ekreider wrote: Finer salt particles worked better than rock salt in my considerable youthful experience making ice cream in a hand-cranked ice cream freezer with wood bucket.
I have never tried using anything but rock salt. Finer salt is almost like heresy (but if it works, I'll use it).
Hardware stores, the more throwback the better, may be a better bet for rock salt out of snow season.
Yes. Andersonville True Value carries 10 pound bags of rock salt for $2.99. After trying five grocery stores the night before, I phoned the hardware store in advance. I told the gentleman on the phone, who spoke English with a vaguely eastern european accent, that I wanted rock salt for making ice cream. He told me that he had some 5 pound bags (turned out to be 10) for $2.99.
When I arrived at the store, I asked for the rock salt, and the following exchange occurred.
"Ah, you called."
"Yes, do you have the rock salt?"
"Yes, but you are the second person to ask for rock salt to make ice cream. I don't understand how you use rock salt for this purpose."
"Well, you put the salt with the ice to help with the freezing process."
"I still don't understand."
"You have a metal canister that contains the ingredients for the ice cream, then you surround that with ice and rock salt to make it really really cold."
"Aha,
you use the rock salt for the machine."
Our machine was this new-fangled blue plastic ball with a metal cannister in the middle. Some genius inevitably decided that cranking the metal crank was much too difficult, so the alternative would be a playful ball that could be shaken, not stirred. Well, throw several pounds of ice and rock salt into the plastic ball, and the game more closely resembles a boxer training with a medicine ball than anything truly fun.
The ice cream (vanilla with chocolate chips) was a little loose, especially in the middle, but it tasted the part.
Keep eating,
J. Ro