397
people found this helpful, as of 2023
ranked #53,608 most helpful
out of 571,544,897 reviews
★★★★☆
Attention Unhappy Customers!
I ordered my Donvier a couple of weeks ago, in spite of some negative reviews, because I've used this type of ice cream maker before and I like the hand cranking, no-salt method. It's also small and easy to store. Since I received my Donvier I have experienced every problem listed by a negative reviewer for this product, and I have found the single solution to all of them.
When I got the Donvier I made some ice cream right away and it came out perfect--yay! Then I thought, hmm, better with a little less sugar. So I tried it again. Disaster! The mixture got all slushy, with too-large ice crystals, and it never really froze. This sounded suspiciously like one of the negative reviews I'd read, but since the first batch was great, I tried again. WORSE! Not even any ice crystals this time. The Donvier I now possessed could not freeze an ice cube. I started thinking "defective product," and was considering sending it back. But then I remembered reading recently that self-defrosting freezers often change temperatures in order to keep frost from building up, and I wondered if it wasn't a temperature issue.
As an experiment, I lowered my freezer temperature setting by 2 notches, and then refroze the Donvier. When I went to make ice cream with the same mix that would not freeze at all before, suddenly it was freezing way too fast! The handle became stuck, and the lid kept popping off! Too cold, Goldylocks!
So I set the freezer to the middle setting. Now my Donvier performs just like all those ones with the five star reviews. Ahhhh.
Lesson for the consumer: If you are going to use a Donvier, be prepared to manage your freezer temperature. You can get an inexpensive freezer thermometer, or experiment like I did.
Lesson for Donvier (and the reason I knocked a star off of your wonderful product): This needs to be in the documentation. It's not enough to tell people that they should have their freezer at below zero, because everyone assumes theirs is already. You need to put a paragraph in your little book that talks about the ideal temperature--not too cold, not too warm--and how to find it. Good docs make a five star product.
September 2009 · Home and Kitchen · verified purchase