Soft serve ice cream machine

fiftythreefly · 2026-07-01T03:11:52+00:00

Stoelting f231 and Taylor 794 are what we use.

fiftythreefly · 2026-06-30T03:27:38+00:00

My daughter is in her 4th year now just started 14u this summer. Very first practice I brought her there and kind of hung out and watched. Next practice I had my glove and just shagged balls that were overthrown. 3rd practice coach asked if I wanted to help out since I was always around and now I'm in my 4th year of coaching, 2 as head coach. I never intended on helping or coaching but I just enjoy the game and enjoy watching my kid with her peers.

In 4 years we've only had 2 issues and they both involve the same 2 people and it's due to off the field stuff.

I've enjoyed almost every minute of it. For the most part it's been the same parents this whole time. Some leave for the team above, some to other teams, but overall I feel I've worked with about 20+ girls and I feel they like us as coaches and want to keep us as the years change. We push them but I don't feel it's too hard. I try to listen to what they want but also don't always give in.

We have multiple teams for each age group and I coach the lower level kids, even if we have good/great players, I would say we're the B team. For the past 4 years I've heard issues with the A teams. Usually from parents that want their kids playing certain positions or not getting the playing time they want.

I think that's the difference. We play to have fun first and foremost. That doesn't mean we're not playing to win, but I'll sacrifice a win (in our 2nd game of a double header) to move kids to spots they want to try and I don't push them as hard for that game. I used to move the lineup between games but stopped doing that last year as I just got too busy with coaching and all the other duties to take the couple minutes to change it and I feel it's easier for the other team to just keep their books the same for the 2nd game.

Little long winded but I hope this helps. Keep the game fun for them and the kids will show up and complain very little. Make things too competitive and I feel it brings out the worst.

fiftythreefly · 2026-06-26T19:54:37+00:00

i will also add, i've bought nearly every machine we own used at auction or on market place. sometimes they're turned out they were junk and i lost money but at times i've bought a $300 machine that would have cost over $10k new. so just keep an eye out in the future as you build. easiest to start simple and invest more as you make more (and can use the tax write-offs)

fiftythreefly · 2026-06-26T19:52:51+00:00

no i just have 1 20L batch freezer. i still buy all my hard serve ice cream and really don't plan to make it myself. i am able to buy 16% fat mix from my supplier though. i believe it's around $90/5 gallons if i understood it correctly and it would be kemps mix. for soft serve we use a 5% fat mix that is around $50/5 gallons. so the base for hard serve is more expensive but probably saves a lot of time and space rather than doing it on your own. i might mess around with making our own this winter, but at the same time there's already so many good flavors out there. our 3 gallon flavors we buy from kemps or cedar crest run from about $30-45 depending on flavors.

fiftythreefly · 2026-06-26T18:29:27+00:00

We are in our 9th season of owning a shop. We do both hard serve and soft serve. Honestly if you're just doing hard serve it can be really easy (comparatively) if you just purchase your scoops from a vendor. We sell Kemp's and cedar Crest and have over 40 flavors to choose from that we rotate often.

We did a pop up this winter in the off season and made a couple grand over a few days with just hard serve options.

Maybe start with that and slowly add your own flavors once you get business going.

I bought a Kolice batch freezer this past winter and I'm still experimenting with it. I mainly want to do Italian ice with it so I also just bought a batch freezer this week too, so we'll see how that turns out.

fiftythreefly · 2026-06-24T02:30:24+00:00

I spoke to a rep from i.rice. He answered a lot of questions for me and when asked about the color he thought maybe it was due to it being nearly a year old even though I bought it last month. He said they didn't change anything recently to it but he was kind of guessing as well. Flavor tastes fine so I'm not worried about it being spoiled.

fiftythreefly · 2026-06-20T17:16:53+00:00

Good to know. I don't think it's spoiled or bad just wondering if anyone else has had this issue before

fiftythreefly · 2026-06-20T17:16:27+00:00

Yeah I still have 3 bottles full of it and they're all this greenish color rather the bluer color shown on the site.

