Modular Cold Room Storage For Ice Cream

Ice cream needs proper cold storage and that's a fact. The very nature of ice cream, being a frozen food, means that its texture forms part of its appeal. If that texture is too hard or too soft, then it risks being an inferior experience for the people who look forward to eating it.

It doesn't matter whether you are a master ice cream maker with a shopfront or ice cream parlor or if you just make homemade ice cream. The principle is the same. Spoil the texture of ice cream and you spoil the ice cream itself!

So what are the guidelines for good ice cream storage? Here are a few pointers:

Cold Storage For Homemade Ice Cream

No strict guidelines here but generally do not store homemade ice cream in your freezer for more than 2 months.

Personally, I prefer to keep it no longer than 1 month.

Length of cold storage time also depends upon the type of ice cream you have made. A gelato has a different consistency to a sorbet for example and an ice cream made with a rich cream base and fresh fruit ingredients is different again.

To be absolutely honest, I think the best homemade ice cream is eaten fresh from the ice cream maker!

If the ice cream is a little on the soft side when you first make it and you prefer it harder then pop it in the freezer for just 20 minutes or so before serving.

With homemade ice cream that's been stored in the freezer, I recommend taking it out and put it into the refrigerator for about 10 minutes before serving. This helps soften any ice crystals that may have formed on the outside and makes it more scoopable.If you want to know more about what to do if your homemade ice cream is too hard, read here

Cold Storage For Commercial Ice Cream

Master ice cream makers tend to have developed their own ice cream recipes over time, to the point where they know exactly the right temperature for storage and the optimum amount of time it can be kept in cold storage.

Most ice cream parlors have a good cold storage room, which I learned from a friend of mine is sometimes referred to as a walk in freezer - ie. a big freezer with tiered shelving (up to about 2m high) and a door that allows a person to go inside and retrieve or inspect what's been stored.

Having heard this 'walk in freezer' reference I decided to research it a little more. Just what does this kind of cold storage for ice cream look like? Is it easy to get hold of? Is it complicated to set up?

So I trawled a few web pages and came across a Google+ post made by a chap who claims to have 'spent a lifetime in the freezer!'. His background looked very credible so I followed through a little more. He had referenced an example of what is called modular cold room storage. This type of 'cold room' comes in both fridge (chiller) or freezer format and has the shelving and door that makes it the walk type. Here is a picture .......

Walk In Cold Storage (Freezer or Fridge)

What's more it is apparently easy to self-install - as long as you follow correct rules of health and safety practices of course! Don't think I would be tempted to do so but a couple of chaps on site working at an ice cream parlor might be OK with it. That's where the modular bit comes in - the panels that make up the cabinet bascially slot into each other (though I think it's a bit more technical than that!).

What's also interesting is the wide variety of people who use these walk in cold rooms. Apparently, the food sector as a whole is a big buyer of these rooms from take-aways to burger bars, pizza shops, bakers and butchers. Then on top of that there's the medical market with labs and pharmacies using them lots apparently.

Anyway, back to ice cream storage .... whether you are a homemade fan or a commercial ice cream maker you will know by this point that storage is key to keeping a good ice cream at its best.

Ice Cream Freezers - Size Matters!

If you love to eat ice cream, irrespective of whether you make homemade ice cream or just buy tubs from well known ice cream maker brands, you have to keep it properly stored. Hence your freezer, if it's working correctly, can be your best friend.

Most household freezers can accommodate your general frozen foods such as bread, fish, meat and a few ready-made meals whilst still having a little space left for a couple of tubs of ice cream. But what if you want more than a couple of tubs in storage? What if you're planning on giving a party where ice cream is on the menu? Or you might be planning to make some ice cream sculptures which can sometimes require several tubs of different ice cream colors (red = strawberry, brown = chocolate etc). 

Ice cream sculpture using different ice creams

Then again, you and your family might simply have different preferences when it comes to ice cream flavors - vanilla for Mum, mint choc chip for Dad, banana ice cream for the kids, etc - so you need to keep several tubs in storage for whenever they fancy a quick, tasty dessert.

So what do you do? Empty the normal food from the freezer and stock up just on ice cream? Nope, whilst it might be tempting it's a tad too radical a step! The best option is to consider buying a small ice cream freezer that you keep solely for ice cream storage. It's something I've been thinking of for a while but have yet to get around to doing - maybe because it would tempt me to have more ice cream in the house on a regular basis as opposed to just knowing I stock up on it only when there's room in my main freezer!

Thinking about all of this made me question how the big commercial ice cream makers store their ice cream. After all, once it's produced in frozen form it has to stored at the right temperature whilst awaiting distribution and also during transit to the final destination of supermarkets and stores. In reading up on the subject I came across an interesting article by a cold rooms specialist who listed in their case studies the story of how they had been involved in the construction of one of the biggest industrial panel structures ever built in the UK - a fully automated freezer warehouse where Unilever's logistics people store/transfer pallets of ice cream.

Example of warehouse pallets (Finland)
courtesy of Wikipedia

The size of the UK freezer warehouse build was massive at over 100 metres wide and 300 metres long, measuring up to over 1million m3 in total. Imagine how many pallets of ice cream you could get in there! That's one BIG ice cream freezer if ever there was one, providing a convincing argument for an extra little freezer at home just for ice cream not being such an indulgence after all :)

Summer Ice Cream Treats - Pictures 5 & 6

Summer Ice Cream - Pictures 5 & 6
Ice cream can be really colorful. In fact it's amazing how beautiful an ice cream display freezer can look when strongly colored ice creams are displayed next to each other. These pictures (all of the same display freezer) demonstrate my point beautifully.

Ice cream in hues of blue, peach, brown, white, yellow, cream, purple and red!

Ice Cream - To Freeze Or Not To Freeze - ?

Think of ice cream and most people imagine a frozen food ... but you would be wrong, well partly wrong. Why?

• Homemade ice cream is at its best when freshly made. Having made lots of ice cream at home, tested and tasted it freshly batched and having also eaten it after it's been stored for a few days in the freezer, I can tell you there is simply no comparison - both in taste and texture.


• Gelato, the popular 'artisan' ice cream originating in Italy, is acknowledged to be enjoyed at its best on the day it is made, not after it's been frozen. Although gelato means frozen, it's a little ironic that gelato ice cream is known more for being a 'soft' ice cream. In most gelateria (ice cream parlors specializing in gelato), making gelato is done that day actually on the premises and although it's usually served from an ice cream freezer, it is a different kind of freezer to what you normally see for American style ice cream. It's a "forced air freezer" which prevents the gelato from becoming too frozen.
  
  There are lots of ice cream display freezers on the market today for commercial ice cream sales. Some are large with numerous ice cream pans and others can be split-level ice cream display units. There are also some small countertop ice cream display freezers as well as upright display freezers.
  
  Whether you enjoy making your own ice cream recipes or going out to an ice cream parlor, it's worth remembering that freshly made ice cream will always be the best. Ice cream freezers are great for minimal storage of ice cream such as in gelataria but if you make your own ice cream you should be aware of the do's and don'ts of storing ice cream properly.