a very nice package deal for TWO Pacojets plus like 4 dozen beakers for less than the cost of the smallest Taylor or Coldelite. The dollar has moved since, so this deal is no longer available, but at the time we were able to save money, even by factoring in the cost of two yearly service calls on each machine since we were going to use them heavily. I figured if one ever broke, we could survive on one machine until the other returned.

I think Will has mentioned a Rolls-Royce of a system, all but out of reach for a handful in this country, and Ted has covered a lot of good Paco ground--the real Paco pioneer in this country was Jacques Torres when he was still at Le Cirque, Gray Kunz had given him one--and Jacques did some very nice things with it--it was from him I learned the trick of freezing beakers, then dipping them in warm water just enough to loosen the cylinder of frozen base, letting it slide out and wrapping in plastic. That was the way you could push volume without buying as many beakers as you needed. When it came time to spin, you just unwrapped a plastic pouch, dropped it in a metal beaker, and spun. Chefette was staging at the time with Jacques and saw this method work well--they had a special little self-contained two-person temperature-regulated plating station inside their busy production kitchen which was quite ahead of its time. The Paco is ideal for smaller restaurants where you have the time to spin what you need a la minute, but you have to have a freezer that gets subzero. You can also use the Pacojet for volume--you just need a very meticulous approach and have the support of your chefs.

Ideally, you need one freezer dedicated to deep-freeze the beakers, and a separate service freezer, either freestanding or built-in to the counter, which you can keep at a warmer service temperature--that is really important, I'm higher than 10 degrees Ted but that's personal preference--and that way you can spin multiples of beakers in advance right before service and hold them in the service freezer. You don't want to spin too many too soon and you don't want to re-spin anything that has been in the warmer service freezer. It's very tough to use the PacoJet in a shared-freezer environment. Whatever you think you know about making ice cream and sorbet in a batch freezer, you'll have to re-think and re-work for the Paco. So that'll take added time to adjust and in a rush to open you may not have that time. When we opened I only had the service freezer completely to myself--and what I was doing was turning it to its coldest setting at night, then the next morning--after spinning for lunch--gradually turning the setting down, making it slightly warmer. That worked until the standalone deep freezer came in and I could keep two separate temperature zones.

That said, we eventually cut back to 1 Pacojet and bought a tabletop batch freezer for Zaytinya, shifting the 2nd Paco over to another restaurant, Cafe Atlantic/minibar. It was hard to keep up with the volume and not let quality suffer at Zaytinya. That meant I had to change up some recipes, develop some new ones to keep the quality of each comparable, we now have a smaller Paco program and a batch freezer program there simultaneously. In the other restaurants we have either the smallest tabletop Taylor, like the 104 I think, and in others we use the smallest tabletop Coldelite, I think that's the LB-100. There's not much functional difference between the two models--both chill quickly and well--one you pour from the top through a funnel and the door is a little more difficult to remove and clean--the other you pour through a front-mounted plastic spout, which can be problematic with slightly thicker mixtures, but it has an easier-to-remove and clean mechanism. Both expel a lot of heat. Be careful with whatever model you get, they'll have little plastic/rubber/silicone gasket or O-rings: lose them and you're sunk. If I had to choose one, I'd probably give the nod to the Coldelite--it seems slightly more convenient to use.

Either of these three machines can handle production for a busy restaurant if you have sufficient freezer space. I've never worked in a larger place, so I can't comment on the next step up the chain, but many of the better hotels outsource ice cream like they do frozen doughs, bake-off viennoisserie, Chocolates a la carte, etc. There's obviously more risk for you with a single Paco in terms of backup, repair/turn-around and in terms of your staff not screwing it up--it isn't as foolproof, since things are turning at such high speeds a little mis-alignment and you're sunk. Many small to medium restaurant pastry chefs in your position don't have the luxury of working for a generous owner when it comes to equipment, and my hope is you don't have to out-source all of your frozen components and can make them in-house instead.

