Abbattere in negativo

13:39 Jun 11, 2018 

Just for some context:

(First, note that I launched and ran a gelato school in Italy for a few years and I have translated a number of books on gelato and I do all the translations for one of Italy's top gelato/pastry magazines)

There are a few valid translations for abbattere/abbattitore, choose one and stick with it. Blast chiller, blast freezer, shock freezer. I usually use the last one.

It is basically a powerful freezer that drops the temperature of whatever's inside it very quickly. For example, you make a gelato in the batch freezer and then put the finished product in the blast freezer for 5 minutes, then to the display case. If you want to freeze it solid to the core then you have to leave it for about an hour, and there's something like a meat thermometer that you can stick into the center to see what the core temperature is. Then you would move it to the freezer for long-term storage.

With regard to the word "negativo", in Italian an "armadio positivo" is a refrigerator (positivo in the sense of being above freezing) and therefore an "armadio negativo" is a freezer (i.e. below freezing).

Hope this clarifies everything.