Musso Lello 4080 Musso Lussino Ice Cream Maker

This is the first ice cream maker I’ve owned (well actually I owned one probably 40 years ago). I was fed up with buying ice cream which gave me cold sores due to the high quantity of sugar in it. Finally my husband bit the bullet and bought this gorgeous piece of equipment for me. I felt a wee bit guilty because the price is rather (very) high. However once the machine arrived, I took it out of the box and placed it on our granite kitchen counter in a place of pride in the kitchen. I immediately got to work in making my first batch of ice cream. Oh my goodness, the sight of my own ice cream being churned was very exciting. Within 30 mins of it chilling and churning we had our first batch of delicious ice cream. The first 2 or 3 batches were not successful but only because I didn’t realize (until after I looked at videos on YouTube) that I needed to put the chill on for about 5 mins before starting the churning and then pouring in the ingredients. By chilling the bowl first it gives us very creamy, delicious ice cream every time now. So far I’ve made frozen custard, vanilla, Masala Chai, strawberry, lemon and best of all, rum and raisin. I like to make the custard base in the evening, put it into the fridge to chill over night and then in the morning I get the chill going on the machine for a few minutes before pouring the ingredients into the Lello bowl, and voila, we have ice cream within 30 mins. It does need to go into the freezer to set well for an hour or so. Oh and scraping out the bowl makes me feel like a kid licking the bowl after my mum has made a cake. I would recommend buying…………… Gig Collections Ice Cream Container – 1.5 Quart Insulated Homemade Gelato Tub with Stackable Non-Slip Silicone Base – Complete with Frozen Yogurt Sorbet Scoop (2 Containers and Free Scoop) ………for storing your ice cream in the freezer. We now have 6 containers (2 container come in one order). They are the perfect size for one bowl of ice cream. Extremely well made and then are a good shape for scooping your ice cream. The scoop which comes with the order is a good one too. Sorry, I’ve written a book but I am totally impressed with this machine. I’d give it 11 stars if I could. Oh yes, the clean up is a breeze. Oh gosh I forgot to say that the spoon which comes with the machine is not a good shape. I use a large plastic casserole spoon to scoop the ice cream out of the bowl and into the freezer container. Also the plexiglass lid of the Lello machine needs to be handled with care as the knob which you hold to lift the lid is a bit small. I’ve dropped the lid once but thank goodness it didn’t break. I’m very very careful now when I lift it off. If you are on the fence about buying this machine, take a leap and buy it. You will be a very happy ice cream chef.

Es una excelente procesadora de helados y postres fríos que no requiere largos períodos de enfriamiento, tienes helados en minutos y de muy buena calidad.

Did a lot of research and read a lot of product reviews in my quest for an authentic Italian Gelato machine. I’ve had the old Cuisinart home ice cream machine in the past, where you freeze the bowl first, and I didn’t want to deal with having to freeze the bowl again, I wanted a self-contained refrigerated unit, of which there are really only 3 of that I considered (this one, the Breville and the Cuisinart). There are cheap Chinese knock-offs that Amazon is pushing of course, just like every other product, and I refuse to buy any of that garbage. So despite the outrageous price I decided to give this one a shot primarily based upon the Italian manufacturing (not China) since I’ve had great luck with other Italian appliances. As noted in many other reviews, this unit is robust, heavy and powerful.

To clarify on a couple of the most common “complaints” from other reviews I read – here’s my perspective:

1) CLAIM: It’s heavy, so you need to find a place to park this an never move it. Hogwash! It weighs 38 lbs. not 138 lbs. I have it stored in my pantry and when I want to use it I grab it and set it on my kitchen counter right next to the sink, when I’m done I put it back in the pantry. Perhaps if you’re not capable of carrying 38 lbs. a few feet then it would be an issue (elderly, weak body type, etc.) but I’d say for most people it’s not going to be an issue. My wife can carry it no problem.

2) CLAIM: It doesn’t have a removable bowl so it’s hard to clean. Hogwash! This is probably the easiest to clean appliance I own. The entire thing is stainless steel and the bowl and top are highly polished stainless steel, it doesn’t get any easier to clean than that. Here’s what I do to clean it. Make gelato. Scoop gelato out with a silicone spatula, leaving very little in the bowl. Leave the unit turned off and just sit for 10 minutes to let the bowl unfreeze. Take a paper towel and wipe out what’s left. Wet another paper towel and wipe the bowl out. Take a dry paper towel and do a final wipe of the bowl. It literally takes 30 seconds to clean this and it looks brand new every time. Just don’t try to clean it immediately when the bowl is still frozen, let it melt and then it’s a piece of cake.

NOTE: You DO need to be careful when removing the blade to not get the threads of the bolt that holds the blade on full of gelato since it would be difficult to fully clean that off.

I don’t have a long-term reliability perspective since I’ve only had it a short time, but I’ve made 10 batches of gelato in it now, and it’s perfect every time. I pre-cool the unit for 10 minutes by turning on the compressor before making the gelato. I always use fully chilled base in the fridge for at least several hours. Using it in that manner, my churning time is 15 minutes every time, and it comes out very smooth and perfect. I set the timer for 20 minutes, and when it approaches 15 minutes in I just listen to the churning, as soon as I start to hear the motor start to work a little harder I know it’s done and I stop there.

THE ONLY annoying thing about this unit is the old-fashioned ticking countdown timer can’t be reset to 0 manually, once you turn it on you have to just let it count down, so even if you shut the unit off early before the timer is done it just sits there ticking and counting down until the time is up and then “ding” it lets you know the timer is done. It’s just and old-fashioned design, but at the same time it will probably last forever since it’s a very basic analog timer and not some fancy digital timer that relies on a computer chip.

So I think the bottom line is if you want to make gelato frequently, and you don’t mind spending a few extra bucks on a premium appliance that you’ll plan to own for decades, this is worth it. If you start doing the “I can make the same quality gelato in a unit that costs less…..” comparison, then this isn’t for you. Maybe you can or maybe you can’t make the same quality gelato in the Cuisinart or Breville or the junky Amazon chinabdrand one, but you can FOR SURE make the highest quality gelato in this one and you’ll enjoy owning something this nice (and Italian).