How to Choose Ice Cream Machine

Ice cream maker machine / soft ice cream machine/ hard ice cream machine / frozen yoghurt machine currently is easy to be found in the market, with carious types and capacity and equipped with a number of different features.

Soft ice cream machines / hard ice cream machine / gelato / frozen yoghurt machine can be easily acquired and operate, and make it possible for ice cream businesses or families to easily make ice cream / hard ice cream / frozen yoghurt with lots of flavors. There are many types of machine for different types of product, with prices ranging from 17 million IDR to 50 million IDR.

 
Understanding the characteristic or technical specification of soft ice cream machine / hard ice cream machine / frozen yoghurt machine, along with all its features is important for consumer to determine the right machine for their business. Because machine can be chose based on purpose and capabilities of each ice cream business in medium scale.

First, ice cream businesses need to choose and consider the options of ice cream / soft ice cream / hard ice cream / frozen yoghurt machines offered by manufacturer or distributor of each machine, which made in model with minimal capacity, capabilities, and features or model made with bigger capacity and capabilities and additional supportive features for easier operational access for the user.

Then, consider the amount of target in the market or people to be served by the machine and the amount of ice cream that need to be made, also the amount of time spent on making process, from preparing the raw ingredients of  soft ice cream / hard ice cream / frozen yoghurt until it becomes the final product. These considerations will affect your financial effeciency to pick machine in price range that suits your needs and capabilities.

Nowadays, there are a lot of model of soft ice cream machine in the market, but most buyer does not understand well enough what type of machine they needed. Most of the time they bought before first understanding the machine and found out later that the machine is not suited or compatible with business they intend to do. And unfortunately after buying the machine, and if there any problem similar to this, the salesperson will not help.

Because of that, there are many things to be considered before purchasing froyo or ice cream machine to avoid buying machine that is not compatible. Most important thing to consider when purchasing a machine is after-sales issues regarding its spare parts availability and service/repair; to avoid the machine to be renderred useless because the manufacturer or distributor does not provide service/repair or prices of spare parts are simple not affordable.

Main components of Ice Cream Machine / soft ice cream machine / frozen yoghurt ice cream :

Compressor

Compressor is part of refrigeration system used to regulate/create compression system to the freon, to cause cooling/freezing to the ice cream dough. Cooling room/tool is also an evaporator in a form of cylinder (barrel) where the inside part contains shaft screw that functions to stir the dough during freezing process. This makes dough to be frozen evenly by forming soft ice grains.

Compressor is also one of the main component that really affect the final product of the ice cream, from quality of the freezing and quantity of ice cream produced. the bigger the quantity of product produced, means bigger compressor is installed on the ice cream machine or frozen yoghurt machine, and so does its power consumption.

In conclusion, the quality of ice cream machine or soft ice cream machine can be determined based on the quality of the compressor. Compressor with better quality results in better performance of ice cream machine or soft ice cream machine. For compressors manufactured in europe (in German, Italy, France) and Japan are relatively more expensive because its quality has been tested and have a longer service life.

Cup / Drum

Cup/drum is a container for  soft ice cream machine, located at the top of soft ice cream machine and in its underside there is a hole to drain the dough to the cooling room.

Condensor

From compressor, gas refrigrant with high pressure and temperature are transferred to the condensor ywhich functions to transform the refrigrant into liquid. In small regrigrant system, the most commonly used condensor is the one equipped with fan, that uses air flow as a media for condensation process. If condensation process does not work perfectly, it could cause the refrigrant to not produced and work properly in the next processes.

Expansion valve

This valve is another main component in refrigeration system in ice cream machine that functions to change refrigrant's pressure that are going to be used in the evaporation process. Expansion valve has a vital role. This is due to bad expansion process of the refrigrant caused by blockage or  bad quality of the expansion valve could cause the evaporation process in cooling room/barrel not done perfectly.

This imperfection will affect the dough temperature to be below the desired temperature. And worse, this could cause the final product to not reach the desired freezing point,  the ice cream will not be properly froze and will easily melt.