Creatively and spiritually, that's the best option.

[akwa]

great analysis steve

i agree that a single paco with 12 to 24 cannisters, supplemented by a tabletop coldelite/carpigiani is a good recommendation.

i found that vacuum sealing the deep frozen pacos is a great way to go, but also this system requires great vigilance, organization, and most of all, sufficient freezer space at at least 2 temperatures.

Regards to cd100 pieces, I still feel that the door and chamber design is among the poorest of any kitchen equipment I have ever seen. The reason I suggested bumping up the size is for the more desirable metal face guards, door openers, which are not as desperate to lose themselves. with regards to rings, et al, i kept a fish flat of duplicate pieces to ensure that i was in commission.

As well, I have never been in volume over 1000, i would be interested to hear how grand hotels execute.

Great thread and lots of helpful advice.

[tan319]

Yeah, the rubber sealer rings for any of those plexiglass "doors" or even the rubber ring that goes around the churner that locks in are a huge pain in the butt!

You really need to have an extra piece for each and also ALWAYS wash and sanitize them yourself, otherwise you'll be spending 50 bucks here & there always.

akwa, are you saying just get the slightly bigger but all metal (no plexiglass) batch freezer?

To avoid the possibility of loss?

Just to clarify...

[akwa]

yes

[simdelish]

Yes, steve, thanks for the great overview. Many good/valid points to consider.

Believe it or not, the owners and the chef have given me the task of finding "what I would like or think I need." I have even found a handful on eBay, some new, some "gently used" by places going out of business.

I have been researching the pacojets, and the size appeals to Chef (as well as the option for us to test and experiment, and do specials). As for freezer space, we have a walkin freezer downstairs, and a small service freezer, so the two diff temp thing looks not to be an issue.

As for the volume expected, I am still trying to get a handle on that: the dining room, versus the dessert bar, and also I anticipate making frozen product for the 2 other restaurants.

I did come across the brand that I used last, the CRM, which is Italian made. But what I loved about it was there were no litte parts to lose, no gaskets, rubber seals, no tiny funnels to try to pour through etc. It's actually specifically a gelato maker, but let me tell you, it made the best ice cream ever (as well of course as gelato,sorbets etc). Here is a picture. It makes about 4-5 qts, is easy to clean, and the only removable parts are big enough to go thru the DW: the paddle, the clear lid, and a stainless lip at the base of the extruder(which i just run under hot water). (I actually only washed the lid once every week or so.) I just rinsed it out, and ran sanitizer though. No muss, no fuss. I called my last boss and he said he had researched it thoroughly, and bought for those reasons. (and he is a major tightwad). I never once had it serviced in the 1 1/2 yrs I worked for him. I asked, he said it has only been serviced 3 times in the last 5-6 yrs!

I have not heard too many compliments on the Taylor brand.

I also came across a Ross BA-4. Anybody familiar with? Roughly $6500.

Question on PacoJet: is there only the one size beaker? One liter (actually 1.2)

or are there bigger beakers or models?

I think the best of all worlds is to do like you Steve, and have one Paco, and one batch freezer. Of course, I don't think we could spring for both now. But, my feeling is get the batch freezer now (and it's more $), but then 'persuade' the Chef to get a Paco later this year, for both of us , and it would allow greater creativity and quality, which I am sure he would love, once we get underway.

any other thoughts?

[tan319]

Only one size beaker for the Paco.

Get the batch freezer now.

You're on the right track.

[Sethro]

EDIT (thread mereged): I'm looking for the best counter-top unit under $1000...

Edited August 6, 2005 by Sethro (log)

[Boris_A]

The Simac GC 4000.

Powerful 250W machine and compressor, ~ 1.8 quarts finished ice cream (more than 2lbs liquid raw material per batch), a removable, easy-to-clean mixing container (stainless steel). Nice design, BTW.

Picture and description for example here: http://66.70.211.12/store/product200.html