How to Calculate the Density of Ice Cream Mix

When making and selling ice cream at a commercial or industrial scale, it's important to work out the density of the ice cream mix in order to work out how much is required in order to produce a given volume of ice cream. Failure to do this correctly can result in wasted time, ingredients and money. Fortunately, the procedures and calculations which you need to do to work out the density of the mixture are not complicated.

Measure 1 qt. of mix if you have the mix in front of you. Weigh 1 qt. on the scale and multiply it by four. This gives you the density per gallon.

Calculate the volume mathematically if, as is most common, you have the ingredients of the mix in by per cent and want to calculate the density from these figures.

Use the following equation: Density of water (1kg per litre) / (per cent fat/100 x 1.07527) + ((per cent total solids/100 - per cent fat/100) x 0.6329) + (per cent water/100) = weight per litre of ice cream mix.

Follow this example to see how this works. You have a mix with the following constituents: 12 per cent fat, 10 per cent serum solids, 10 per cent sugar, 6 per cent corn syrup solids and 0.30 per cent stabiliser. First add up all the constituents to get the percentage of total solids, in this case 38.3 per cent, the remaining 61.7 per cent is water.

Put the values into the equation. The calculation goes as follows:

Density of mix = 1/(12/100 x 1.07527) + ((38.3/100-12/100)x .6329) + (61.7/100)

Worked through to the next step the calculations runs as follows:

1/(.12 x 1.07527) + ((.383 -.12)x .6329) + .617

Worked through further this is:

1/(.12 x 1.07527) + (.383 -.12)x .6329) + .617

Which is:

1/(.1290+.263x .6329) + .617

Which is finally

1/.9124527= 1.096

This is the density in kilograms per litre of the ice cream mix.