HOW WE MAKE ICE CREAM
We
make all our homemade ice cream in the store in our 5-gallon batch freezer.
We start with a 16% butterfat mix that's as rich and sweet and pure dairy
as you can get - whole milk, cream, sugar, non-fat milk powder, egg yolks,
filtered water, carrageenan (a natural stabilizer)...and that's it!
Next
- we add the other ingredients - real vanilla, flavorings, chips, nuts, and
fruit. Some go in at the beginning,
some during the mixing process - it all depends on the recipe (and most of our
50+ homemade ice creams are our own recipes).
The
batch freezer mixes and chills - just like a crank freezer at you may have at
home (except ours is MUCH bigger). Each
batch takes about 10-15 minutes to produce 5 gallons of ice cream - that's 2
buckets. After about 10 minutes, we
extract the almost finished product into the buckets.
The
buckets go into the "flash freezer" where they are frozen at 15 below
zero for 10 hours. While in the
deep freeze, the ice cream not only hardens, but also cures, as the flavors
intensify. At night, we move the
buckets to the storage freezer where they "warm up" to 0º, and they
will be ready to serve the next day.
The
final step: we scoop it into cones or dishes, just for you!
HOW
WE MAKE ICE CREAM - BETTER
Not
all ice cream is created equal. There
are two industry standards for ice cream, and there are some other factors that
separate the best from the rest. The
first factor is the level of butterfat in the mix. Legally, it's ice cream if it has at least 10% butterfat.
Premium ice cream has 12% butterfat, and super-premium is 14%.
We use a 16% butterfat mix - that's ultra-premium ice cream, and no one
else on the North Coast has it.
The
second industry standard is the amount of air (called overrun) in the final
product. All ice cream has air -
that's what helps give it that indescribable creaminess and mouth feel.
Too much air (high overrun) makes a fluffy (and cheap) product.
We make a low overrun ice cream, so you taste the flavor, not air.
The
other ingredients in the ice cream - also help to determine whether you're
eating a quality product. We use
the best mix available (made here in Oregon), and the best ingredients (real
fruit, premium nuts, and chocolate) so that you taste quality.
Here are some other things we do, or don't do, so you get a quality ice
cream:
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Whey?
No way! Some ice creams contain whey or whey powder in place of milk
solids. Whey is cheaper, and it
tastes like it. We do not use
whey or whey powder.
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Pure
vanilla is extracted from whole vanilla beans, primarily from Madagascar,
and it's been very expensive the last few years due to severe weather
problems. Some ice cream is
made with artificial flavors called imitation vanilla flavor or vanillin.
These flavorings are much cheaper than pure vanilla extract that
comes from the vanilla bean, but imitation vanilla is made from a by-product
of the paper or petrochemical industry, and vanillin is made from a coal tar
derivative. We use pure vanilla
for our vanilla-based flavors.
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Some
dairy farmers inject their cows with the growth hormone recombinant Bovine
Somatotropin (rBST), sometimes known as recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone (rBGH).
This hormone forces the cows to produce more milk, and increases
their risk of infection, for which they're then given antibiotics.
Some evidence shows rBST-treated milk passes on to you not only
higher levels of antibiotics, but also a possible connection to increased
risk of certain types of cancer. We
get our ice cream base mix from Lochmead Dairy in Junction City, Oregon.
The ice cream mix contains milk, cream, sweeteners, nonfat dry milk
solids, and small amounts of stabilizers and emulsifiers to help hold the
ice cream together so it doesn't separate.
Lochmead states that, "Our fluid milk does
not contain the artificial growth hormone, rBST.
The skim milk powder is not certified as rBST-free.
Our supplier is trying to develop a market for an rBST free powder,
which we would switch to if they were able to provide."
Most of the weight of the mix comes from the liquid milk and cream.
The amount of milk powder by weight is much less than the liquid milk
and cream in the mix.
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It's
important to us what's in the food we make, and we think it's important to you,
too. We want to provide our
customers with the highest-quality product we can.
Do you know what's in anybody else's ice cream?
Oh
- one more thing - our ice cream is not only better, there's more of it!
Our single cones and dishes are 30%-50% bigger than "the other
guys" (depending on which guys you're comparing us to), and our doubles
are...well, they're twice as big. Do
the math.
There's
a reason people say we're the best ice cream
they've ever had - come in and find out for yourself!
For
more information about Zinger's, click on our FAQ/News
page.
