Ice cream machine including a secondary cooling loop
AssigneeHarold F. Ross
InventorsHarold F. Ross, Daniel L. Dorn
Life of this patent
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Abstract
An ice cream machine for cooling liquid ice cream into frozen ice cream includes an evaporator system with a secondary evaporator. The evaporator system can be a flooded evaporator or evaporator having an auxiliary tank or section of the evaporator that can ensure that a cooling chamber is surrounded by liquid refrigerant during normal operation. The secondary evaporator ensures consistent temperature within the evaporator during periods of low sales, hold modes, or non-production modes.
Claims20
An ice cream making system, comprising:
- an evaporator having a first refrigerant input, a second refrigerant input, and a first refrigerant output and a second refrigerant output, the evaporator having an exterior surface and an interior surface, the interior surface defining an interior cooling chamber, the interior cooling chamber having an ice cream input and an ice cream output;
- and
- a compressor system having a compressor input assembly and a compressor output assembly, the compressor input assembly being coupled to the first refrigerant output and the second refrigerant output, the compressor output assembly being coupled to the first refrigerant input and the second refrigerant input.
An evaporator for an ice cream making system, the evaporator comprising:
- an interior surface defining a cooling chamber for chilling a product;
- an evaporator chamber surrounding the cooling chamber;
- and
- a secondary evaporator surrounding the evaporator chamber.
A method of manufacturing ice cream, the method utilizing an ice cream machine having a cooling chamber, an evaporator chamber, and a secondary evaporator chamber, the method comprising:
- providing liquid ice cream contents into the cooling chamber;
- cooling the liquid ice cream contents via the evaporator chamber;
- removing frozen ice cream from the cooling chamber;
- and
- entering a non-production mode when the frozen ice cream is not being removed from the cooling chamber, wherein the secondary evaporator maintains a temperature within the cooling chamber when the ice cream machine is in a hold mode.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.