Forum Activity for @Clay

Most people I have ever seen make a ganache avoid the problem by not starting out with melted tempered chocolate.There's no technical requirement to use melted tempered chocolate to make a ganache.

Of course, Cathy's answer is a very good one if, for some reason, you feel it's important (or easier) to use melted tempered chocolate. A cold bowl can precipitate crystal formation on the surface of the bowl before the bowl warms up. Slightly warming the surface of the bowl (with a hairdryer, as Cathy says - there are other ways) will keep that from happening.

Technically, there's also no requirement to even use melted chocolate. The heat from the cream or whatever liquid you're using to make the ganache should be enough to melt the (solid tempered) chocolate and cool the liquid down at the same time. If you do want to use melted chocolate then you can use melted chocolate, not tempered melted chocolate.

Another way: pour the warm liquid into the bowl and allow it a few seconds to warm the bowl. Then pour the melted tempered chocolate into the liquid. No separate warming step required.

Another thing you might want to consider is the fact that the heat of the mass of the warm chocolate with the warm liquid should be enough to remelt any chocolate crystals that have formed on the cool bowl. Thoroughly scraping the bowl with a spatula to dislodge any crystals and work them into the warm mass should melt them. Just let the mass sit for a minute before starting to mix, starting in straightaway with a spoon or balloon whisk won't do it.

You might also consider using an immersion blender. I use one for all my ganaches as it significantly reduces the risk of the ganache breaking. The blender does a much better job of creating a stable emulsion than mixing by hand in my experience. The immersion blender should be able to incorporate any small seeds evenly in the ganache.

Craig:

Why are you concerned? Your ganache is going to set in part because of the crystallization of the chocolate - but you're not worrying about it being "in temper" because it never will because of the other fats added.

Now, if your bowls came out of the freezer it might be a problem but at normal working temps it should not be an issue.

:: Clay

Dale -

If you go to the Good Food Awards site and look at the entry guidelines they should provide all the information you need. If not, contact the organizers by sending e-mail to info (at) goodfoodawards (dot) org.

Please also note that the September 1st entry deadline refers to the 2011 awards. The entry date for 2012 is August 31st.

There are no recommended standard angles for food or for the number of light sources.

Often, there is a very large softbox (diffused light source) which is designed to mimic a natural (i.e., sun coming through a high north window) light source. Lamps/flash are preferred by many studio photographers because the color temperature and output is consistent throughout a shoot. Flash units are often used because they generate less heat - useful when photographing food. In the architectural model work we did in the studio it was almost all hot lights.

Now you have ambient overall lighting covered. The next questions are how big is what you're shooting and what to do you want to emphasize? So, there's generally at least one "key" light that is "flagged" (to keep the light off parts of the scene you don't want illuminated). Instead of another light, depending on the effect you're looking for, you might have one or more "bounce" cards that take the ambient light and reflect it into the scene to reduce contrast.

As I alluded to earlier, if you don't have a view camera so that you can really master depth of field effects, you want to stop down as far as you can and make sure that everything in the scene is tack sharp. Then you can go back into Photoshop (or similar) and add the depth-of-field focus effects after, if desirable.

I agree with you that use a standardized reference color target makes an enormous amount of sense, as is using a white card to set white balance - especially when you are shooting film. These days, however, the auto-correct feature in many programs these days is so good that it'll take care of 95% of situations. Without a recognizable iconic color in the scene (we used to shoot a Kodak box on the first frame of every roll for this purpose) then the most important things in the image (technically):

a) no motion from the camera
b) tack-sharp focus, at least on the key element(s) of the scene
c) a pure black (RGB 0,0,0) somewhere in the scene
d) a pure white (RGB 255,255,255) somewhere in the scene
e) clean whites (i.e., whites without a noticeable color cast)

Of course, any or all of these "rules" can be broken - if and when you know what you're doing and WHY you're breaking them.

I don't have any samples of tabletop work - I do very little of it. Early on in my career I first-assisted for two of the best in NYC, one who specialized in architectural models. I realized that my interests in photography lay elsewhere, but I absorbed a lot about the techniques.

You can see some of my very recent work at my personal web site, www.claygordon.com .

Kat:

Tabletop product photography is its own special art form. It used to be that special lenses were required to manipulate depth of field, but these days as long as the entire image is sharp, Photoshop and plugins can take care of most view camera type effects.

