Why is my soft serve too stiff?
Is there an intelligent commercial machine soft serve calculator? I'm a noob at this, bag powder mixes taste like crap, can't find any fresh dairy mixes here in central Florida.
So far, the best I can find is 6% fat, 12% sugar, 14% MSNF, and 0.1% xanthan gum and .3% lecithin. And some vanilla. I made a spreadsheet to calculate it all based on a gallon of milk as a starting point, but what do I know? (very little...) I'm using milk, evaporated milk, heavy cream, dry skim milk, sugar, and the rest.
I mix it well, put it in the machine. Texture comes out smooth & creamy, but stiff. It won't lay down and curl like soft serve should. It just wants to stick straight out and stack up.
Too much MSNF?
There seems to be a dearth of decent information on the internet for soft serve.
Any help out there?
I've got my calculator sheet on Google, I can share it so maybe someone who knows what they're doing can help point me in the right direction.
Best Answer
I'd suggest taking a look at the excellent book "Ice Cream" by Goff and Hartel (ISBN: 978-1-4614-6095-4). It covers all aspects of making ice cream commercially, and is very thorough. Chapter 8 is titled "Soft-Frozen Dairy Desserts" and page 252 has a table of example formulas for soft-serve ice creams.
For example, one column of the table shows the percentages to use for 6% milk fat:
Milk fat: 6.0%
MSNF: 12.5%
Sugar: 12.0%
CSS: 4.0%
S/E: 0.4%
TS: 34.9%
(MSNF: milk solids-not-fat, CSS: corn syrup solids, S/E: stabilizer plus emulsifier, TS: total solids.)
To take a guess at your actual problem, I'd say if it's not soft enough, you might try lowering the MSNF and xanthan gum first.
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Quick Answer about "Why is my soft serve too stiff?"
Product is Too Stiff If the ice cream or mixture is too stiff, check for the following: No air orifice – See if the air orifice was accidentally removed or not installed. Have an authorized technician install it in the air tube. Viscosity needs to be adjusted – Contact an authorized technician to remedy the issue.Why is my ice cream so hard?
If the ice cream is not churned fast enough, larger ice crystals can develop, causing the ice cream to become too hard when frozen. The faster it is churned the more air that is whipped into it, which will help it from freezing as hard.How do you turn hard serve ice cream into soft serve?
Take your ice cream out of the freezer. Let it soften for a few minutes, but no more than 5\u2014you want to thaw it just long enough to extricate it out of the container. Place the ice cream into the bowl of a stand mixer* fit with the paddle attachment. Mix on medium until the ice cream is smooth and creamy.How do you make homemade ice cream creamy and not icy?
Harold McGee, a food scientist, recommends substituting 1 Tbs. of honey for 2-1/2 Tbs. of sugar in ice cream. Adding a liqueur or wine to an ice-cream mixture will make it softer because alcohol, like sugar, lowers the freezing point of a liquid.Why is my soft serve ice cream Icy?
Possible Causes: The problem could be the result of product being left in the machine for too long resulting in over freezing of the product. Solution: Drain the entire product from the machine into a large clean bucket. Stir product in the bucket for about 5 minutes, re-circulating the product and incorporating air.Behind the scenes of gelato - Chocolate sorbets, industrial ice cream, soft-serve problems...
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