Krups 358-70 La Glaciere Ice Cream Maker
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Kitchen and Housewares Reviews of Krups 358-70 La Glaciere Ice Cream Maker
Customer Review: A great maker for the money
Summary: 4 Stars
After reading a review in Cook's Illustrated, I ordered the La Glaciere (I would have ordered the Musso, but my husband balked at the $500+ price tag). After anxiously awaiting delivery (I bugged the UPS driver daily), it arrived and I began my ice cream adventure. I was surprised that you put the whole container - minus the lid, dasher and motor- in the freezer. I had assumed that you just put an inner bowl in to chill. After reading a few reviews about the trickiness of assembling the machine, I practiced a few times just to get it down. True, it's not super simple, but it's not as difficult as I had anticipated. I began preparing for vanilla ice cream a day in advance-- chilling the unit and cooking the custard base and then chilling it overnight. When it was go time, I assembled the machine and turned it on so the dasher wouldn't freeze to the canister. The hole in the lid is great and allowed me to pour the custard in while the machine was in motion. I set the timer and stood watching, fascinated. Within 25 minutes I had fresh vanilla bean ice cream! It was more soft serve consistency, but it firmed up after a few hours in the freezer.
My second batch, strawberry, didn't work as well because I hadn't frozen the cannister for 24 hours. It never firmed up and got really icy in the freezer. I told everyone it was sorbet which helped to cover the faux pas.
My 3rd batch, peach, was the most amazing. I had chilled the cannister for 3 days (due to the bad strawberry experience) and also chilled the custard mixture to 35 degrees. Both of these factors resulted in fabulous ice cream after only 18 minutes of churning! The dasher reverses direction when the mixture gets too firm, and the poor thing was doing that for about a minute before I noticed it. I tested it later and it ran just fine.
The pros of this machine are: Great ice cream at a great price.
The cons are: Delayed gratification, as the bowl must be thorougly frozen to get the best results. Also, there is a layer of ice cream that is missed by the dasher on the bottom of the cannister. At the end of churning, it's frozen so hard that you can't really mix it in with the rest. But it's only about two spoonfuls worth.
Other than that, this machine is a real hit with my family! For the price, I highly recommend it.
End note: To the reviewer who said their cannister warped: you have to make sure the cannister has completely thawed and is bone dry before you put it back in the freezer. Any bit of water may cause warping.
Customer Review: SOLVED: Problem with gel leaking from seal!!
Summary: 4 Stars
I've seen many on here with the leaky bowls. I actually got a replacement from Krups...WITH THE SAME LEAK! Disappointing, but this machine makes amazing ice cream and sorbet. Love it!
Here's how to fix the bowl. I found that by taking hold of the top collar of the bowl, holding the bottom part stable under my arm, and twisting CLOCKWISE, I was able to get the collar free and off. This revealed the gasket which lays on the collar of the inner bowl (about 3/4" wide). The inner metal bowl sets into the outer plastic bowl which has this freezing gel stuff in it. Anyhow, once I had it apart, I set the bowl on the counter so as not to spill anything (it's not really exposed, but the metal bowl could come out at this point if you tipped it hard). You can see that the bowl and collar are "threaded" sort of...they have 6 sections that are ridged..sort of like the inside of a 2 litre soda cap..not continuous threads. There are lots of narrow gaps on the inside of both the collar and large outer plastic bowl. I noticed that this gel had gotten into them, so I ran the collar under hot water and used a chopstick to get any remaining gel stuff out of the slots (freezing will expand this stuff and likely causes the gasket to unseat in the first place). I wiped everything clean, relaid the gasket over the top of the metal bowl, lined up the spaces and thread sections so I could reassemble them, and pushed it down onto the outer plastic bowl, turning COUNTER CLOCKWISE as it all seated together. Voila! The "threads" caught. I now gripped the bowl under my arm again, and twisted the collar COUNTER CLOCKWISE until it would twist no more. It was tight. I checked the seal, looked good. I froze for 24 hours (rock solid), removed it, and just ran about a quart of water into the bowl and let it sit there. Upon fully thawing, I dumped the water, wiped it completely dry, and shook it around, upside down, etc, for a few minutes. I let it sit again for 24 hours, checked it, and there is ZERO GEL LEAKING!! That is how you fix the bowl. I bet even those with the warped bowls can do this, removing all the leaked gel from the spaces inside, and get it working fine again.
