Episode 24
Frozen Treats
On a sweltering summer day, a frozen treat sure hits the spot. Eating a fruit bar, fudge bar, or ice cream bar, though, requires a certain strategy. You have to hold the treat by the stick, lean slightly forward to dodge the drips, then lick like crazy before it melts and lands at your feet.
The outer shell of these cream pops starts with a transparent base made of water, liquid sugar, corn syrup, citric acid, and a stabilizer. It travels to three separate compartment vats, each of which mixes in a different coloring and flavoring. This company produces three flavors of cream pops: strawberry, orange, and blue raspberry. Each compartment vat pumps its flavor to a machine called the filling hopper. The hopper injects the liquid into row upon row of half-ounce pop-shaped molds. This production line has 340 molds in continuous motion. The molds descend into a tank of brine, water chilled to negative 30 degrees Fahrenheit mixed with calcium. Calcium works like anti-freeze, keeping the water liquid despite the below-freezing temperature. As the molds travel through the ice-cold brine, the liquid freezes from the outside inward, creating a shell that will encase the pops' ice cream filling. Once the shell is 1/10 of an inch thick, a machine called a suction evacuator removes the unfrozen liquid and feeds it back to the filling hopper to be re-injected at the start of the line. The shells are empty now and ready for filling.
The ice cream filling is made of various milk products blended with liquid cane sugar, corn syrup, stabilizers, and emulsifiers to puff up the consistency. The factory pasteurizes the mixture, heating it for 35 seconds at 180 degrees Fahrenheit, then freezing it. It homogenizes the filling, skimming off the milk fat that rises to the surface. The shells are still floating in brine as they reach the filling station. The machine shoots in the ice cream, overfilling the shell a bit to create a cap 4/10 of an inch wide. The ice cream begins to harden in the cold brine. Once it reaches a semi-frozen state, a machine appropriately called the stick inserter pops a wooden stick in each mold.
Now the molds leave the brine and enter a tank of warm water: 75 degrees Fahrenheit, hot enough to detach the cream pops from the mold without melting them in the process. From initial injection to final extraction, it's been seven minutes. The machine dips the cream pops in cold water to produce a protective coating of ice. This will keep the surface from sticking to the wrapper. It will also lengthen the product's shelf life. The machine deposits the cream pops into a continuous stream of paper wrapping. Heating elements seal the wrapper on top and between pops, then a slicer cuts them apart. The empty molds go through an automatic wash-and-rinse cycle on their way back to the start of the line.
These molds are for making chocolate fudge bars. The production process is the same, except that the shell is fudge-flavored, made from milk solids and chocolate powder. And instead of ice cream in the center, there's chewy chocolate syrup.
The factory stamps the packaging for all its frozen treats with the production date and other information.
These frozen treats have a one-year shelf life in the freezer, provided you maintain the temperature at an ideal negative 13 degrees Fahrenheit.
