Whynter Automatic Ice Cream Maker, 2.1 Quart, Stainless Steel

For anyone who is concerned about a TLDR review: the Whynter 2.1 Quart Ice Cream Maker is wonderful.
For the rest of you, here’s my review.
I’ll start with Why. Buying an ice cream maker is all about the quality of the ice cream. The ice cream I can buy in the grocery store is ok, but generally the flavors are a bit weaker than I’d like them to be and the texture tends toward too much overrun (incorporated air). Premium ice creams solve some of this, but once I’m willing to put that much money into each serving it’s time to think abut better solutions. Making it at home accounts for all of that.
Once I decided to make ice cream at home I had to choose between pre-freezing a bowl or a machine with freezing capacity. I don’t want to devote the space in my freezer to a bowl and having to plan to pre-freeze the bowl. If I’m relying on that, then I’ll be heading to an ice cream shop when I want to have premium ice cream (plenty of experience on this). Integrated freezing capacity reduces the planning required. I can decide to make, prepare, and freeze the ice cream all in one day.
The Whynter looks nice (which is irrelevant) and has a 4 foot cord providing flexibility to find a spot on a kitchen counter, island (if you have one), or table and plug it in from there. On the flip side, it’s 16.75” W x 11.25” D x 10.25” H. If you intend to keep it out all the time, it’s taking up a lot of space. Mine gets stored in a closet in between batches.
The cycle time for cooling and churning a batch defaults to 60 minutes. Since purchasing I’ve made several batches using 3 different recipes and 2 different batch sizes. The longest any of the batches took was 35 minutes. The Whynter has a motor protection feature and stops the churning once the ice cream is hard enough to risk damaging the motor. The cooling unit remains on if the motor stops in those conditions. These two features together mean that I don’t have to watch closely. I can check on the progress after 20 to 30 minutes and see if it’s still churning. If the motor stopped, the batch is ready. And it doesn’t matter if it stopped 30 seconds before I got there or 10 minutes earlier, the batch is still cold. (I have chilled my ice cream base for all the batches so you will probably experience longer batch times if you are using warmer base.)
The motor does get a bit louder before stopping but starts at its normal volume with the next batch. I attribute the louder volume to the extra work involved in churning the nearly frozen ice cream.
Batch frequency is another great thing about the Whynter. I decided to try some new recipes so I made a batch of unflavored custard base with ½ sugar and ½ Truvia (to lower the sugar calories). I divided it in two and flavored one as coffee ice cream using the Starbucks medium roast instant powder and flavored the other as Thai Iced Tea using loose Pantai Thai Tea mix. I let them both rest overnight in the refrigerator because the tea needed to steep to infuse flavor in the custard. The next morning, I strained the coffee custard base, put the base in the Whynter and started the batch. While it was churning, I started straining the Thai Ice Tea base (I expected this to take a lot longer than the coffee base and it did). I put the finished coffee ice cream into a storage container, cleaned the churning bowl and dasher, put them back in the machine and churned the second batch. The total time between the batches was less than 10 minutes. That’s not something you can do with one pre-frozen bowl.
That success also came with a lesson. The half size batches were a little too small. If I do that again I’m probably going to make a 150% sized custard base so each of the recipes is a 75% batch. As the 50% sized batches froze the dasher was able to carry the entire batch around and the churning became ineffective. That never happened with the full-size batches so I blame me for creating the conditions with the 50% size batches. On the other hand, both flavors were good first experiments and the texture was fine. I didn’t see anything in the instructions to guide me on minimum batch size, but there is a warning for maximum. No embarrassing story here but based on watching one batch get close to the top I’d say their advice for maximum is correct.
Overall, the Whynter promises to make ice cream, custard, sorbet, etc. It does this quickly, allowing for recipe flexibility, mix-ins (which I haven’t tried), and more spontaneity than freezing a single use ice cream bowl. I’m glad I bought it.

We love this machine. While it is pricey it os well worth the cost when you consider that this machine has a compressor to chill the mixture while it is churning. No need to mess with freezing bowls or rock salt and ice. The ice cream comes out perfectly every time! Be careful when putting solid ingredients into your ice cream though, we broke a paddle on our older machine putting chocolate chips into a batch. Nbd you can order replacements from the company directly. This is a bigger machine though so make sure you have a place to store it when not in use.

Received this ice cream maker about 3 hours ago.

In anticipation, I had already prepared 4 different flavors of frozen custard. However, it was still about 130 degrees and still cooling in the fridge.

