Griffin Meyer

Major: Culinary Food Science
Company/Organization: Iowa State University Dining Creamery
Company/Organization website: https://www.dining.iastate.edu/
Destination: Ames, Iowa
Timeframe: Summer
Advisor/Coordinator Email: ebeirman@iastate.edu

Responsibilities

My responsibilities in the Creamery all revolved around running the frozen dessert machines and maintaining the space they occupy. The most important task in the Creamery was production. Gelato and sorbet needed to be produced by me and my coworkers to keep the freezers at The Hub cafe stocked. This involves assembling and sanitizing freezers, measuring out fresh ingredients and extracting completed product into pans for further freezing. Along with production, the Creamery and its equipment needed to be cleaned and sanitized throughout any given week. My coworkers and I swept, mopped, dusted and sanitized our work areas every day.

Accomplishments

I was given the opportunity to create a recipe, a cantaloupe tarragon sorbet, as well as tune-up a recipe that had failed in the past, a banana thyme sorbet. The recipes needed to be balanced out the proportions of ingredients in a way that would allow for a desirable texture and flavor. After everything was balanced, I produced and tasted multiple variations of each sorbet until my team and I decided on the ones that will be sent to The Hub.

What advice would you give?

KEEP UP ON THOSE JOURNAL ENTRIES! I fell behind during one 40-hour journal entry and I regret it, because my memory of that time faded quickly. It was much harder to remember what I had done during those hours versus when I recorded my journal as I went.

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