Why does ice melt??


O

onthecoach

Senior Member
Hi All,

I don't understand? My freezer is EXCELLENT!! The meat is frozen, the ice is solid, but the ice cream will not stay frozen! What is the problem?? :disapprove:

Thanks,
 
Re: Why does ice melt??

hey Len are you going in and getting it out to eat more ofen :laugh: and it doesn't have time to freeze :bleh: :laugh: ALL I can say is that what my problem is it doesn't stay in to long before it's all gone :approve: :clown:
 
Re: Why does ice melt??

Lynn, you've run into the problem that all ice cream manufacturers worry about: mid-freeze melting point.

It seems that for them to make ice cream that will be both soft enough to dip and hard enough to freeze they have to add ingredients that cause the dreaded mid-freeze melting point problem.

You don't usually see this problem in your home freezer (unless you get in there and watch the stuff freezing.) Remember that your RV freezer is not a REAL freezer. It is only a pseudo-freezer. It is only there because in the process of making the bottom part cold for your deli meats, a lot of heat has to be generated. To keep the heat generator of your RV refrigerator from turning to plasma, like a welding arc, they have to dump the resulting excess cold into a freezer.

So, since it isn't a REAL freezer, it doesn't freeze ice cream quickly like your home freezer. The ice cream gets into the dreaded mid-freeze melting point area and your RV pseudo-freezer can't get it out of that region.
 
Re: Why does ice melt??

Agin, TC comes thru with knowledge nobody else has. Is it knowledge or experience? Like I said some time ago, Blue Belle Ice Cream is my favorite breakfast food. You folks passing thru Texas, make sure you try some, As their comerical says, "we eat all we can and sell the rest".
 
Re: Why does ice melt??

WOW TC

Unfortunatly ice creme does not last the long in our freezer 2-3 at most.

Moo tracks & triple choco..MMMMMMMMMMM

Darlin :cool:
 
RE: Why does ice melt??



onthecoach - 4/10/2008 5:38 AM Hi All, I don't understand? My freezer is EXCELLENT!! The meat is frozen, the ice is solid, but the ice cream will not stay frozen! What is the problem?? :disapprove: Thanks,
Click to expand...



Hope this helps to explain. I've always wondered this myself. LINK
grin-1.gif
 
RE: Why does ice melt??

wow ,, tex that was impressive ,, and to think this guy spends all his day in the oil fields ,, but he can tell us about ice cream ,, anyone think ,, he might have some ,, doing with Mayfield ,, u know he does live in Texas ,, and they got cows in Texas ,, HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM... better ck into Tex a little further ,,, he might be also linked with the Micorsoft company ,,, and i bet Bill Gates is his next door neighbor ,,, HMMMMMMMMMMMM ,, wait Bill i staying at Tex's Place ,, now that sounds better ,, and makes more sense :o :o :o :evil: :clown: :clown: :clown: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh:
 
Re: Why does ice melt??

Hey Clodhopper, is that mid freeze stuff for real? I can't quite buy the "dumping of excess cold" part since cold is a lack of heat, and not a product in it's self, but I sure do know that ice cream is difficult to keep frozen hard in an RV freezer. Even when the ice and the other frozen stuff are frozen solid, the ice cream frequently isn't at it takes a long time to correct that, if you can at all.
 
Re: Why does ice melt??

Good point ,, Kirk ,, Now Tex ,, U'r on ;) :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh:
 
Re: Why does ice melt??



I figured if Rod/730 can pull one off for a week about points, plugs, and wires on a diesel then I might be able to get by with a doozie.

I did get old Kirk to have just a little bit of doubt ... (well, at least publicly. He was probably calling me and my post some alien word in the background!) :laugh:


Ahh, come on, if I had posted that on April 1st, you would have caught on real quick! :clown:
 
Re: Why does ice melt??

u did good TC had me going, but like I said ICE CREAM doesn't last long in my house or on the road.
 
Re: Why does ice melt??

Well, there must be some reason that ice cream is more difficult to keep frozen? I thought that you might just know somthin fer a fact!

Whatever the deal is, soft ice cream is a very common issue in RV freezers and I have yet to hear a good explanation? There must be some reason that it takes a lower temperature to make it freeze, or to keep it that way. Salt water, like the ocean does not freeze at 32 but rather takes more like the low 20's depending upon the salinity. Why could that not be true of ice cream, although I don't think most of it has much salt?
 
