After a cold beginning of spring, we are now looking forward to a hot summer. And what about that? Right, a cool ice cream. Ice machines are therefore very much in vogue, because your own gelato still tastes best. Remarkable: The Stiftung Warentest has chosen just one price bang as the winner of the 20 ice machines tested.
Make your own ice cream is sometimes easier than expected, you just need the right ice cream machine to hand. How good that the Stiftung Warentest in the latest edition of the Test magazine (issue 05/2021) the same time 20 machines looks closer. Half of it cools actively with a compressor, the rest passively. For those, the ice bucket must be frozen in the refrigerator for at least 12 hours. When it comes to making ice cream, these machines often run out of breath. In short: that Active ice machines with compressors almost always make better ice cream, so the Foundation warning test.
Stiftung Warentest: Medion’s price hit wins in comparison
Their disadvantage: The compressor machines are more expensive, larger, heavier and not so easy to clean. However, the result is correct and that is what matters. So it is not surprising that of the 7 machines that received a good test rating, all with a compressor to run. If you want quality, you shouldn’t consider the cheap, passive parts for less than 100 euros.
The Stiftung Warentest is dedicated to ice machines:
But the most expensive machine is not the test winner. This honor overtakes the price-performance hit from Medion, of all places. The Medion MD18387 costs just under 180 euros and convinces with one Rating of 1.9 (“GOOD”), the second-placed Sage the Smart Scoop is almost on par with a rating of 2.0, but costs around 400 euros, more than twice as much. The purchase decision should already be made for many customers.
The test winner can actually conjure up almost all types of ice cream, very good results are especially achieved with vanilla ice cream, lemon sorbet and frozen yoghurt. Only when chocolate or nuts are added does the MD18387 weaken a little. In the end, it’s the ease of use that is convincing and ensures victory.
You can only get better ice cream if you have a bad knowledge of the climate
However, that The best ice cream in the test field is made by two other ice machines, but they are subject to a completely different reason. The more optimal ice cream actually makes them Magimix Gelato Expert and also the De’Longhi II Gelataio ICK 6000 is a tad better than Medion’s test winner in ice cream preparation. Unfortunately, both machines use that outdated refrigerant R134a, which is 1430 times more harmful to the climate than CO2. All other ice machines besides the Medion MD18387 are now relying on R600a. This refrigerant is only three times as harmful as CO2. For the two “oldtimers”, which are also more expensive than the price hit from Medion, there is powerful point deduction.