The one place where I think people tend to underestimate their needs is in lighting equipment and in understanding that literal representation is not what it's about, it's about interpretation. In looking at some of your photos, what I miss is contrast range. There are neither pure whites (what used to be called "paper white" when people actually printed negatives on paper) and pure blacks - the contrast range is compressed. Of course, to work with chocolate you need cold lighting, so the new generation of LED lights is just what you need.

If you want to go small-scale there is a cool iPad app called SoftBox you might look into. You can use it (running on an iPad) as a light table and then with two more iPads you have a small - extremely portable and surprisingly flexible - lighting studio.

But mostly it's about attitude and style, which takes practice and editing. In this day and age of essentially unlimited storage, people have gotten out of the habit of deleting photos. To improve, you have to be a relentless editor, trashing every photo that doesn't "work." That's my experience, anyway. (I have a BFA in Photo from Rhode Island School of Design and it was one discipline I learned then that I practice to this day. I ruthlessly edit my photos and delete the ones that don't measure up.)

While you personally have a "style" I don't sense that style coming through in your photographs. What is the "Kat style" and how does it translate into photos? It takes practice. Lots of it. With enough, setting things up will become instinctual.

Jim:

Perhaps you should also add to the list of criteria for your example .... a co-op that did not accept outside aid. Many of the purported benefits of "fair trade" certifications come about because some external group - some NGO or often USAID (especially in Peru) - covers both the upfront and on-going costs of certification.

When you eliminate outside aid from the equation you'll see that there are very few instances where it has happened from the grower up.

Sebastian brings up a very interesting point, which is that maybe it makes more sense for small chocolate makers to get together into a PURCHASING co-op rather than forcing the growers to organize. By doing so, the purchasing co-op drives larger volume purchases, which can start driving the critical mass of volume necessary to move away from commodity market pricing to specialty market quality, and the higher prices quality can command.

A purchasing co-op could also work to reduce the costs of transportation, one of the key limiters to supporting small specialty growers - there's never a full container.

David:

Thanks for bringing up an interesting point. The whole idea of Fairtrade (or Fair Trade) is that there is an independent agency who vouches for the practices of the actors in the supply chain.

While I know Felchlin very well (and happen to be the person who introduced the owner of the Hacienda Elvesia where the beans for the 74% Cru Hacienda are sourced to Felchlin) and I can similarly vouch for their standards when it comes to bean sourcing, at the consumer level (not at the level of the truly knowledgeable chocolate professional) people are looking for the Fairtrade (or "Fair" trade) certification so they don't have to think.

So while you and I may know what Felchlin's practices mean, the consumer wants to see the logo and no matter how hard you try to convince them that it doesn't apply - they won't listen. They need to see the logo.

Of course, it's because they don't have to think that the value of the certification is so easily undermined, but that's another issue.

:: Clay

Brian:

I responded because I have seen and tasted product from Naranjillo. While I would not buy the chocolate they make for domestic consumption, the liquor, powder, and butter are of good quality.

They can make chocolate to spec but the minimums are at least 5 tonnes, as I recall, based on my last conversations with them.

They mean well, but I fear it's the nature of co-operative management in Peru, Bolivia, and elsewhere.

From personal experience, I can tell you that working from the US with Naranjillo is extremely difficult. Customer service did not exist as a concept in their English vocabulary.

Plus, Naranjillo didn't have (as of about six months ago) any export capability for finished and semi-finished products to the US.

Maybe things have gotten better in the last six months or so. In any event, I would not want to work with them unless I had a representative in Peru, fluent in Spanish and in business customs, handling the Peruvian end of the business for me. I can't recommend doing it remotely.

ChocolateLife member Jan van Portvliet sent me the following question last week:

I am using the revolation delta. Great machine for what I do.

I have a question though and you might be able to give me an answer.

There are two tempering sets,tempering 1 and tempering 2. Tempering 1 goes back to the working temperature and tempering 2 first goes to the colder temperature and then heats up to the working temperature.

What is thedifference between the two?

I sent the question off to Chocovision and got the following response:

There are two temper modes; Temper 1 and Temper 2.

The Temper 1 cycle takes the chocolate from the set melt point to the set temper point. The Temper 2 cycle takes the chocolate from the set melt point to 3.5 degrees (F) below it, and then warms it to the set temper point.

In scientific terms, taking the temperature down allows the beta, alpha, and gamma crystals to nucleate more rapidly. Bringing the chocolate to the end temperature not only stops the nucleation of the alpha and gamma crystals but also melts out any alpha and gamma that have not transformed into beta crystals.

