Granita Brix

[Faustina Bartsch]

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Ron, in the future I would pay more attention to percentages of sugar than degrees of baume or brix. I don't even have a refractometer or densometer, but all my frozen products and syrups seem to be right on every time because I pay attention constantly to my percentages.

I'm not an expert on all things syrup but, at least for the purposes of sorbets, granitas and things of that nature, the degrees and percentages work out just fine when converting a formula or recipe. If a recipe calls for a syrup at 30 and you plug in a syrup at 30% there will be no problems.

It's not a big issue when you're making a lemon sorbet but part of the reason to use baume/brix rather than just by weight is because fruit naturally has sugar and that needs to be taken into account when making sorbets/granites.

3 cups juice (your choice, just make it a thin one), chilled (if you are using lemon or lime juice, it is too intense all on its own and you should start by diluting it with some water. I usually go with 2 parts juice, 1 part water).

This time when you put the egg in it should be suspended in the liquid, maybe not to the surface yet, but hovering just below. Can you see the egg in mine, I am pointing at the faint white spot under the surface. Remove the egg.

Hi! Wonderful post! I already bought my refractometer.

Just one thing, here in Europe, and at least in Spain eggs are just cleaned with sand (high pressure) so the outer egg is kind of not safe to put in anyliquid for human consumption, they are pretty clean and is quite remote to get any nasty thing but I would not risk.

They clean them this way due the porous nature of the egg shell to avoid the germs permeating to the inside and due to this action the egg has an extended life, so in supermarkets are stored outside fridges and cold enviromenys

Hi Zoe, thanks so much for the amazing tips! Do you think this would work if I had to do it in a soft serve machine? I would like to make a healthy vegan soft serve but at a bit of a loss at getting the consistancy right without all the added sugar or alcohol. Any advice would be appreciated ?

These are great tips, thank you. I will be making my first ever sorbet tonight. It is going to be a Pomegranate, Raspberry, nectarine sorbet. I am very excited I hope it turns out as beautiful and delicious looking as yours. Quick Question, what liquor would you recommend? Children and a pregnant woman will be eating it, so I am a little nervous. Any advice would be great.

Amazing that your cuisinart food processor has lasted you that long. Does it produce smooth pesto? I will have to make a decision soon on which food processor to get. Before we know it, it will be time to process veggies and herbs from the garden!

Thanks for the terrific tips Zoe. Looking forward to trying your method. Recently at a culinary conference I discussed another chefs usage of pectin in sorbet to make it smoother. Any thoughts? We were talking about a blackberry-plum sorbet. She cooked the plums skin and all with the blackberries and said it made a smoother sorbet.

Your biggest challenge will be to get a sorbet that is the right texture. You will want to make the mixture and just add splenda until it tastes good to you, remember that sweet is slightly diminished by freezing. You can either make it into granita, which is very tasty, but not smooth: -champagne-mint-cocktails-turned-into-granita/

Hi Zoe, I too got to your site through Fine Cooking on line newsletter. What a great help this info will be, what with two tween age grandchildren coming for a month during the hottest part of the summer here. Thanks. The Travel Cook (Sharon)

Your sorbet sounds out-of-this-world! Please let me know how it comes out. One thing to keep in mind is that your sorbet base is going to be very thick and an egg will probably sink in it, no matter how little sugar. I think because of the texture of the avocado you will have a lovely sorbet and should just do it by taste. The trick will be to eat it before it has a chance to get too hard. So I would plan to serve it within a couple of hours of making it, just to be on the safe side.

Does the freshness of the egg matter? After all, the test for age in an egg is that, in a bowl of water, fresh eggs lie on the bottom, not-so-fresh but still usable eggs stand on their point on the bottom, and stale eggs float off the bottom.

Yes, you are probably right on about that, but I have never found it to make a profound difference. In order for the solution to have enough mass to suspend the egg, the difference between fresh and not-as-fresh is then negligible. If you are interested in getting very precise measurements, then I recommend a refractometer, which is also fun to use!

