PURPOSE: To provide a machine for producing substantially solid material pieces by freezing a liquid material.

CONSTITUTION: A flake ice machine 10 includes a rotatable cooling member 12 which defines cooling surfaces 20 and a plurality of internal refrigerant flow passages. The machine 10 includes a spray tube 18 for introducing a liquid material onto the portion of the cooling surfaces of the cooling member. A refrigerant supply system 30 supplies excess of evaporative liquid refrigerant to the inlets of the refrigerant flow passages, so that a portion of the liquid refrigerant evaporates within each passage to cause the liquid material introduced onto the cooling surface to freeze, and the remaining portion of the refrigerant flows from the outlet of each passage in a liquid state. Resilient removable blades 38 mounted adjacent each cooling surface remove frozen material from the cooling surface to form solid flakes of material. The flake ice machine further includes an automatic salinity control system 56, 58, 63 to automatically control the salinity of the liquid material being applied to the cooling surface of the cooling member 12.