Performance Improvements
Our Arctic Griddle rolled ice cream machines include numerous performance improvements to help increase your revenue and reduce your operating costs.
Portability
An Arctic Griddle is 1/2 the weight and 1/3rd the height of most other single pan units on the market. This makes the Arctic Griddle the perfect solution for one of the most profitable aspects of an ice cream roll business, event catering. The reduced size allows you to transport multiple units in the back of most vehicles, unlike other units which require trailers for hauling around.
The reduced height also allows placement of the unit in locations that other units simply could not fit. For example, the Arctic Griddle is small enough to fit on many existing counter tops, perfect for bringing out in a bar when needed. For owners of mobile rolled ice cream businesses which are operated out of trailers and are often cramped, our units can free up significant valuable space for storage.
Smoothest Rolling
Any experienced roller will tell you how important the quality of the pan surface is for smooth and efficient rolling. Hot spots and coil cold lines, both the norm in the cheap Chinese units, make rolling more difficult and can affect the quality of your rolls. We've spent a significant amount of R&D time to developing the most uniform temperature pan possible. This produces highly consistent rolls while saving time and the operators hands.
The first thermal image below shows the high quality nature of the Arctic Griddle cold plate. You can see that there are low thermal gradients across the pan, there aren't any hot spots, and the coil lines are not visible. Any one of these issues can make rolling more difficult or even impossible.
The second thermal image shows the pan top of one of the cheap Chinese made units. It suffers from all three problems. It has a nearly 40 deg C thermal gradient, there is a hot spot on the entire right side of the unit, and the coils are clearly visible with 5-6 deg C temperature variation between the coils. Because of this it takes longer for the product to freeze and can make the rolls stick in the areas that are colder.
Real-Time Temperature Control
Being able to control your pan's temperature is vital for maximizing your business's profit. Why? A fixed temperature doesn't work well for all ice cream types and all situations. For example, if you want to do liquor infused ice cream rolls you'll want to turn down the temperature to compensate for the different freezing point. Likewise, if you want to operate your unit outdoors in a climate warmer than room temperature, again you'll want to turn down the temperature. But, keeping the set point low in your air conditioned shop can make the rolling unnecessarily hard. You can even set the temperature low to begin the process and freeze the mix rapidly but quickly change to a warmer set point to improve the rolling, all in real-time.
Most of the cheap machines on the market have no temperature control at all. The more advanced machines that do have temperature control often take multiple button presses to enter a new setpoint, which is not practical to enter while operating. The Arctic Griddle is the only unit with on the fly temperature control. To change the temperature simply press the up or down button and you're done.
Fast Operation Time
It's important that when you want your machine ready to roll that it be at the desired temperature quickly. One way to get the temperature down quickly is to use a large compressor for the refrigeration system. This has one significant problem. If the compressor is oversized, once the pan gets to temp all of the excess liquid refrigerant will flood back to the compressor, washing out the oil and leading to early failure. For the Arctic Griddle, we took a different approach. We reduced the size of the compressor but made up for the loss of capacity with improvements in efficiency. Some of our efforts include improved coil coupling and line insulation. Other improvements we are keeping as proprietary secrets.
Energy Efficiency
The energy consumption of most rolled ice cream machines is between 800 and 1500 Watts. An Arctic Griddle consumes as little as 750 Watts when running at the desired temperature. Not only do our machines use less energy but you will save additional money in reduced air conditioning costs to keep your store cool. If you're running a mobile business out of a trailer you'll also appreciate the reduced heat output as we've had many customers tell us how hot their trailers can get.