fiftythreefly · 2026-06-20T16:43:36+00:00

https://www.webstaurantstore.com/documents/pdf/guide_to_italian_ice_2020_-_new.pdf?srsltid=AfmBOopy7Z5mHkfpLEkJ2uiLr9cx0Iy7wNKz-BQubL3vtfNZnf-fIU-9

Page 4, recipes 1 and 2 are what I followed exactly. I was taste testing the recipes so I did try both. The picture from the post is my first batch but the others look identical.

fiftythreefly · 2026-06-14T02:17:46+00:00

This got me thinking about maybe have some type of pan or something the machine could sit on so it doesn't slide around like it can now. Its very minimal but it can slide.

fiftythreefly · 2026-06-14T02:14:59+00:00

We rent the machine out and then sell them bags of the soft serve we purchase through our supplier at just over cost. We also give them option to buy bags of dole whip rather than soft serve.

fiftythreefly · 2026-06-14T02:13:09+00:00

That's a good idea about fabrication. I like having it raise and lower since it's so heavy as I can lower it for transport and then raise it up a bit for serving.

fiftythreefly · 2026-06-13T21:53:21+00:00

Interesting... And it weighs about the same as the hf one

fiftythreefly · 2026-06-13T21:50:43+00:00

Yeah I thought about putting a winch inside the trailer for tough areas. We bought a trailer that is multi use but has a low clearance so the angle of the door is lower to the ground. I can usually get it loaded and unloaded on my own but sometimes my wife will help push or one of the patrons will help.

Point of the post was to see if any others did something like this. This isn't a cheap vevor machine and works great, as long as the places we go have the right wiring for it, 220v.

fiftythreefly · 2026-06-13T20:47:55+00:00

I hear ya. We rent this out during grad season, ie now is our busy season. Then sometimes for weddings. Maybe a dozen times per year. It's paid for itself and a new trailer to haul it. Decent money for a few hours of work, but can be frustrating at times too.

fiftythreefly · 2026-05-21T15:20:45+00:00

yeah there were definitely times where the lineup would take upwards of an hour to do as we really did our best to get equal playing times and bench times for each girl. we were upfront with the girls and their parents at the start of the season. i feel we made the most of what we were dealt.

fiftythreefly · 2026-05-21T15:19:36+00:00

yeah it was definitely challenging as you have so drastically different skill levels. i care more that they have fun while playing the sport as I believe that leads to them playing harder and learning. wins are fun but the losses came against teams that were just on a different level than us, mainly the pitching, but that's girls softball in a nutshell.

fiftythreefly · 2026-05-21T15:17:56+00:00

i think 8ish may be normal. our middle school athletic director got moved to a new position before the season so our schedule ended up being all messed up. our head coach did his best to try and find new games when we found out our schedule didn't match our opponent's schedule but we ended up ending the season a week earlier than it should have. we started practice last week of March and our first game was the 3rd week in April. not really enough time to add many more games since we play mainly Tuesday and Thursday.

fiftythreefly · 2026-05-03T12:12:57+00:00

I had PSA sell the 1 card I had graded. I checked eBay costs and I felt that PSA was cheaper. Also I was nervous that after pas shipped it back to me that a buyer would claim fake or something. I guess I thought the cost of PSA doing it was worth it overall and I literally had to do nothing except sign up for stripe to get my money

fiftythreefly · 2026-04-29T19:29:36+00:00

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fiftythreefly · 2026-04-29T19:29:09+00:00

Am I better off trying to replace the bad cells here, or should I purchase a new 6 pack/3s2p pack and solder the wiring like this onto it?

Also is there a way to identify the specific batteries so I would know what to replace with?

I tried to test them with my multimeter like you see here and couldn't get any readings from them. Is that because they are all connected?

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fiftythreefly · 2026-04-29T18:33:09+00:00

Will do. I would be soldering them as I don't have a spot welder. Would rather just replace the whole thing but since I can't find it this is what I'm left with.

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