In order to be turned into ice cream, our mix has to be whipped and frozen simultaneously. If you've ever left a quart of milk in the freezer, you'll know why ice cream isn't just frozen milk product. Big ice chunks are no fun to bite into. Luckily the fat in cream and the turning of the dashers in ice cream machines both keep ice crystals very small. Other ingredients affecting ice cream's freezing temperature are sugar, corn syrup, lactose and milk salts. Good ice cream manufacturers have perfected their recipes to keep ice crystals in their product very small. You shouldn't crunch into vanilla ice cream. But there are pitfalls in the manufacturing and storing processes which can lead to ice crystal formation .

• Temperature fluctuation - if ice cream is stored in a freezer that's too warm it will begin to melt. When the freezer cools down, the melted ice cream will turn into ice. Beware of storing ice cream in your freezer door where it can be exposed to too much heat.

• Freezer burn - if air touches the surface of ice cream, ice crystals will form. That's why most ice cream manufacturers solidify their product upside down. Some producers cover their product with a paper or plastic film also. At Dandy Don's we cover our ice cream with waxed paper, then apply the lid, then freeze upside down.

• Ice Crystal Growth - once ice crystals begin to form in ice cream, they grow. They're like an insidious virus. That's why the best way to fight them is to stop them from growing in the first place. If you have ice cream in your freezer that has become overly crunchy, use it for milkshakes. The extra milk and the blender should take care of your problem.

All ice cream is made by pouring mix into a cold cylinder and scraping the the sides of the cylinder continuously. The scraping blades are called dashers. You can see this at work in your home ice cream machines. In ice cream manufacturing plants, ice cream mix is placed into a batch freezer or a continuous freezer. At Dandy Don's we use an Emery Thompson 10-gallon batch freezer to make small amounts of ice cream at a time. It mixes air in naturally tasting closest to homemade. Batch freezers take between 5 and 15 minutes to turn mix into ice cream. Continuous freezers have mix and air pumped into large cylinders in closely controlled quantities. The mix freezes in as little as one minute and comes out of the machine in a continuous stream, allowing producers to fill packages directly from the machine. They can produce up to 150 gallons of ice cream per hour.

After the ice cream comes out of the machine, it has to undergo a final hardening process. At home, your family may eat it straight out of the machine before it has a chance to hit your freezer. At the plant, the workers aren't so lucky. They have to transfer the tubs of ice cream to a hardening room where the product can be kept at between -10 and -20 degrees F. It takes up to 8 hours to harden a 3-gallon tub.

So now you know how the big boys make ice cream.

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