20 Gallons of Flavor

Normally, no one would notice if the machine was cycling through the automatic defrosting process. On this particular day, though, Farm Program Director Richard Odman and his four work job students had finished filling the freezer with 13 gallons of soft maple, raspberry and vanilla ice cream.  The ice cream was supposed harden after it was made by chilling down to -35  Fahrenheit. Inside the freezer, though, the temperature was flying upward.

 

“Let’s look in the manual and see how to get it to stop defrosting,” said Odman, as he shucked the white lab coat he wore during the ice cream-making process. The freezer temperature had just hit 3 degrees above zero.

 

This is the first time the NMH farm has tackled ice cream production, from start to finish, on site so a few hiccups were inevitable. After months of planning, Odman had accepted delivery of a new Emery Thompson blast freezer and Master-Bilt blast chiller during the second week of July. Both machines were installed against a wall in the cider house.

 

“It’s all about the fact that now students can help,” said Odman, flipping through a freezer manual. “For students making maple syrup and picking raspberries to be able to see the product is great. They can come down, buy a pint, and eat it.”

 

The farm has long produced the major elements required for ice cream: maple syrup from local trees, milk and cream from the Jersey cows, and bushes of raspberries. (The farm also purchases outside powdered milk, egg yolks, sugar, and stabilizer for the mix.) 

 

Until a famous alumnus stepped in to help, though, the farm never had the means to produce creamy cool treats. Instead, all of the ingredients headed off to an ice cream-making facility in Greenfield, home to Snows/Bart's Ice Cream Inc. NMH was already purchasing Bart’s for Alumni Hall, so it was easy enough for the delivery truck to bring along the NMH farm ice cream too.

 

In January, NMH decided to stop purchasing ice cream from Bart’s. The farm continued to rent equipment in Greenfield, produce ice cream, and bring back the finished product.

 

Four months ago, Odman appealed to the NMH advancement office, who contacted S. Prestley Blake ’34. Blake co-founded what is now Friendly Ice Cream Corp with his brother Curtis in 1935. The brothers began their business with the purchase of a single ice cream freezer. In a nicely symmetrical move, Blake agreed to donate $25,000-worth of equipment – including a Master-Bilt, the same brand of machine that he had used to start his business 75 years ago.

 

By the time the equipment was delivered, Odman had already figured out the new recipes. Each 15 gallon, pasteurized mix has 93 pounds of milk, 2 gallons of cream, 16 pounds of sugar, 6.5 pounds of powdered milk, 3 pounds of egg yolks, and ½ a cup of stabilizer.

 

To make the flavors, Odman adds either 6 pounds of raspberries, 5 ounces of vanilla extract or a pint of maple syrup to a five gallon batch. Eventually, Odman plans to introduce seasonal flavors such as blueberry and black raspberry.

 

Since the farm produces milk for 10 months of the year (the cows get two months off to rest before calving), ice cream production will follow a similar schedule, said Odman. The ice cream can be purchased at the NMH farm for $5 per quart or $3 per pint.

 

On Friday, as on-site production ramped up for the first time, students Charlotte Gross ’12, Eliana Goldsher ’13, Emma Parro ’12, and Maya Sutton-Smith ’14, were packing quarts of ice cream – and taste-testing the flavors. Odman’s grandchildren, Sammy, 3, and Sarah, 9, were also scooping spoons of soft ice cream.

 

“It’s really interesting to see the whole process,” said Gross, who, like the other three girls, will enter NMH in the fall as a new day student.

 

“We watched the cows giving milk and now we watch how ice cream is being made,” said Sutton-Smith.

 

Odman, meanwhile, had discovered in the manual how to stop the automatic defrosting process. He pushed the a button with a snowflake emblem, held it, and pushed it again. The temperature in the machine began to fall. Odman and the students sighed in relief.

 

“This is all pretty experimental for us today,” said Odman. He paused while the machines buzzed in the 90-degree heat, then added, “I’m sure this is easier in winter.”