Not to be deterred, I liberated my new toy from its box, skimmed the directions, cleaned the bowl, dumped in about 6 ounces of still hot coffee flavored custard base ( I wanted to see how well it would make a single serving of ice cream) , turned it on, and waited. I watched the silky surface of the soon to be deliciousness as it churned. Mesmerized. My daughter asked if it was a good movie. I said it was good and did not have any commercials. She said, more like one long continuous commercial. Hint taken. I went to socialize. Seriously, just 27 minutes later and we were in ice cream glory. (ok, about 37 minutes if you include the liberation, reading, and cleaning.) From hot to frozen…lickety split! She got to have fresh made ice cream over her lunch break. She quickly assessed the recipe for what ingredients she needed to drop off to make more ice cream. I am guessing that is for ME to make her more ice cream.

It took about a minute, or less, to wash the bucket. Then I dried it and replaced it in the machine. Wow. No ice. No salt. No mess. Tears of joy!

Obviously, I am a novice with the machine since I have only had it a few hours. I can say that ease of use is phenomenal. Set it on the counter, clean the container and dry it really well before replacing it so it does not freeze in place, pour in ingredients, put lid on, and turn it on. Then wait. But not for long. Clean up is also a snap. It is very compact compared to what I had expected. I had visions of a monstrosity setting on my counter. It is big, but not obnoxiously huge. No more of a foot print than a kitchen aid mixer.

Pros: has 3 settings
1- making ice cream
2- holding it at a cold temperature
3-mixing ingredients for non cooked recipes (eggless ice creams,sorbet, margarita, slush,….etc.)

quick set up
user panel is fairly intuitive
removable container for easy cleanup
not terribly loud – also comparable to using a stand mixer noise level, not as loud as the ones with ice/salt needed
able to make even a single serving — I have glass jars with the flavored base ready in the refrigerator waiting
able to make 2 quarts for when you need/want more
no foreign objects in my ice cream….the last time I used the salt/ice method, either the ice or salt must have had something in it and I covered
the to top of the bucket with ice,salt, so I don’t know, but all three flavors had shards of glass or plastic in them. Was not too happy. All
of my utensils and containers were metal. I am guessing the culprit was either the ice or salt. The end product did not taste salty, so
probably the ice. No idea. Or maybe the plastic paddle was chipping off. Just….grrrrrrrr. I have been glaring at that old churn for
nearly a year and just decided the heck with it.

cons: not sure yet. will use it a few times and let you know. I am interested in the design so far as cleaning up if your freezing container over runs.
edit 8/2019 : if you make more than two batches in a row, it gets iced up. I now make two and then let it set for a couple if hours just because I do not want to risk breaking something. Better safe than sorry.

hints: if you have a high powered blender, toss all of your ice cream ingredients in the container ( like making blender soups ) at once and blitz until you have a thick enough consistency. no scrambled eggs. no fuss. I just set my container on a scale and dump and tare as needed. Then I blitz it and pour into a jar and keep in the fridge. Or just pour it in the machine and make it right away.

Have had this for a few weeks. LOVE it. The churn is not super fast, therefore the overrun is not particularly high. The end result is a nice, creamy texture for your final result. Clean up is super fast. I have not had any batches that have spilled into the cooling chamber. You would need to spend a bit of time cleaning that up since that chamber is not removable. Advice: don’t do that.

I generally do not care for things like chocolate icecream and chocolate cake. I find the flavor to be subdued and bland. Today I made some chocolate icecream that reminded me of a scoop I had in a historic area of Indianapolis when I was younger. All I need is some fudgey brownie chunks and it would have been perfection. It is super creamy and almost has the flavor of a dark chocolate pudding. I am sharing the recipe with you here. Note: I make all of my icecream using a vitamix. Super simple.

Fudgey Chocolate Ice Cream
4 egg yolks
4 Tablespoons dark chocolate cocoa
1 pinch sea salt
3/4 cup white sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla extract (imitation)
1/8 teaspoon butter flavor
1 cup heavy cream
1/4 cup whole milk
3 tablespoons corn syrup
1/2 teaspoon unflavored gelatin powder

Put all in Vitamix. Let the blender run until the ice cream base is steaming and just beginning to look like custard.
About 7 to 9 minutes.
Mix in fudge brownie crumbles after done churning
Either spin the ice cream right away or store/chill in the fridge.
Makes about a pint of ice cream.

update 8/2019 : Still loving this item. We use it less often, but I still get short notice requests for icecream because everyone knows how quick it is to do now. Have made frozen coke, slushes, sorbet, and lots of icecream with this. Still a big thumbs up!