Old-Style Ice Cream Making
A top view of the ice cream maker
Summer's Here!
OK, it isn't, and it doesn't look like turning up anytime soon; but let's pretend summer's here to cheer ourselves up!
We have an old-fashioned manual ice cream maker in our collection.
The ice cream mixture would be placed in the can in the centre of the machine.
The winding gear would then be assembled.
The space between the bucket and the can filled with alternating layers of ice and rock salt.
The last step was to turn the handle for about 20 minutes. This turned a paddle device inside the can.
Ice at zero degrees Celsius (32 degrees Fahrenheit) isn't cold enough to make ice cream, but adding a solvent like rock salt causes the ice to melt and decrease in temperature. In fact, any solvent can be added, for example sugar or alcohol, but rock salt is readily available and cheap.
The bucket is wooden and the can metal as the heat needs to transfer easily from the can, but not easily from the outside world.
End of science lesson ;)
Bungs in the side of the bucket made it easy to drain out the water/salt mixture afterwards. Cleanliness was really important, both for the ice cream and to stop the salt eating away at the metal parts.
There is at least one company, White Mountain, that still makes this kind of ice cream machine, and they've posted an excellent short video of the process on YouTube - take a look!
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Pj8Sx5Z8E0)
OK, it isn't, and it doesn't look like turning up anytime soon; but let's pretend summer's here to cheer ourselves up!
We have an old-fashioned manual ice cream maker in our collection.
The ice cream mixture would be placed in the can in the centre of the machine.
The winding gear would then be assembled.
The space between the bucket and the can filled with alternating layers of ice and rock salt.
The last step was to turn the handle for about 20 minutes. This turned a paddle device inside the can.
Ice at zero degrees Celsius (32 degrees Fahrenheit) isn't cold enough to make ice cream, but adding a solvent like rock salt causes the ice to melt and decrease in temperature. In fact, any solvent can be added, for example sugar or alcohol, but rock salt is readily available and cheap.
The bucket is wooden and the can metal as the heat needs to transfer easily from the can, but not easily from the outside world.
End of science lesson ;)
Bungs in the side of the bucket made it easy to drain out the water/salt mixture afterwards. Cleanliness was really important, both for the ice cream and to stop the salt eating away at the metal parts.
There is at least one company, White Mountain, that still makes this kind of ice cream machine, and they've posted an excellent short video of the process on YouTube - take a look!
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Pj8Sx5Z8E0)
