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HOW WE MAKE ICE CREAM

loading the mix
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! 

loading chips


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). 

here it comes!
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.


into the blast freezerThe 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:

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.

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. 

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. 

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.

 


 
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