Candy floss machines
This category holds candy floss machines, from a tabletop unit of twenty-two by twenty-three centimetres to machines with a bowl fifty centimetres across, one of them with a trolley of its own. The diameter of the bowl decides first, because that is where the threads land, and in a small one fewer of them stay. The power is five hundred or a thousand watts, and what grows with it above all is how much candy floss the machine spins in an hour. And the temperature control is no luxury, because above roughly a hundred and sixty degrees the sugar starts to brown.
Candy floss machines
This category holds candy floss machines, from a tabletop unit of twenty-two by twenty-three centimetres to fifty-centimetre machines with a stainless bowl, one of which stands on a trolley of its own. Inside turns a heated head into which you pour the sugar and which melts it. Centrifugal force then pushes the melt through the fine openings in the wall of the head, and the threads set while still in the air. The wall of the bowl catches them, and from there you wind them onto a stick, so the whole machine stands or falls by the head, the bowl and the temperature.
The first thing is the diameter of the bowl and the footprint of the machine. The threads land in the bowl, so the wider it is, the more of them it catches and the fewer end up on the table and on you. A tabletop unit takes up twenty-two by twenty-three centimetres, so the bowl inside it is smaller still and is there for one or two portions at home, whereas a lid of fifty centimetres is built for the queue of children at a party. The trolley under the machine is no ornament, because it raises the machine to a height at which you can spin standing up and serve right beside it.
The second is the power, five hundred against a thousand watts. The smaller unit has a quartz heating tube of five hundred watts, for which the maker states quick heating and a noise of up to forty-five decibels. Machines of a thousand watts carry more reserve, so they hold the temperature even as you pour in more sugar and lose no tempo between portions. The difference therefore is not whether there will be candy floss, but how much you can make in an hour.
The third is the temperature control and the narrow window of sugar. The head keeps the sugar around a hundred and fifty degrees, that is just below the line at which caramelisation begins. Above roughly a hundred and sixty degrees the sugar turns yellow and then brown, so white candy floss comes out beige and tastes burnt. A thermostat therefore makes sense, and on one of the models it is even digital, because without it you are working blind.
The last one is the scoop and the cleaning of the head. One level scoop matches one portion, that is on the order of twelve to eighteen grams of sugar, and an overfilled head throws out droplets instead of threads. And once you have finished spinning, let the machine cool and take the set sugar out of the head, because at the next start it bakes on and blocks the openings.