Freezing point (Pac / FP)
Pac (Potere Anti Congelante) or FP (Freezing Point) depression are one of the most important elements in making a good ice cream recipe. In this article i’m going to explain why this is so important.
Sugars and sweeteners are an important group of ingredients in our ice cream recipes. Besides the fact that they contribute to the structure, they are mainly characterized by their ability to lower the freezing point and their sweetening power. In this article I will tell you more about the PAC or FP lowering effect.
As you might know, sugars, alcohol and salt lower the PAC or FP of the water in our recipe. Water is the only ingredient that freezes. The different sugars we use all have a different influence on the freezing point.
What Freezes?
Water starts to freeze from 0 degrees celsius and colder. Once it’s frozen it hardens. So hard that it is not tasty and easy to eat. That is why we add sugars and sweeteners. This allows us to influence the freezing point of water and thus lower the freezing point. This means that the water only hardens at a colder temperature.
Only water that is “saturated” with sugars, sweeteners, salt or alcohol freezes at a lower temperature. The water that is not saturated does not. To create a nice creamy ice cream recipe you have to find the right balance.
Influencing Freezing Point
This saturation is different for each ingredient. Each ingredient has a different influence on the freezing point depression. This all has to do with the molecular structure. The larger the molecules are, the smaller the effect on the freezing point depression.
Not only the sugars and sweeteners you add have a freezing point lowering effect. all ingredients contain sugars, alcohols or salts. And so everything you use in your ice cream recipe affects your ice cream. You have to take this into account when calculating your ice cream recipe.
Ice Cream Recipe
If you know this, you can start calculating yourself. This calculation and conversion is always a lot of work. And therefore my ice cream calculator. It calculates this for you. This way you don’t have to spend a lot of time and energy on the conversion yourself. The ice cream calculator only needs to know what you want and which sugars and sweeteners you want to use. It uses these ingredients to make the right ice cream recipe for you. For now, these are default values that cannot be adjusted. In the near future there will be an expert option in which you can play with many parameters according to your own preference.
Create your ice cream recipes now at our ice cream portal.
