Ice-Cream Processing

Amanda Bruno and Thulasi Thirugnanam

Table of Contents
1. What is ice-cream?
2. Overview of ice-cream manufacture
3. Basic principle of ice crystallization
4. Traditional method of processing ice-cream
5. Scraped-surface heat exchanger (Scraped-surface freezer)
a. Benefits
b. Product recirculation
6. Batch freezers
7. Continuous freezers
a. Advantages over batch freezers
8. Low temperature extrusion
a. Benefits
9. Ultrasound
a. Benefits
10. Ultrafiltration
a. Benefits
 What is Ice-Cream?
- Multiphase mixture:
- Fat globules
- Foam (air bubbles)
- Dispersed ice crystals in a serum
phase of proteins, salts and dissolved
sugars.

Source: Goff, H. D. (2016). Milk Proteins in Ice Cream. Advanced Dairy Chemistry, 329–345.
Overview of Ice Cream Manufacture
The production of ice cream involves seven main unit operations. These are:

- Mixing
- Pasteurization
- Homogenization
- Aging
- Freezing
- Hardening
- Packaging
Mixing
- Combination of quality ingredients together and at the right quantity.
- The role of the various components of ice-cream mix:
- Fat (cream): needed for the formation of the ice-cream structure, as crystalline fat is
required for partial coalescence.
- Milk solids-non-fat (proteins, vitamins, minerals): proteins aid with emulsification,
improve whipping ability to incorporate air, and have high water-holding capability
- Sweeteners (sucrose): improves texture and palatability of ice-cream, depresses
freezing point.
- Stabilizers (guar gum): reduce growth of ice crystals, uniformly suspends flavourings
- Emulsifiers (polysorbates): allows for partial coalescence to occur
Pasteurization
- Designed to destroy pathogenic bacteria
- Aids in solubilizing proteins and stabilizers
- In batch pasteurization:
- Ingredients are blended in large, jacketed vats with some heating (hot
water)
- Heated to at least 69°C for 30 minutes
- In continuous pasteurization:
- HTST heat exchanger after blending ingredients in insulted feed tank
- Minimum temperature of 80°C for at least 25 seconds
Homogenization
- Mix is homogenized at high pressures (15.5-18.9)MPa
- Homogenization pressure must be adapted to the fat content, and
pasteurization intensity
- Forcing hot mix through small orifices
- Forms the fat emulsion
- Smaller, more uniform fat droplet size
- Greater stability during aging, better whipping ability, smoother final
product
Aging
- Performed in insulated or refrigerated storage tanks, silos, etc. or in single-
walled tanks in chilled rooms
- Mix is aged for 4 hours or longer at 2-4°C
- Allows hydration of milk proteins and stabilizers
- Viscosity is increased, fat globules crystallize, and membrane rearranges
- Aged mix extrudes better from dynamic freezer and has better whipping
abilities
Freezing
- Modern ice cream freezing consists of two distinct stages: dynamic and static
freezing (hardening)
- Dynamic freezing: passing the ice-cream mix through a Scraped Surface Heat
Exchanger (SSHE) under high-shear conditions to promote extensive ice crystal
nucleation, air incorporation and partial coalescence.
- Batch and continuous freezers are commonly used for dynamic freezing
(discussed later in presentation).
Freezing (Hardening)
- Static freezing: ice-cream is frozen at temperatures below -30°C without
agitation in hardening room
- Majority of remaining water freezes.
- No nucleation, but ice crystals grow
- Helps ice-cream to retain its shape (physical structure)
- Increase shelf life with respect to chemical and enzymatic reactions.
Packaging

- Protects from physical, chemical, and biological damages

- Three main factors must be considered when making packaging:
- Needs to protect from temperature fluctuations, photooxidation,
dehydration, and odor transmittance
- Need to take into consideration distribution-related factors
- Municipal solid waste management factors
Basic Principles of Ice Crystallization
- Supercooling → temperature drops below freezing
point
- Nucleation → initial formation of a crystal
- Primary (heterogenous and homogenous)
- Secondary
- Growth → results in disc-shaped ice crystals after
freezing
- Recrystallization → change in shape or size of crystals
- Isomass
- Migratory
Source: Cook, K., & Hartel, R. (2010). Mechanisms of Ice
- Accretion Crystallization in Ice Cream Production. Comprehensive Reviews in
Food Science and Food Safety, 9(2), 213–222.
Traditional Method of Ice Cream Processing

Freezing - Brine method

- One of the earliest methods used in the creation of ice-cream.