In a nutshell, Temper 2 gives more time (and better temperature conditions) for beta crystals to develop. Higher milk fat in chocolates inhibits beta crystal nucleation so Temper 2 is important to utilize, hoewever, it would over-thicken a chocolate that has no ingredient to inhibit crystal growth.

The First All-Americas Craft Chocolate Festival in being held in NYC on Friday and Saturday September 23rd and 24th, 2011.

Held in conjunction with Get Real NY's All-American Craft Beer & Food Fest, the Craft Chocolate Festival's mission is to highlight and promote all of the exciting work being done by craft chocolate makers anywhere in the Americas (USA, Canada, Caribbean, Central and South America).

This year, the flavor "theme" of the Beer Fest's homebrew competition will be cocoa.

There will be five tasting sessions during the two day festival, two on Friday and three on Saturday. In addition to sampling chocolates matched with the beers being served, a demonstration of making chocolate, from the bean, will be operated continuously during the festival.

The tasting session on Saturday morning will feature guided pairings of craft chocolate, craft beer, cheese, bacon, hot chocolate, and more.

There are several ways craft chocolate makers can participate:

1. Provide samples for tasting . Festival organizers will be organizing tasting tables during each session. Send us samples and literature and we will distribute them both for you. (Approximately 600 people are expected at each of the four main tasting sessions.)
2. Provide chocolate for sale . You provide the chocolate (on consignment at wholesale) and we'll sell it during the festival and through TheChocolateLife during and after the Fest through the 2011 holiday season).
3. Visit New York during the festival and give one of the four "Meet The Chocolate Maker" seminars (one during each of the four main sessions). You can also man the table during the session(s) your chocolate is sampled. Your presence at the festival will be promoted in festival advertising and signage.
4. Become an event sponsor . Your company name will be promoted in advertising, signage, and more before and during the Festival. You don't have to be a craft chocolate maker to become an event sponsor. Do you make and sell equipment, services, or ingredients that craft chocolate makers use? Then consider being a sponsor.

If you are interested in participating in any of the four ways mentioned above (or some other way that's not mentioned), get in touch with Clay Gordon at claygordon (at) thechocolatelife (dot) com for more information and details.

Watching this page and visit the Fest's listing page here on TheChocolateLife for updates and more about this exciting first-of-its-kind Festival.

If any ChocolateLife member owns a Cacao Cucina roaster, I am interested in getting

1. overall impressions of your experience with them
2. the dimensions (length and diameter) of the drum

Thanks,
:: Clay

Rochelle:

I recommended, for a client, a Moffat Turbofan D25. The D25 (not sure about the (D24) can be plumbed so you can inject steam into the cavity during roasting. Salmonella (in particular) can survive longer in dry environments than they can in moist ones.

Though getting the beans hot and keeping them there should kill all pathogens there has to be a reason why virtually every major chocolate manufacturer has a sanitization step the includes steam. There's no reason not to be err on the side of caution and food safety. Pressing the steam button for five seconds at least two or three times during a roast should be enough. If you are taking the pans out and rotating them (not a bad idea, along with shaking them, too), then do the steam after each turn.

The Moffats are good ovens and they quickly recover temperature after opening the doors.

Looking at the replies to the post, if Sebastian gives it a thumbs up then I would pay very close attention.

Rochelle -

You are right. I was hurried and misread the page. It's $4835 for about 13kg - but an extra $1350 for a control panel?

These are built to order and it says that they reserve the right to make changes (including the oven), so I wonder if this is like the big CocoaT grinder? It's still on the site but they're no longer offering it.

:: Clay

I just took a look on the CocoaTown site and it looks like they no longer offer a 15kg roaster. Their new 30kg roaster looks like a convection rotisserie oven with a custom basket. Hmmmm ...

David:

Please contact Donald Hudson at CafeCoffees.com and let him know of your interest in their roasters for coffee and that you're in touch through TheChocolateLife. I cannot quote you directly.

As for the ABS ovens, the 5-rack version is about $3000. In order to get you a quote, I need a shipping address. I will mail you privately and you can respond.

Something to consider in the whole roaster discussion is the relative lack of sophistication on the part of small chocolate makers when it comes to roasting - when compared with coffee.

