The Ice Cream Lab

Anti-freezing capacity: how strongly an ingredient lowers the freezing point, in sucrose equivalents (sugar = 100, dextrose = 190, glycerine = 371). High PAC = soft ice cream at low temperature.

Relative sweetness in sucrose equivalents (sugar = 100, dextrose = 74, lactose = 16). With POD and PAC you tune sweetness and texture independently.

Milk Solids Non-Fat: milk protein, lactose and minerals. Binds free water and smooths the ice cream — target 7–12%.

Everything that is not water: fat, sugar, MSNF and other solids. Too few solids means coarse, watery crystals.

How many degrees below 0 °C the mix starts to freeze. We read it from the Leighton table (1927), normalized to the water phase.

Sugar content as percent of mass — 30 Brix = 30 g sugar per 100 g. Sorbet targets 27–32 Brix.

Guar or xanthan gum (0.15–0.35%): binds water and slows crystal growth in storage. Mandatory in vegan bases, which lack milk protein.

Resting fruit with ⅓ of its weight in sugar: osmosis pulls sugar into the fruit and lowers its freezing point — otherwise pieces turn rock hard.

A second pass in the Ninja Creami, usually with 1 tbsp of liquid: turns a crumbly first spin into creamy ice cream. Not a mistake — physics.

Whipped-in air as percent of volume. Soft serve ~50%, premium ice cream 20–30%, Creami pints barely any — which is why they are so dense.