What is a French pot ice cream machine?

A French pot ice cream machine is a 2-gallon pot used to hand swirl small batches of ice cream. Graeter's ice cream company still uses the French pot method, a process it claims has been abandoned by large-scale ice cream makers.

The French pot method only creates 2 gallons of ice cream at a time and is said to make the product richer and creamier than large batch methods. After the ice cream is hand swirled in the French pot, it is slowly frozen and then hand packed by spoon into pints. Graeter's ice cream hand packs about 20,000 pints of ice cream per day.