Cylinder (cooling room/barrel)

Cylinder, which comes in tube shapes often referred to cyllinder tube, based on traditional process which coated in jacket system that contains liquid with characteristic similar to frozen salt and ice which froze by refrigeration system through evaporation process.

The purpose of this evaporation is to transfer cold temperature to cylinder room. The cylinder room contains ice cream dough that has been stirred by shaft screw which rotated by a motor. The motor rotates at constact rotation and makes the freezing process, on the ice cream dough, to be done evenly and forms ice grains in the ice cream machine/soft ice cream machine.

Valve

Valve which often referred to as tap in soft ice cream machine/frozen yoghurt machine which functions to open and drain the ice cream produced by the machine. The valve comes in two tupes: electric system and mechanical system.

For mechanical system, in soft ice cream machine comes in a form of foot valve which driven (handled) by using a foot, by stepping on the handle in the lower part, similar to gas system used in a car. For the hand valve in soft ice cream machine is driven by hand or by placing the cup to be positioned under the valve or tap.

As for the electric system in soft ice cream machine, usually uses sensor system or limit switch and often referred to as full automatic system, where we can simply place a cup/glass and sensor will work and open the valve which operated by electric coil and makes the soft ice cream machine seem to not have any weaknesses.

Based on the valve used on ice cream machine/ soft ice cream machine / frozen yoghurt machine, in the market, the most common is using a mechanical system both with foot valve system or hand valve.
But in some cases, for preventing reduced quality of the ice cream, ice cream machine with electric system is equipped with a number of additions, as explained in other additional features.
What to consider before choosing ice cream machine:
  • Freezing Method - Is it using compressor, cup, or other freezing method?
  • Ice cream machine capacity - How much ice cream products can be made with the machine?
  • Kompresor mesin es krim - What is the brand of the compresor used by the machine? The brand of the compresor can determine its service life. Compressor with well known brand is more expensive but has longer service life.
  • Size and weight of ice cream machine - Is the size, dimension, and weight of the machine suit your outlet/shop/counter?
  • Speed of ice cream machine - How fast the machine can produce soft ice cream / hard ice cream / frozen yoghurt?
  • Electric or power (Watt) - How big is the machine's power consumption? And how big the power capacity provided at your outlet/shop/counter? Keep in mind, for power option in Indonesia (PLN) choose 50 Hz, this could cause machine with power 60 Hz can easily broke.

Other Additional Features in soft ice cream machine / ice cream machine

Additional features in ice cream machines can be adjusted to suits you needs, to make it easier and more effective when operating the machine. This can be additional variable to determine the total price of ice cream machine that you desire, such as:
  • Precooling System Function of the dough on soft ice cream machine; precooling the dough before producing the ice cream, can maintain the ice cream dough to be freshly frozen in storage tank, and can even freshly frozen until the next day.
  • Air Pump on soft ice cream machine functions accelerate the draining of ice cream dough to the valve. For better application, pump used in frozen yoghurt machine is a diafragm pump type. Buyt many other types of pump are also used, similar to aquarium, issues caused can complicate its user because pump can cause issues like stirring ingredient inside the tank and caused the ingredient to be foamy and overflowing.
  • Low Mix Alarm System in soft ice cream machine funtions to notify the users when the machine has low amount of ingredient in the storage tank. This feature facilitate us for easier control of when to refilling dough ingredient into the machine's tank when processing ice cream, so the production can be performed continously.
  • Counting Function; this feature functions to count how many cone of soft ice cream or how many glass of frozen yoghurt produced, and it is very effective to control the amount of sales done by the user.
  • Electrical valve which automatically drain the ice cream to fill the glass/cup when placed under the valve/tap on the ice cream machine.
  • Cones Dispenser, Canopy, etc., are additionals accessories for frozen yoghurt machine or ice cream machine.
Thus, this writing is presented to give you basic referrences and pointers in determining/deciding/choosing types and specifications of ice cream machine, to help you get the machine that suits your need and desires.

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