Ice cream stays soft. Wonder why?

boston blacky wrote:
Our 5 yr. old Norcold works fine. Only issue is DW ice cream (sugar free) stays soft. All other items in the freezer compartment is frozen solid!!

What coldness number do you keep your Norcold set to? Ours has 5 settings and we use number 3. Is your ice cream still soft if you use a "more cold" setting of 4 or 5?

As far as we have been able to determine with our Norcold RV refrigerator, those number settings do indeed have an effect on temperatures inside the refrig. In extremely hot weather we usually bump up the setting to 4 from 3. We have little thermometers (that we bought at Camping World) hanging from the shelves inside both the refrigerator and freezer sections. We keep the refrigerator at about 38 degrees - and the freezer at 10 degrees or less - by adjusting the coldness number setting if required.

Back wall...top shelf is coldest for us. Last weekend was 94*, didn't run A/C and still had hard ice cream. Every refrig is different. Venting makes a hugh difference. Our last refrig couldn't keep ice cubes frozen.

We bought some ice cream and thought we could store it in with the ice in the ice machine -- wrong. The ice was frozen solid in the bags, the the ice cream was soft. It's actually a little harder in my freezer than it was in the ice machine. No good way to keep it frozen hard, so we buy the small little serving containers once in awhile and eat it all at once. Can't do this very often though or the hips would show it.

Bumpyroad wrote:
I bought a magic slushy mug and it said that sugarless colas wouldn't work in it.
bumpy

Bingo, the sugar free has a part in it not freezing hard. I suggest that you make sure the ice cream is hard frozen before you put it in. We take Dove bars and ice cream cones and as long as they were solid before they go in, they stay that way.

I discovered that our freezer has three temperature zones. It is a Dometic side by side model.

The top shelf will feeze items solid including ice cream.
Second shelf keeps frozen items frozen solid but will not freeze items solid. Bottom two shelves will keep items very cold but not frozen. Even frozen solid items will not stay frozen, they will stay colder than in the refrigerator section.

Most ice cream, especially sugar-free ice cream, is full of additives like CMC (carboxymethylcellulose) and even air bubbles to increase the volume and improve consistency. They also make freezing more difficult. Of course, 'real' ice cream is high in fat, which is also harder to freeze.

I find that if the freezer gets super cold I end up with freeze issues in the main compartment - put the ice cream near the back wall and think of all the people sleeping in tents who would love to have some of your soft ice cream.

Put a thermometer in the freezer just to make sure you dont have a problem..........

I bought a magic slushy mug and it said that sugarless colas wouldn't work in it.
bumpy

I'll trade ya,...I hate rock hard icecream !