Picking the commercial batch freezer that fits best your needs is an important step to set up your brand new gelato shop properly.
Equipment is indeed the very driving engine of your business. Once you have established your goals, decided which kind of product you will serve and set a precise plan, tools are what makes you accomplish all the previous steps.
Picking the right equipment for any scenario is always a hard nut to crack. Often, harder than you might have ever imagined.
Each piece of the production process requires in fact specific tools according to the type of products and customers involved. Moreover, for any of these pieces there are hundreds of options available on the market. Each of them has its own ins and outs that may be compatible or not with your own situation.
Here at MODALiTA, a considerable part of our job relies on analyzing, validating and selecting the very best tools among all the available ones. We always update our catalog with new entries capable of raising the standards. And on top of that, we help businesses pick the best fitting ones.
A correct choice makes your shop able to meet your customers’ preferences, indeed. But it also allows you to save money by cutting off useless costs and it makes your job easier and faster.
That is particularly relevant with commercial batch freezers.
Pick the wrong one and your business will probably incur into costly mistakes that were easily avoidable.
That’s why in this blog post we want to shed light on the different kinds of commercial batch freezers you may decide to pick.
Vertical VS Horizontal Commercial Batch Freezers
A batch freezer is the most commonly used machine to make all kinds of frozen desserts. You can use it to prepare gelato, ice cream, sherbet, frozen custards and, depending on the machine, even granita and sorbet.
It works in a pretty simple way. You put the base (or the product mix) into the condensing unit, which compresses the eco-friendly Freon. Liquid freon gets pumped into the freezing cylinder surrounding the barrel where the mix is poured. This way, freon freezes the mix and the machine whips it until it reaches a smooth consistency.
The cylinder might be horizontal or vertical, which is a difference that changes how the machine spins to freeze the gelato base.
Then, which is the best? A vertical or an horizontal one?
Vertical Ones
The most traditional commercial batch freezer is the vertical one. It has a typical vintage look, with its iconic, long and narrow, typical shape.
The cylinder is located at the base of the machine, and it’s activated manually from the top by a big arm with a paddle.
Due to its arm, the gelato making process tends to be more manual with a vertical batch freezer. Being more manual means that the production process allows you to control and customize better the final outcome. When it reaches the texture you were looking for, you can stop the spinning.
On the other hand, being more manual means also higher risks of messing it up. That’s in fact one of the reasons why vertical batch freezers are not recommended for first timers or to those who don’t already have an excellent proficiency on the matter.
Also, a vertical batch freezer takes longer to complete a single batch of gelato, which makes it inconvenient for medium sized shops with a lot of traffic.
Moreover, they are harder to clean and sanitize, they are capable of incorporating less air and the pasteurizer is not included. Overall, vertical batch freezers are today considered very cool, but technologically obsolete.
Horizontal Ones
Horizontal batch freezers are usually the latest ones. Whether the machines with a vertical cylinder were much used in the past, today the very majority of businesses would rather go with horizontal ones.
That depends on several reasons. The first and most important one is that horizontal batch freezers are technologically way more advanced.
These machines in fact require much shorter working time and less manual control by the user. You don’t need to constantly keep an eye on it during the production process, because the machine itself warns you once gelato is ready.
Moreover, most models and brands today make it very easy to disassemble the machine, thus allowing the user to rinse and sanitize each part. Also, you can load it from the top as easily as it gets.
Despite the fact that you cannot add some toppings such as melted chocolate before the extraction, horizontal machines help you save quite a lot of time. As a consequence, you can focus on the other steps of the production and you are able to serve more customers in the same amount of time.
It’s not a mystery or a big surprise to realize how most manufacturers are focusing their investments and research upon horizontal batch freezers rather than their vintage cousins.
Most of the time, when you see a vertical batch freezer in a modern gelato shop, you can be 90% sure they are also using some horizontal ones backstage.
All-in-one batch freezer or not?
Another relevant distinction between batch freezers lies in which parts they include.
The traditional batch freezer such as the one with the vertical cylinder, required several add-ons to make gelato in the classical way. The most important add-on we are talking about is the pasteurizer.
Gelato can in fact be made using different techniques. You can choose for example the hot or cold process, and each of them can be made in different ways.
As Italians, we always highly recommend to opt for a hot process, which requires a pasteurization phase. Through pasteurization, the base gets rid of bacteria and leads to an overall superior quality result.
With a normal batch freezer and a separate pasteurizer you can surely have the opportunity to fully customize your process. By the way, you would need to cover a double investment to buy both, and your work will be slower whereas the risk of spoiling a product mix will be higher.
With an all-in-one batch freezer you would instead operate without the need to add a separate pasteurizer. You have it already included in your machine. And as a consequence, the user’s work is easier, faster, and leads to a more standardized final outcome.
Last but not least, a good all-in-one batch freezer usually guarantees a very high quality level gelato.
Which one should I pick then?
In conclusion, the choice for the most fitting kind of commercial batch freezers is as always up to you.
How do you want to standardize or control your gelato base mix? Would you rather go with a cold process gelato for a cheaper, mass market product, or are you into a more refined, quality and profitable one?
Also: how’s your expertise as a gelato maker? Are you planning on focusing upon showing off how vintage you are? Or do you prefer a more efficient, technologically advanced production process?
According to your answer, you will now also be able to make a well mulled over decision. Don’t make it superficially: a proper commercial batch freezer can boost your sales and cut your costs off.
In the next blog posts, we’ll dig once more into the matter and we’ll focus on the must-have features of a good batch freezer.
In the meantime, if you’re looking for a reliable business partner who will advise you about equipment and all the related best practices, you already know what to do.
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