As you can imagine in the ice cream plants our equipment is a far cry from the ice cream maker you used on your Grandmother's front porch, but the basic concept is not much different.

The picture you see is of a state-of-the-art ice cream freezer. This particular model has the capability of making 800 gallons of ice cream per hour and is in line with two other freezers of the same capacity which gives us 2,400 gallons per hour capability. Of course we do not need such a high volume piece of equipment for our smaller items such as novelties. We use freezers that have capacity of 250 to 300 gallons for smaller products.

As I mentioned earlier the concept from "front porch" to "plant floor" is not much different. As you did at your Granny's house (Granny was the term for my Grandmother Betty Conway. Making ice cream on her porch is one of many fond memories.) you put together the ingredients; milk or condensed milk, cream, sugar, secret recipe stuff, etc, then you put it in a metal cylinder, inserted the paddle in the metal cylinder, then set the metal cylinder in the bucket and applied the ice and rock salt to the outside. We were a little on the poor side so the first one I remember had a crank which we got to turn by hand. The ice and rock salt took the heat away from the mixture and the paddle ever so slowly pulled "ice cream" from the side of the cylinder until it was at the perfect texture for your family's taste.

In the "plant floor" version we begin with our ingredients but they are brought together in a mix using very sophisticated equipment to insure that the mixes are always consistent with the formulas. Our "secret recipe" stuff may include flavors, colors, even stabilization systems to help protect our products during distribution, which included the trip from the grocery to your freezer at home. Once our mix is perfect we introduce it into the barrel (cylinder) of our "mechanical freezer", no hand cranking here, and instead of ice and rock salt, liquid ammonia removes the heat from the mix and out comes ice cream. Now there are some differences. We inject what we refer to as overrun, industry lingo for air, into the mixture that will help us create the texture that we want for our ice cream. The mechanical freezers have the capability of storing individual recipes for our products so we know that these textures will be the same for our products every time. Remember, to Mayfield consistency is Elvis (The King). To have great ice cream you have to begin with a great mix and then you have to use a great freezer. They are the heart of our operations. Our mechanical freezers measure the smallest of details about what is going on inside the barrels (cylinders) and how the dashers (paddles) are working the mix to insure we have the smallest ice crystals possible when ice cream is discharged, most of the time at 21 degrees Fahrenheit. The smaller the crystals the more "Ice Creamier" the product.

How does the good stuff such as pecans, tracks from moose and turtles, delicious ribbons, etc. get into the ice cream you ask. That will be for our next installment.

Please ask us any questions that you have.

Thanks.

Eddie