Re: Why does ice melt??

So, the answer is: NO ONE KNOWS! Thanks! At least that tells me that I am not alone and not crazy! It didn't make sense to me that if the ICE was good and solid and DRY and you could play ice hockey with the meat that the ice cream wouldn't freeze. I understand Kirk's analogy....but, there is not THAT much salt in ice cream.

It is true, if I had it here, I would eat it......but, sometimes I just need a little something and it is frustrating that I can't keep ice cream in the freezer.

BTW TC---Your brain must have frozen if you think ANYONE was going to buy your 'pseudo-freezer' 'excess heat' stuff!!! PULEEZE!!!! But---It was an admirable effort!!!

Thanks all....I guess I will just always have to make sure I am parked close to DQ or Baskin Robbins!!! :)
 
Re: Why does ice melt??

Well, Lynn, that's easy to say now ... :laugh:

OK, I know my credibility has suffered a minor setback ... but, ice cream manufacturers go to great pains to make ice cream that stays "soft" even when frozen. I don't mean like DQ "soft", but not hard frozen like ice.

If you've ever made home-made ice cream, you know that you better eat it all up, because when you freeze it, it will become ice. That's the water in it freezing solid.

So, the ingredients in ice cream are what keeps it "soft" not the temperature. It just so happens that RV freezers (even the 'pseudo-freezer' that Lynn has ;) ), don't get as cold as your home freezer. That just exacerbates the problem with ice cream's soft/hard situation (the mid-freeze melting point ;) ).

See? I may have wound around the facts a little, but there still was some truth in my original post! :approve:
 
Re: Why does ice melt??

Tex...Im on my way to Rayford Crossing in Spring/woodlands and you're full of it. You wont me go dig uup a sassafras fer yeu?
 
Re: Why does ice melt??

name Emily E.
status educator
age 20s

Question - What keeps ice cream from freezing solid in sub
zero temperatures in the freezer... could not get a fix on that
one for students!
---------------------------------------------------------------
Thanks for your question Emily... The reason for this is known as the
"colligative effect," or what is sometimes referred to as "freezing
point depression." The colligative effect is a phenomenon by which
the freezing point of a solution is lowered when more solute (solid
substance) is dissolved in the solution. As an example, pure water at
a standard pressure of one atmosphere will freeze at 0 degrees
Celcius (32 degrees Fahrenheit). But, adding a solute, such as
salt, to the solution will depress the freezing point in proportion to
how much solute is added. The effect can be quite dramatic.
Incidentally, the freezing point depression induced by the colligative
effect is the reason why salt is added to icy roads in the winter.
The addition of the salt depresses the freezing point of the water/ice
that has accumulated on the road and forces it to revert to the liquid
state (which is typically far less slippery). Water that is heavily
saturated with salt can resist freezing at temperatures which are
several degrees below its normal freezing point.

As far as ice cream is concerned, it is, essentially, a solution of
milk (which contains water, lipids, proteins, and lactose) and refined
sugar. With so many solid substances dissolved in water, we would
expect the freezing point of ice cream to be below that of water.
But, it's slightly more complicated than that. Cow's milk naturally
freezes at a temperature of approximately -.5 degrees centigrade,
which is not much lower than the freezing point of water, so how is it
possible that ice cream can still feel "unfrozen" at temperatures far
below -.5 degrees? The reason is that as the water component of the
ice cream solution begins to freeze, it isolates itself from the rest
of the solution by forming pure ice crystals (which are readily
observable in ice cream). As a consequence, the relative
concentration of the solid substances dissolved in the remaining
liquid solution increases, simply because there is less liquid water
left available for the solutes to dissolve in. The left-over water
can then only freeze at a much lower temperature; when it does get
cold enough to do so, the concentration of the solutes goes up even
higher, again, because there is less liquid water left. You can
imagine that, as the ice cream gets colder and colder, the
concentration of the solutes continues to increase as water is
progressively removed from the liquid solution as it freezes, thereby
greatly depressing the freezing point of whatever amount of liquid is
left. The ice cream eventually becomes a mixture of frozen crystals
and a relatively smaller amount of unfrozen, liquid solution which
gives it a soft feel.

I hope this explanation helps...

Scott J. Badham
Department of Geology and Geophysics
University of Wyoming
 
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