This month we are pumping up the volume!
No, I’m not referring to the classic 80’s song but pumping up the volume on your ice cream or gelato products to maximise your ingredient use.
So, what is the trick to gaining more volume within your ice cream? Air.
Churning in air is super important to ice cream making, as this gives that essential softness and lightness to your product whilst also providing warmth to the palette.
Even though air is not actually an ingredient, having no air within a product will ultimately affect the quality, shelf life and commercial viability.
So, I want to give you, the lovely customer, a few tips I’ve learnt along the way for keeping the percentage of air (aka overrun) high within your ice cream or gelato.
Consider your ingredients
When looking to introduce a higher percentage of overrun, your first consideration should be your ingredients.
Proteins are a great example of this. Within your ice cream or gelato recipe you will want a minimum of 3.5% of proteins; this usually comes from your milk, milk powder or creams. These proteins bind with the fat globules within your recipe, trapping water and air into the bind. Ultimately this gives you a good level of air inside your liquid mix.
Another top ingredient for achieving this is the use of emulsifiers. Your emulsifiers will work in two stages: firstly during the aging of the mix, after pasteurisation, and secondly during the freezing of your gelato or ice cream.
The best emulsifiers are typically glycerol monostearates and glycerol distearates (e471); these bind with water within the fat, allowing the recipe to hold more air inside it.
Of course, alongside the good ingredients, we also must consider the bad ones, that will work against you and reduce the amount of air.
Too much fat within a recipe will do just this. For example, if you include a fatty paste, it will reduce the amount of air due to its weight, as well as its too high solid content, which can also push the air out. Ingredients notorious for doing this include nut paste, chocolate paste, cacao powder and several other powders.
Too much sugar in your mix will also decrease the amount of air within your recipe. Having too much sugar will soften your mix, meaning it won’t be able to hold any air at all.
Aging your mix
The aging of your product can also play a huge role in increasing overrun within your ice cream or gelato. Aging for a minimum of 6 hours is ideal, as this will give your emulsifiers and proteins ample time to catch as much air as possible and hold it in a stable bond. If you age for too short a time when you begin batch freezing, you will start to beat the air out of your ice cream, rather than freezing it in.
The temperature of your mix
We want to have a base mix of around 2-4°c when we churn and freeze ice cream or gelato straight away. Adding your mixture any warmer than this will knock the air out of its existing bonds, taking you two steps backwards before you can take those critical four steps forward during freezing.
The speed of your batch freezer
Often you are unable to adjust the speed at which your batch freezer spins, but if you are lucky enough to be able to determine its speed, this should be an important consideration.
Spinning too fast will beat the air out of your recipe, spinning too slow will simply move the product around without adding any air in. Finding the ideal balance is key.
The capacity of your batch freezer
Sticking to the best amount of mixture for your specific batch freezer will greatly impact the amount of air that ends up in your ice cream or gelato.
Most machinery companies will provide a recommended volume or weight. Whether it states 4, 8 or 12 kilos, this indicates the maximum amount you can put in; but when adding your mix into the batch freezer you should never fill it to the max.
I would recommend filling your machine two thirds full, this will subsequently provide adequate space to churn air into your mix and increase the volume of your product.
A number of years ago I had a customer challenge me on this recommendation. They called and stated that, despite their machine indicating a limit of 8 kilos, they had been able to fit 12 kilos easily. They had yet to remove the product from the machine whilst it was freezing, and so I put good money on the fact that they would get much less than 12 out, as there was no space left for air to enter the mix, and I was correct.
On the other side of the coin, if you don’t follow your machine’s minimum recommendations you also won’t churn adequate air into your product, as the gelato will likely freeze to the beater and just spin.
The moral of the story, leave enough space (but not too much space) in your machine for that all-important air!
Removing your product
Without stating the obvious, when your machine says your product is ready, it means it’s ready.
Delayed extraction of your product runs the risk of it freezing too firm and knocking out the air that you have tirelessly worked to put in.
Ultimately you should remember that gelato is sold by volume and not by weight. Therefore, when you have less air in your ice cream, in order to deliver a decent portion for your customers you will have to give more away. Furthermore, without this air, you have impacted on its quality.
When promoting the quality of your product, the last thing you want to do is serve more than you need to, as there are, of course, limits to how much you can charge. And with the cost of ingredients soaring at the moment, now is the perfect time to ensure you are pumping up the volume on your ice cream or gelato to maximise your product.
See you next time for the latest scoop!
Jonny
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