How do I add guar gum when making ice cream? My ice cream is great tasting but it gets very hard over time and has a lot of ice crystals. I realize that I have to freeze it faster to reduce the size of the ice crystals but it was suggested to me to use guar gum to help.  I tried adding it but it clumped up (like gum not surprisingly, lol) so do I have to put in a little boiling milk to dissolve it or how should I add it next time? The ice cream was a little stringy or syrupy after adding it to the ice cream. Did I add too much?  I used a tsp of guar gum for a home size Hamilton Beach ice cream maker.  I am allergic to corn so I can't use xanthum gum unless I can find a corn free source.  I'm hoping that I can get the guar gum to work.
Where are people getting the idea that Xanthan gum comes from corn?It does not.  It is harvested from bacteria (Xanthomonas campestris).  

If you are using a cook-up custard to start with, your custard will thicken but will also get ropy or the term is snotty when you pour a spoonful out as you stir.  That is definitely a good way to tell if you are using too much Xanthan gum so you need to cut your amount down.    You sometimes see that effect in cheap, fat free salad dressings.  

It takes less gum than a starch because a gum holds much, much more water than a starch. Where you might use a tablespoonful of cornstarch, you would only use maybe 1/8 teaspoon of gum and that might be a little too much. Gums go into liquid if they are mixed with other dry ingredients or they have heat treated to dissolve instantly.  Those are usually only sold commercially so you would not be able to buy them on the internet.    

My husband makes a "to die for" cooked vanilla and chocolate custard and freezes it.  But it is as hard as a rock after freezing.  I am still working on him to let me modify the formula to give us softer (not soft-serve) ice cream.  I have a masters in food science but I am going to have to make a separate batch to prove it to him.  To most people, anything other than flour or corn starch to thicken must be a chemical.  Hope that helps.