Here's a link to a very interesting discussion about coffee roasting that just starts to scratch the surface of how the new generation of modern "technical" coffee roasters geek out about a topic like convection airflow (as opposed to conduction), pointing out that different bean origins want different roasts - not just time/temp, but time/temp/airflow - in order to bring out different characteristics of the origins.

What this suggests is that a lot more open-mindedness is needed when approaching the topic of equipment selection for roasting cocoa beans because having precise control over airflow can be critical in optimizing flavor development during roasting.

Holly:

While you can do commercial production in a small machine (e.g., the CocoaTown ECGC12) you don't have a hope of being profitable using machines that size unless you live in a country where the average hourly wage is around $1.00. So, I am going to assume that the 65L Grindeur or similar capacity machine is the one you're working with (you don't say).

Given that the 65L machine requires at least 20kg of nib, working on a 1 to 2 pound batch roast capacity makes no sense as it would take forever to roast the required amount. While individual roasts might be inconsistent, you'd be blending them together so that would even out. However, from experience with someone who went from a Behmor to a larger roaster (actually, a 250kg Barth Scirocco) there's a qualitatively different roast that you get from the larger machine. I think that has to do a lot with thermal mass, how quickly the Scirocco gets back to temperature (which is called recovery time), and the fact that the Scirocco does a much better job of agitating the beans during the roast.

A 10lb machine is closer. You might get 75% yield (~7.5 lb nib for every 10 lb of bean - this counts water loss during roasting as well as fractions winnowed out) so you'd need about 6 roasts for each batch in the 65L Grindeur.

As Brad correctly states, you have to properly account for the value of your time in figuring out production costs. While you might save $1000 on equipment, if it increases the amount of time per batch beyond a certain point, you actually end up losing money (i.e., not paying yourself anything for your labor).

Whenever you're looking at the tradeoff in the initial price of equipment you must also take a look at how trading down in capacity might increase the amount of time (and other costs) associated with the decision. And you should probably pay yourself at least minimum wage. Or, if not, you should know what paying yourself a decent hourly wage means to the actual cost of production, which will let you know what price you should be selling your product for. If you don't properly calculate all of the costs and underprice your product, then you don't have a business.

The concept is called total cost of ownership (or operation). While you might start out with one 65L Grindeur, each new one is not only going to cost at least $5,000 there is cost of hooking it up, the cost of electricity to run it, the cost of electricity for the increased load on the HVAC system and the cost of ground rent. Make sure to have line items for all of these in your cost of doing business spreadsheet.

Another thing to consider is what you're going to do to scale up. If you move from needing one Grindeur to 2, what does that do to the amount of time needed for roasting, winnowing, etc.? It may be that one 10lb roaster won't be able to meet the demand.

Here's the point - there is no perfectly balanced system at this scale. For some stage of production you're going to have machines that are too small and/or too large for other machines in the production line. The question is: where do you start oversize/undersize to begin with, knowing that, if you become successful, that you're going to have to upgrade and/or buy another unit of something.

Where you feel comfortable about making the tradeoff is something you have to decide. But, no matter which way you go, make sure you do a price/total cost of operation analysis - and make sure to include a fair value for your labor.

:: Clay

Brad:

We're not in competition with each other - yet it often seems like you think you're competing not only with me (here on TheChocolateLife and in other fora where we interact), but with anyone and everyone who has an opinion that differs from one of yours.

As I said earlier in this thread, what works for you works for you. Your way is not the only way, it'saway; your way isnotnecessarily the best way for everyone, it'sthe way that works for you. There are many options - and which one is right for a particular situation depends on many factors, including the market the business is located in and the temperament, priorities, and goals of the owner(s).

I choose not make chocolate for commercial sale for a number of reasons, both professional and personal, none of which I feel compelled to share with you because it's none of your business.

I also don't rate and review chocolate professionally anymore, which is one reason I have never commented on your chocolate here on TheChocolateLife.

And, yes, I have actually tasted several of them thanks to another ChocolateLife member and shared the bars and my opinions of them with others whose judgment in such matters I respect.

...

We've had this discussion in private but now it's time I made it public.

Your calling me a hypocrite is uncalled for and is an example of an entitlement you cannot lay claim to.

TheChocolateLife is my place of business. It's a bit like the public retail space of your business. If a customer came in to your shop and was being loud and rude to the other customers - and to you, the business owner - it would be within your right to ask them to behave respectfully because such behavior makes the other customers uncomfortable and intimidates them.

I am asking you to behave respectfully in my place of business. And not just to me, but to everyone.

