Making Ice Cream!

Got it from Lowes, brand is Idylis and it's the 7.1 Cubic Foot. The 5 was just too small for me. Ended up paying $159 for it and the reviews on it are pretty good. We have one of the Kitchenaid French Door bottom freezer refrigerators and while I like it. Just NOT enough room in it. Now once this one is all cooled down we can actually stock up on some meats and such. I tried to make some room in the freezer before to toss the canister for the ice cream maker in there. Wife wasn't too keen on me getting rid of her veggies and stuff. I even tried VEGGIES we have meat and will have ice cream what more do we need. Didn't work though.

 

I was looking at the Idylis from Lowe's as well (just on line - haven't gone to the store yet). Thinking about the 5CU, but we'll see. It has mixed reviews - those who had issues had a hell of a time getting warranty work done. I have a bottom mount freezer on the refer as well. Crammed full and we do a purge about once a month.

 

I will let you know how this one goes. I like reviews but I take the good and bad with a grain of salt, on the 7.1 most of the people that had issues had them in garages where it got real hot or real warm. I thought about going for one of the higher end brands but in the end for the same size it was $150 - $200 more on avg. and I just didn't see the difference in them for right now.

 

If the freezer is good it wont matter how hot it gets outside they still should work...We have a small one outside and it works great all summer.

 

I would tend to agree, some say it's the electronics in a bunch of the stuff now. I honestly don't know. Most likely mine will end up in the utility room or the basement. Just need to get some time and get by butt in gear.

My in-laws have an old school big chest freezer in their garage in FL and it works fine. Whats odd is we had more trouble with our fridge in the garage here last year when it got real cold out (garage is not heated) than we did when it was in the 90's all summer. By more trouble I mean we had none in the summer and it stopped getting cold in the freezer/fridge when it got real cold out. Shut it down for a couple of days and all was good in fridge land again.

 

So far the freezer is great. Not loud, nice and cold fits in the space well (it's in our laundry room).

Hoping to make some ice cream in the next couple of weekends. Found a recipe for Candied Bacon, Maple Vanilla Smoked Ice Cream on the Traeger site and I am now itching to give it a whirl and see how it comes out.

 

Smoking things combined with making ice cream... Fucking genius.

 

I have car club board meeting tomorrow night, so I picked up a couple tri-tips today and some stuff for ice cream. I'm going to stick with the chocolate cherries Garcia this time, but want to try Gold Medal Ribbon soon.

Thanks for the refer update!

 

No problem, seems like a good deal so far. Gives me the space our main one is missing. I like the drawer freezer in it but you just lose so much space.

 

For anyone looking for a machine, I just saw this on woot.com . Cuisinart machine for $34.99. I bought one probably 4 years or so ago at Marshall's for $25.00.

http://home.woot.com/offers/cuisinart-frozen-yogurt-sorbet-ice-cream-maker-2?ref=hm_cnt_wp_0_32

 

Looks exactly like the one I have. Hoping mine still works since I haven't used it in a while. Will know soon enough.

 

This does two important things.

1. It denatures milk proteins, which enables them to bind with any free water in the mixture.
2. Evaporate some water.

Also, egg whites are typically not used in many ice cream recipes due to the high water content (90%). If they are, a cheap solution is using them in powdered form. Are you seeing a trend here?

Boutique ice cream makers (Jeni's) will add tapioca starch, which will help trap any remaining unbound water. There are also invert sugar syrups added to prevent crystallization.

The end goal is creamy ice cream, free of water and sugar crystals.

The Ben & Jerry's book is a decent start (this is where I started), but if you really want to level up your ice cream you should seek out Jeni Britton Bauer's recipes. Hoooooly shit.

Fresh Market sells pints of her ice cream, but you will not like the price. Totally worth it.

 

Have you guys ever tried home made Peppermint Ice Cream?!?!?! It's AMAZING! Check out this video we made here at work:

https://youtu.be/MKKXcify-l0

 

Did a batch of homemade vanilla last night. Gave it some extra kick by using 2 vanilla beans while heating the milk. Daughter absolutely loved it. Have to make her some chocolate now and me some banana.

 

My suggestions are find a fruit canning sugar (fine grind fast dissolving) and pre-chill your mixture before putting in the machine. No one likes undisolved sugar and a grainy texture. Pre-chilling just makes it harden faster. If it isn't hard enough when you put it in the freezer to set it can go wonky in a number of ways. Either forming ice crystals, being a solid lump without any air in it (super dense) or any fruit or pieces sinking to the bottom.

Learn to give as much away as possible when experimenting. I found we solved one issue we were having so we wanted to make more the next day. Then we had new ideas so we tried again. Cost me 10lbs the first 2 weeks we had it.

 

Ya we used to make it and give the ice cream machine a workout then cut it out for a long time. Little girl has been asking to make some homemade so yesterday her and I cooked up a batch, to quickly chill it I use a big bowl of ice and water then drop another bowl inside of that. Once everything is done cooking and I need to chill I pour it in the bowl floating in the ice/water batch. Takes about 20 mins and it gets nice and chilled. Now doubt on the grainy part you want your ice cream base nice and smooth not like you mixed sand in it.