Yes, I was just having this conversation on Twitter with a pastry chef and you do need to understand the fruit and its starch content and other factors, but for most juices you can get away with a straight number. Now, what that number is varies from pastry chef to pastry chef. My instructor at the CIA, who I bought the refractometer from had us using 24 to 26 as the target. I have heard others using an even higher number, up to 30. At that point it is really up to your taste, as long as it is in the range.

Okay, now the fun part. Take the pipette that came with your refractometer and grab a few drops of that cocktail of yours. Put it on the glass and close the slide cover.Hold the refractometer under a light and look through the lens. Read the total brix.

Jeffrey, your post saved my party and my mental health. I was going nuts trying to figure out what I was doing wrong with my brand new slush machine. It comes from China so the only customer support is by email. The owners manual was totally useless. My concoctions ended up being a frozen mess (lots of wasted alcohol) I bought the refractometer on Amazon and got it the next day. Presto!!! A perfect frozen cocktail. Thank you so much

Slushie machines have two main parts: the tank and the core. The tank is where the liquid is stored, and the core is where the liquid is frozen. It is important to make sure the liquid is at the right temperature before you put it into the tank, because if it is too cold, it will not freeze. After you have put the liquid into the tank, the core needs to be frozen.

I do small batch scaling on the right and the whole scaling on the bottom because I might make 20 gallons at a time and have to break it down into several buckets. The bottom part is mostly for purposes of my shopping list.

Matthew! This is incredible information. I just stumbled upon this as I am researching into doing frozen cocktails for my bar program. I downloaded your spreadsheet and have some questions in regards to the breakdown. Would there be a way to connect with you and pick your brain on the subject?

This is wrong because both alcohol and sugar refract light. It works only by coincidence, because it just so happens that a palatable drink is right around the slush range. I would say that if you got better at making them, it was more from experience than use of a refractometer because you are using the refractometer in a way that can not produce reliable results.

Refractometers work the same. There are refractometers for other things, that are the exact same device but with different markings to show you different things for different refractive indexes. An alcohol refractometer might be the exact same as that sugar one, but have markings for ABV instead.

I will agree that circuit load (how many things are using power)but will add that it is not the amp draw that causes the inductive compressor efficiency degradation. The culprit is the reduction in voltage (line pressure. Think of it as a the flow of water coming out of a hose. if a Y splitter is attached and another hose is opened, you get a reduction in pressure and subsequently flow. The compressor need this pressure to operate efficiently and come up to its happy speed. The size of your wiring, and the length from the main box all go in to calculating the allowable voltage drop for a given amp draw. The industry standard is no more than 3% drop.

I just wanted to chime in on this as I used to run a business which rented these out to people. First thing I wanted to yell and holler at you over and over is that the number one thing you need to do to get these machines to work right has nothing to do with what goes into them, it concerns the power.

I had a hundred and fifty of these things of various makes and models and the power issue is always, ALWAYS the problem. Well, 99% of the time. What that means is, in your breaker box, you have all the switches. Each switch controls certain receptacles, and on the switch with this machine, you need to make sure its the only thing plugged in. The compressor needs something like 12.9 amps to fully activate, so if you have a music system running with a few lights on the same circuit, the compressor will not be able to fully activate. Now, once it does kick on, (you can hear it like you can on any fridge, its louder when its on) it reduces the power draw a few amps. This can lead to inconsistent performance. Its why your home fridge has its own switch on the breaker board.

As far as buying one, they are quite pricy from the factory, but regional sellers carry brands from Taylor or Bunn or Ugolini (Italian and often rebranded in the states) and consistently try and sell people a mini-margarita machine franchise and they constantly go out of business. They are like carpet cleaning businesses. So often you can find them used. We would routinely buy out these guys as they started up, underpriced, then went out of business, and they usually bought brand new machines, so we got a good price. But be warned, new these things are well over a grand for a single tank machine.

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