:: Clay

Holly -

I was in a restaurant here in NYC last week that plans to be making chocolate from the bean in their kitchen. They have two larger pieces of CocoaTown equipment and were sent two small (maybe 2 pound max) CocoaTown roasters.

The CocoaTown roasters I saw were based on what appeared to be unmodified Ronco "Set it and forget it" rotisserie ovens. The spit was upgraded with a drum made from perforated stainless; this was the only change I could see.

While these (and the Behmors, and one or two others based on the Ronco chassis) might be suitable for home hobbyist production, IMO they are not suitable for commercial production (I know because I bought a modified Ronco and worked in a facility that used a Behmor).

:: Clay

Sorry - I forgot the URL for the site selling the roasters.

It's http://www.cafecoffees.com/

If you do end up wanting one, I can offer a ChocolateLife member discount.

Ben:

Your experience with convection ovens is similar to mine.I would counsel someone purchasing a convection oven for roasting cocoa not to expect a perfectly even roast.I have yet to find one (even new) that delivers perfectly even temperature distribution front to back, left to right, top to bottom. One way to test this is to cook thin layers of yellow sheet cake in sheet pans. If they don't come out evenly cooked and browned, then you have to "resort" to some method of turning the pans.

The small roasters I am talking about are not inexpensive. An 8lb machine costs about $2000 and a 20lb machine costs about $8000 (including the roast profile hardware) and this price includes a cool-down pan.

I see the smaller machine as an alternative to a Behmor or any roaster based on a Ronco oven (CocoaTown is offering some of those). The Behmor will handle only up to 1lb at a time, has 5 roast profiles, and you need to run at least 3-4 batches to fill up a small CocoaTown or Santha grinder. For about 5x the price you get 8x the roast capacity, significantly lowered operating costs, significantly increased throughput, and with the digital profiling, more control and more consistency over roasts.

The drum roaster I posted the video of from Ecuador is an interesting alternative to a ball roaster. It can be made with either gas (propane or LNG) or electric burners and, if you can find a used 30, 40, or 60-quart bowl from a Hobart or other mixer, it could be made astonishingly inexpensively. I would add some vanes or fins to the bowl and some way to contain and increase airflow within the bowl in order to improve efficiency.

Brad:

I just don't know what it is about you that feels the need to belittle other people. I am NOT appreciative of the humor you displayed in the Chocolate Alchemy forum when I asked you to share a picture or sketch of your winnower.

I debated a long time about how, or even if, to respond to you again on this post. In a couple of days it would just age off the bottom of the discussions and that would probably be that. Iam also unhappy that you choose to be so dismissive of me in this forum; you just don't get where I am coming from.What I do have to say in response to your reply:

What works for you works for you; what is useless-seeming to you may be invaluable to others. The reasons your approach works for you are your temperament, your skill set, and your market. I gather, from reading your posts here and elsewhere, that you own a number of small ACMC temperers and that you've had to take every one of them apart and rebuild them at least once since you bought them. Some people don't have either the skill or the inclination to do this. They'd rather spend a bit more up front to get a machine they know won't need repairing right way.

I want to open up the discussion to learn more about what their intentions are so that whatever recommendations get made fit Holly's needs. I certainly don't feel I have enough information to advise Holly about the direction that is best for her based on one question.

There are many different ways to start out and scale up, not just Brad's way. Without knowing a lot more about the the person's proclivities and plans I would be loathe to suggest that there is a single way to build and grow a business.

Holly:

What size roaster are you looking for? I've been researching electric roaster options in the 10-15lb range that should appeal to people looking to use actual roasters, not convection ovens. The ones I am looking into have been designed for coffee but have been used for roasting cocoa beans for many years so the design is proven.

IMO, a roaster that tumbles beans should be able to do a superior job of evenly distributing heat consistently from batch to batch. It requires more time and attention (in my experience) to get consistently even roasts across multiple batches in a convection oven, even when using perforated pans. (Obviously Brad has a different opinion. YMMV.) While a commercial convection oven may be less expensive (and I would be happy to sell you one of the best and most cost effective 5-pan ovens from ABS at a ChocolateLife member discount if that's the route you decide to go) it's not just the initial price, it's total cost of ownership, including labor.

On the plus side, the roasters I am looking into have digital controls that precisely control temperature and offer a digital logging option so you can record the actual temperature curve during each roast. This should help you understand how time and temp affect flavor.

