Gelato cakes in our blast freezer.
We discussed in the last blog post the importance of ALL the key pieces of equipment needed to craft perfect gelato, and a blast freezer is most certainly one of them!
So, the short answer to the question I get asked a lot and that names this post is: YES, you do need one - it is a very important piece of the production process.
Now let’s find out why!
A blast freezer is a VERY cold freezer that we need to lower the temperature of gelato very fast in many situations. Gelato is formed by ice crystals (around 60% of gelato is water) and we need to make sure these crystals stay as small and smooth as possible to ensure that creaminess great gelato demands.
We keep these crystals small when the freezing process is as short/fast as possible.
Once we extract gelato from our batch freezer this one is normally 70% frozen, and a lot of water is still free: this is not ideal, because if we put the pan in the display case or a freezer it will freeze up, but very slowly creating possible texture and structural issues. If we place this pan in the blast freezer instead, this will create a sort of protective, colder layer on top of the gelato and also lower its internal temperature to where it needs to be for display or storage. This extra step will assure a much better shelf life and overall higher quality of your product.
Considering most of gelato shops should work fresh, you don’t necessarily need a huge blast freezer, because most of your pans will just need to be in there for 15-20 minutes (the time you normally use to make 1 flavor) before they are ready for the display or as daily backups. A 6 pan, countertop blast freezer is plenty for many - at least to start with. Something is better than nothing!
Later you can then afford a bigger size unit and keep the smaller one as backup. I have learned over the years that having backups, in a professional kitchen, is extremely important to keep production going (because stuff breaks, often!).
Especially if you want to offer gelato pops, novelties, cakes and so forth then a blast freezer becomes imperative. All these items must be frozen solid multiple times during the “creation” process and considering you are stressing the gelato already you must be able to keep them at the proper temperature at all time. A gelato pop that is not rock solid frozen will not take the warm chocolate coating well for example, and that temperature is only achievable in a blast freezer.
Also if you wish to schedule production (especially during the busy months) so that you are producing for your stock rather than the display case (and never run out of flavors without loosing your mind), or producing for wholesale clients, then you need a blast freezer. If you want to keep your gelato as fresh as when it was just made you must freeze the pan to the core, really fast, and then store it at the coldest possible temperature. This will assure up to 95-98% water is frozen and will not create too much damage, so that this gelato can be stored well for a few weeks.
Same goes if you need to make pints for your to-go freezer: once the gelato is made, it must be pinted when it is soft and then if we do not blast freeze it the gelato will freeze slowly and that pint will not stay as well for too long, creating larger ice crystals, sandiness and overall a structure that is not smooth.
On top of all this you add the fact that many, unfortunately, use pre-made powders, cold sprints from companies, poorly designed recipes and so on…if you don’t even use a blast freezer your product will most certainly degrade much faster!
To get to an ideal/perfect result there are always a number of steps to take. If we start skipping steps then eventually what we end up with is something that will be a lot different from what we wanted or looking for, there is no escaping from this. Gelato is no exception: to have an amazing product you need to pull all the stops and especially you must gain a great understanding of the process and the product.
Hopefully this was helpful & valuable!
Got questions? We’ve got answers! Don’t forget to sign up for our free Q&A newsletter - sign up directly here!
Need tools, equipment, ingredients for testing or to get you started? Check out our trusted shopping list here.
A presto amici!
Vincenzo