- It involves placing all ingredients in ice-cream making into a thin drum.
- This drum is placed in a bigger container containing ice and salt.
- The salt melts the ice and produces a brine with temperature of 17°F.
- Constant turning causes the ice-cream to adhere to the sides of can.
- Ice-cream is very soft with brittle ice crystals.
- Immediate hardening is needed to avoid damage to structure of ice-cream
Traditional Method of Ice Cream Processing
Hardening

- Cans of ice cream mix are placed in a large plank box that is filled with a salt
and ice mixture
- Cans are placed on top of an ice and salt layer, and then more ice is added to
nearly the top of the cans
- Ice is sprinkled throughout ice
- Ice cream often left overnight to fully harden
- Large crystals
Scraped-Surface Heat Exchanger

- Also called a scraped-surface freezer in ice cream processing

- The scraped-surface freezer consists of:
- A cylindrical barrel surrounded by a liquid refrigerant (ammonia or
freon)
- A dasher with blades made of stainless steel
- Ice crystals formed at the wall of the freezer are scraped off by the
dasher blades and back into the center, so new ice crystals can grow.
Benefits of the Scraped-Surface Heat Exchanger

- The high shear forces produced by the dasher blades destabilize fat
globules and form fat globule clusters
- Destabilization distributes air bubbles and ice crystals
- Shear forces also reduce the size of air cells
Product Recirculation

- Modification to scraped-surface freezer

- Brings existing ice crystals back into the mix so they can increase in
size and promote more ice crystal nucleation.
- This minimizes the production of unfrozen ice cream and promotes
nucleation.
Batch Freezers

- Consists of scraper blades and the beater

- Freezer is jacketed with refrigerant → brine, ammonia, or freon
- Predetermined amount of mix placed in
- Refrigeration and agitation is turned on
- Ice cream is frozen and whipped
- Refrigeration turned off and air is incorporated
- Ice cream is discharged once desired overrun is achieved
Continuous Freezers
- Used in large ice-cream manufacturing plant where more than 500 gal is
produced per day.
- A mixture of air and mix is introduced at one end and is progressively frozen
until ice-cream is discharged at the other end.
- Operate under pressure to minimize the volume of air in the ice-cream and thus
maximize heat transfer.
- Equipped with microprocessor controls that:
- Monitor and control the discharge temperature.
- The viscosity
- The overrun
Advantages of Continuous Freezing Over Batch
Freezing
- Less freezing time → smaller ice crystals
- Less time hardening
- Lower ageing time
- More uniform yield of ice cream between packages
- Increase volume frozen per worker
- Reduced chance of contamination
Low-Temperature Extrusion

- Food is shear treated and frozen to temperatures between -10 and

-20 degrees Celsius
- Follows the dynamic freezing step and can replace the static freezing
step (hardening)
- Screws shear and stir ice cream until it reaches -15 degrees Celsius
Benefits of Low-Temperature Extrusion

- Decreases the size of air cells

- Reduces the median air cell diameter
- Air cells are more uniform in size → lower standard deviation
- Enhances fat destabilization
- Creamier and smoother ice-cream
Ultrasound

- Mild preservation technology used in dairy products.

- Inactivates pathogenic microorganisms and enzymes.
- It generates sound waves causing compression and rarefaction of the
particles and collapse of ice crystals causing cavitation.
Benefits of Ultrasound

- Induce nucleation
- Decreases size of ice crystals
- Decrease freezing time
- Prevents incrustation on the freezing surface
Ultrafiltration

- Most preferred method employed to extract milk protein.

- Used for reducing lactose from dairy products such as ice-cream.
- Retentate obtained from ultrafiltration can be used as a substitute for
skim milk powder which can be added as milk-non-fat (protein source)
Benefits of Ultrafiltration
- Relatively cheap
- Low operating pressure required
- Good retentate yield depending on the supply water and membrane choice
- Low energy consumption
Conclusion
Ice cream science and technology has come a long way due to new changes in technology that
overcame the problems of traditional technology or techniques. Technological advances have be made in
ingredients and processes, while scientific advances have been made in understanding functionality of
the ingredients, structure and stability.
Any questions?