We could not have our award-winning milk if it wasn’t for our dairy farmers. And Washington county is home to some of the dairy farms that produce milk for Stewart’s Shops. It is also home of the Washington County Fair! And you’re going to want to get there, because we are serving up FREE ice cream!
On Thursday, August 25th and Friday, August 26th we will be at the fair serving FREE ice cream.
Fair goers can receive a free single scoop starting at 5:30pm, but hurry, its only while supplies last!
People wonder how our ice cream is so good and that’s because it comes from the best milk. Our farmers produce the same milk that is used in our ice cream.
Where does Stewart’s Milk Come From?
Our milk is fresh and local, we source our raw milk from over 20 dairy farms across Washington, Saratoga, and Rensselaer counties. We pick up raw milk each day and process it at our dairy plant in Greenfield, NY.
After its delivered to the shop, the milk doesn’t magically turn into ice cream. We have a whole process we go through before we package the final product. After the milk is brought to the receiving bay and is tested, it goes into one of our 30,000-gallon silos to be stored.
When it’s ready to be used, the milk gets pasteurized and moved into the separator. The separator takes all the fat free milk and separates it from the cream. Some cream goes back into the milk to create, 1%, 2% and whole milk. The lucky cream gets transferred to our ice cream department, where the real magic happens.
How is the ice cream made?
The ice cream process starts with ice cream mix, which is a combination of cream and milk. This gets pumped in from the dairy gets pasteurized, homogenized, and cooled back down. The mix then goes into a storage tank. Once it is time to be used, the next step is to make the base.
Every flavor starts with a white base or a chocolate base and just the right amount of air. Getting the right amount of air is tricky, too much air and the ice cream is light, too little air and the texture is like a fudgsicle. Stewart’s ice cream has less air than many of our competitors who are trying cut costs. This results in a super creamy, rich, and dense award-winning ice cream.
Many of our great flavors have candy pieces and nuts. Our ingredient feeder blends all of our toppings into our ice cream. Our flavor swirls like chocolate and peanut butter get swirled in separately.
When the ice cream comes out, it has a similar in texture to soft serve. Once it gets gets packaged, the next step is very important. The packaged ice cream gets placed in a freezer hardening room that is 25 degrees below zero. The faster the freeze, the better the quality of the ice cream.
The combination of our freezing process, exceptional milk and perfect ice cream base is what gets our ice cream super rich and creamy.
Without our dairy farmers we could not have award winning milk or ice cream. Stop by and meet some of the farmers that make it all possible.
Did we mention our ice cream at the fair will be free? Come see us at the Ag Center for your ice cream!
What’s Your Flavor?