Soy Based Soft Serve

Noah_Kopito_1199469

Hello @Chris Young,

I recently read your answer to a post in which you detailed a sample mix for soft serve. I tried to adapt it to my soy milk based recipe, and the result - I believebased on the amount of emulsifier and stabilizer - was so thick that I didn't even try to put it in my machine. Our machine is gravity fed, and needs a fairly fluid mix to flow through the feed-hole.

I'm pretty new to using stabilizers and eggs in soft serve mixes, so I was wondering if you or anyone else on this forum could take a look at my method and materials and help me troubleshoot this. Thank you in advance!

The soy milk I'm using is from Hodo Soy in Oakland and it's fairly rich, and not like typical store bought soy milk. However, they refuse to publish any nutritional content info so I am unsure of what the fat and protein content are.

MATERIALS

Soy Milk (Hodo Soy) 3700g

Dehydrated Soy Milk Powder 150g

Sugar 582

Salt 18g

Water 400g

Kappa Carageenan 1g

Locust Bean Gum 4g

Xanthan Gum 4g

Egg Yolk 36g

For the egg yolk amount, I scaled up from the recipe that you posted, that hasthese amounts. For the LBG, XG and KC, I used .2% total stabilizer and divided it according to the ratio you provided. Measurements of stabilizers were done with a gram scale. Everything else was weighed on a common escali kitchen scale.

As I'm new to this, my method might be a bit wonky. Any advice is much appreciated.

METHOD

(1) Using a vitamin blender, disperse LBG and KC in the 400g of water.

(2) Combine dry ingredients (sugar, salt, milk powder). Add XG and disperse with a whisk.

(3) Add soy milk and dispersed LBG and KC.

(4) Add egg yolk.

(5) Use an immersion blender to blend until smooth.

(6) Place in a pot and heat while stirring to 170° F

At this point, it became clear that this mix would be unusable. In trying to guess what else I could do differently I thought of the following directions:

a. Use the same formula, but don't heat it so much. My choice of 170° was because that is the temperature that LBG is fully hydrated.

b. Reduce the amount of stabilizer. By the numbers, I'm not using too much stabilizer - however, in practice they are thickening the mixture far beyond reasonable amounts.

c. Maybe I'm making a mistake in how I am using the stabilizers?

Some background on my mix formulation - Using LBG, KC and egg yolks is new to me. Otherwise I have been making this mix for the last 6 months and the combination of the soy milk and soy milk powder produces an incredibly creamy, rich and smooth soft serve. However, the quality deteriorates very quickly. After an hour, it is noticeably less creamy, and ice crystals are starting to form. After a few hours, it's basically a slushee. XG helped a bit, but I am hoping to make this product more stable.

I haven't been able to find many resources that discuss soft serve formulations for commercial applications, so if anyone has any resources, I would love to hear.

Thank you for taking the time to read this, and please let me know if there are any confusing points that I could clear up.

Noah

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Comments

brian_martin2001

I may be wrong, but i believe i read somewhere that chef Young left ChefSteps. He may stop in from time to time, but as he isn't tagged, unless he comes in soon, he probably won't see this. Just an fyi

FrankM_3301

Yes, I believe Chris Young left ChefSteps after it was acquired by Breville.

Kyl_Haselbauer_worked_at_chefsteps_1040170

You are correct, Chris is no longer with us at Chefsteps.

nobody_1039822

Hello Noah, Soft serve machines that are gravity fed need a mix that is fluid enough to allow it to run down the gravity tubes. . Adding too much stabilizer will make mixture too viscous to flow down the tubes. Typically ice cream bases will have 1% ratio stabilizers. That is 1% to the total base. Xanthan gum is strong stuff and will work at low levels at .25%. Usually soft serve bases do not need any stabilizers because of the constant churning and machine temperature regulation, as well as not being churned and then frozen for storage.

Your above total base is 4850 grams. 1% stabilizers would be 4.8 grams. and that amount of xanthan is pretty heavy.

A good blend to use is egg yolks and .5% LBG. I have always heated my ice cream base and then sheered in the LBG while blending in a high speed blender. Just be careful blending hot liquids and mind how much you fill the pitcher. Then strain through fine mesh.

Hope this info helps. I have experimented with soft serve myself using coconut milk and creams. I found that too much stabilizer makes it too thick for the gravity feed. I did find that just a little sunflower lecithin binds enough to produce a super creamy, custard like soft serve, but use too much and the same problem arises. Too thick and it will not feed.

Happy churning.

whenric

have you tried making a gellan fluid gel out of the base first? Dave Arnold mentions it in a post here. But don't put in guar gum unless you want stretchy ice cream!