The ice cream has been a popular dairy food since last many years. Ice cream manufacturing process comprises of many stages, but freezing is the most important step in this case. Ideally ice cream should be stored at -22 °C to -25 °C and to be served at -18 °C to -15 °C.
In a sugar solution such as ice cream, the initial freezing point of the solution is lower than 0 °C. The ice cream base is related to the total number of molecules dissolved in that solution. Lower-weight molecules tend to freeze early.
Importance of correct freezing temperature:
1) Maintain frozen & unfrozen water content
Ice cream has some unfrozen water content at it’s serving temperature of -18 °C to -15 °C. Without this the ice cream would be too hard. If the temperature in freezer room is too low, excess amount of water will be frozen and resulting ice cream will be too hard both for processing & consumption.
2) Increase concentration of sugar solution
As ice crystallization begins, the concentration of the remaining sugar solution increases results in lowering the freezing point of remaining unfrozen base, which makes ice cream soft enough to be scooped and chewed at freezing temperature.
Blast Freezing Units for Ice Cream Hardening:
