Ice Cream Refrigeration a Sweet Topic at 2015 ASHRAE Winter Conference

From Cherry Garcia to Sea Salt Caramel, Americans love their ice cream. Nearly 9% of cow’s milk produced in the United States goes toward making ice cream, and America is the number one consumer worldwide. What better way to illustrate the importance of refrigeration technology, than to explore the process of making this country’s favorite frozen treat?

Doug Reindl and Dan Dettmers’ workshop, “I Scream, You Scream, We All Scream for Refrigeration Basics of Ice Cream,” is part of the Technical Program at ASHRAE’s 2015 Winter Conference. The Conference takes place Jan. 24-28, Palmer House Hilton, while the ASHRAE co-sponsored AHR Expo is held Jan. 26-28, McCormick Place. Complete Conference information and registration can be found at www.ashrae.org/chicago.

The session explores the process of making ice cream, leads attendees through the cooling load calculations and finishes up with a chance to participate in the ice cream making process.

One catch, however. Attendees have to correctly calculate the cooling load before they can taste the final product, which will be made cryogenically. The workshop starts at 8 a.m. Sunday, Jan. 25.

“We want to reach a younger audience to interest them in the ‘R’ in ASHRAE – refrigeration,” Reindl, a speaker at the session, said. “We thought this would be an out of the box way to show them about processes, the science, taste and texture of food, home refrigeration.”

His presentation will focus on the methods and cooling loads encountered in the ice cream industry.

Session chair Dan Dettmers notes that while ice cream is one of the simple pleasures of life, it also is one of the most complex frozen products available today.

“Unlike ice, which freezes in a crystalline structure, ice cream is an amorphous solid similar to glass,” he explained. “Its structure is primarily air held in a complex lattice of sugars and fats. Likewise, the process of producing ice cream is far more complex than most frozen foods with variations from traditional ice cream to frozen novelty bars and cakes.”

Other sessions related to refrigeration include:

• Energy Use Analysis in Retail and Small/Medium Office Applications, Sunday, Jan. 25
• Alternative Refrigerants for Residential Refrigerator-Freezers, Sunday, Jan. 25
• Walgreens Pursuit of a Net-Zero Store, Sunday, Jan. 25
• Refrigeration for Craft Brewing, Monday, Jan. 26
• Demand-Defrost Controller for Walk-in Boxes, Monday, Jan. 26
• Energy Efficiency of Novel and Conventional Compressors using Low-GWP Refrigerants, Tuesday, Jan. 27
• Environmentally Sound Refrigeration, Wednesday, Jan. 28
• Supermarket Hot Gas Defrost Piping Guidelines for Best Performance, Reliability and Leak Reduction, Wednesday, Jan. 28
• Energy Reducing Design Developments for Ice Arenas, Wednesday, Jan. 28