Anyhow, hope this helps!!
Kevin
Customer Review: Excellent product for the price
Summary: 4 Stars
I've had the La Glaciere Ice Cream Maker for a couple of years now. It produces a consistently excellent quality ice cream. I'd recommend reading the product manual before purchasing so that you understand how the machine works. Amazon.com has a convenient link to the online manual.The bowl needs to be frozen about a day before you use it. I keep the bowls (I got a second bowl free as part of a promotion) in the freezer all the time. Remember that a properly regulated freezer should be zero degrees F or colder. If your freezer is warmer, the ice cream will take longer or may just not get very firm. Most of the time I get a good, stiff soft-serve ice cream in about 30 minutes. I pack the ice cream in containers and freeze it for another couple of hours to completely firm up.
Overall, I'm very happy with this ice cream maker. I don't find it unduly noisy, less so than my mixer or food processor. The recipes that come with are adequate to get you started and instruct you in the machine's use. Otherwise there are plenty of good recipes on the Web or in books from Amazon.com.
There are a couple of reasons I only give it four stars instead of five. First, as others have noted, the lid is a little tricky to attach. Not a big problem if you practice with it a couple of times to get the technique down. I also wish that the dasher fit a tiny bit more snugly in the bowl. It leaves a very slight layer of unstirred ice cream frozen to the wall of the bowl. The dasher could also be redesigned to avoid the ring of ice cream that forms at the top of the bowl, though this makes it easy to get at a sample!
Customer Review: Krups ice cream maker
Summary: 5 Stars
I've owned this ice cream maker for over 10 years and it's worked great the whole time, except for user errors. I broke the paddle once by trying to sick in a spoon to snatch some ice cream with out turning the machine off first. I ordered a replacement paddle and have not had any problems since. I notice that some reviewers complained that even though the unit is 1.5 quarts instructions only tell you to put in 1 quart of ingredients, that is to allow for the expansion caused the freezing and aeration that result in 1.5 quarts of product. I have never had gel leaking problems, however I always keep the bowl frozen, never use metal utensils and never leave the bowl sit out dirty. After using, I rinse the bowl well with hot tap water, quickly dry it and put it back in the chest freezer and it is ready to use again the next day. I have found that it is important to have the ingredient the right temperature, neither to warm or too cold, right out of the fridge works well. My kids have had some trouble correctly assembling the unit, but careful attention has resolved this problem. It is important to attach the paddle and turn on the unit immediatly after removing it from the freezer or else frost will start to build up and inhibit paddle movement. When I want stiffer ice cream, I leave the stuff sit in the bowl for an extra 15 minutes after turning off the motor and removing the paddle, and hand stir every 5 minutes with a plastic spatula. This unit has made at least 50 excellent batches of ice cream.Customer Review: Great Little Ice Cream Maker
Summary: 5 Stars
I have had this machine for over a year now and it works Great! It's too bad several people have had issues with using the device. Important information is spelled out clearly in our Instruction Book on page 9 and 10 under the heading MAKING ICE CREAM. The proper way to assemble the lid is to (a)Insert the tabs on the lid into the slots of the freezing cylindar, then (b)lock the rear of the lid onto the container. (press the release button if you can't press hard enough). Using those steps, there really is not an issue of the paddle bing out of place either. If you try to position the rear first you may break the lid. Issues with your ice cream not freezing is directly related to following freezing instructions on page 9 under FREEZING THE CYLINDER BOWL. Check your freezer settings and adjust accordingly. For those who have had leakage issue or have broken pieces, I wouldn't give up on their customer service. Most companies stand by their products and often times we just give up to easily. Ask for help!! Just in case you lost your Instruction Book....their 24/7 Toll Free number is (800) 526-5377. Your product Type is #358. You will need that information when you call. If you want to write to them: Krups North America, Inc. P.O. Box 3900, Peoria, IL 61612. This is a great little device, makes delicious ice cream in a very short period of time. Get Creative....Use it...Krups would want you to be satisfied with their product.