A novel technique to control ice cream freezing by electrical characteristics analysis

The freezing process is very important in ice cream production affecting quality, taste and yield of the finished product. Batch freezer machines use different control techniques to tightly control the freezing process, based on monitoring of the temperature and/or the viscosity (i.e. consistency) of the product. Temperature control, however, features low sensitivity and need calibration for different product compositions, while product viscosity is essentially inferred from dasher motor load, sensitive to power line fluctuations, volume of product and dasher motor characteristics. In this context, this paper presents a novel technique based on measurements of the product electrical characteristics, tightly linked to temperature and viscosity. The experimental results presented in this work clearly indicate that the proposed technique provides a suitable, nondestructive tool to monitor ice cream quality product that overcomes the drawbacks of the standard methods, thus representing an advance in the state of the art for freezing control.