Purpose
The purpose of this experiment was to find out if there was any correlation between different types of salt and the final height of ice cream formations.
Background Information Milk is made up of triglycerides (mainly milkfat) dispersed throughout water as an oil-in-water emulsion, or dispersion of globules of one liquid into another. When agitated, the emulsion begins to break down, or coalesce, into fat and water. However, during this process, air is beaten into the emulsion, creating a foam (Rohrig, American Chemical Society).
While the ice cream emulsion is beat into a foam, it is also being frozen. It is more difficult for molecules of …show more content…
Support for this hypothesis was shown most clearly in the difference between average heights of the formations made using rock salt and those made using Himalayan pink salt. The Himalayan pink salt trials yielded an average of 6.7 cm, 2.2 cm shorter than the 10.9 cm average yielded by the rock salt trials. The differences in ice cream formation height are explained by how the various types of salt depress the freezing point of ice. Rock salt has the largest grain size and does not clump, therefore creating an even distribution of freezing point depression when combined in a bag with the ice. This consequently allows for more solidly frozen ice cream (Watson, LEAFtv). The control, table salt, contains anti-caking agent calcium silicate, therefore preventing clumping and allowing a mostly even dispersion of freezing point depression (Food Additive and Ingredient Association). Sea salt and Himalayan pink salt, however, were not coarse grained and were free of anti-caking additives, so the dispersion of their salt crystals were not uniform. The ice cream made using these salts would have taken longer to freeze, however the time each bag was shaken and each formation was created were constants, so the ice cream did not solidify completely, therefore creating shorter ice cream