And when not being used for roasting cocoa, a roaster can be used to roast coffee beans. I can get you pricing on an oven right away and will have pricing on the roasters within the next day or so.

Clay

PS. What makes the ABS ovens so good? Extremely fast recovery time. They get back to temp very fast after the doors have been opened and pans put into the oven. This is one key aspect of getting consistent results that people overlook when opting for less expensive - or used - convection ovens.

After the choice of bean, the next critical part of the flavor development process in chocolate is roasting. If you're starting a chocolate business, while I can see how it makes sense to save money building a DIY winnower, it makes absolutely no sense to me to shortchange yourself on such a crucial tool in developing flavor.

Stu:

In the long run, the best bet may be - depending on how much you want to make - to buy a chocolate "lentil" machine (think M&Ms) and get a new set of molds made for that. This will form full 3D grains, not half-grains as would be the case with a conventional mold.

:: Clay

Magriet:

You may have answered this in another post, but what method are you currently using to temper your chocolate, and if you are using equipment, what equipment (specifically - company and model) are you using?

Is the market indoors or outdoors and is there any temperature control?'

:: Clay

Tim -

I don't have any connection with Thermalrite and from a quick glance at their web site all they are selling are the Desmon pizza prep tables so I am not sure there is a fit there.

Irinox is gold standard - very expensive, but they do the job very well. They are expensive like a cooling tunnel is expensive but the footprint is a lot smaller. The Desmon products are less expensive but not all of them have humidity control, which is important in most parts of the country for at least some of the year.

In the end it all comes down to airflow, cooling load, and "recovery time." Airflow is about the ability to remove what's called the latent heat of crystallization, the heat that comes off the chocolate as it cools. You want the chocolate in the mold to cool consistently and evenly to ensure proper crystal formation and to reduce the likelihood of de-molding problems.

Cooling load is a measure of the amount of heat that can be removed. Think of an air conditioner and a room. A small AC unit might be able to cool the room but it might take a long time. Put four or five people in the room (or a window) and it might not be able to keep up. So, you need a cooling unit that is sized to the amount of heat that will be added to the system (in the form of warm chocolate).

Recovery time is important for cooling units with doors on them. As most doors are hinged and swing open, that action extracts a lot of cool air from the unit that is replaced with warmer air from the room. The question is how long does it take for the unit to return to the set temperature?

There are many different ways to approach cooling and it all depends on throughput and space. If you have the room and you need to move a lot of product, cooling tunnels are very good solutions. Lots of people I know build cabinets or even large rooms. You can use household AC units (split systems are good) and the CoolBot [Note: that's an affiliate link] will enable you take the household AC units below 60F, which is normally their lowest temperature.

There are a couple of ChocolateLife customers who are also building "static cooling tunnels" that I came up with the idea for. These are enclosed wire shelves (e.g., Metro shelving) under positive pressure from a cooling unit. The nice thing about these is that they can buy wheels for the units and move them around as needed.

The major difference is that Irinox has invested a great deal of money in sophisticated electronics that go into every unit they sell - you can't buy any units without the electronics.

Desmon has chosen to go a much simpler route in the controls it builds in to its cabinets. This accounts for most of the difference in price.

In some respects, the Desmon cabinets are actually better built ... in their 20-pan lowboy cabinet, the door hinges are much sturdier for example.

If you're looking for a simple STORAGE option (i.e., you're not going to be using this for crystallization), the absolute least expensive option is to buy an inexpensive chest freezer and use an external thermostat like this one to control the temp between 0C (32F) and 27C (~80F). You can easily get 7 cu ft of storage and the thermostat for under $300 (not including tax/shipping).

This is a no-frills solution (i.e., there are no shelves), but it works and it has the advantage that the entire inside of the chest is usable for storage.

If humidity is an issue, you can use the PolarFresh or Avive panels.

Omar:

I understand completely the question about reasonable risk. What I do know is that many people make decisions based on the price of an item and not the TCO (total cost of operation) of an item.

For example, the smallest Irinox cabinet has a list price of over US$11,000 the last time I looked and is worth every penny. (I've sold two TP-20s to customers who swear by them - one of them works in an open market and could not be in business without hers.) The cabinets are purpose-designed to crystallize chocolate.

The units hold 20 full-size pans and will keep the internal temp and humidity to within .5C even with the door open for a minute or longer.

What this translates to is consistent throughput and quality. If you put items on trays in a speed rack in the ambient environment of the kitchen (or in a wine cooler), crystallization times will be uneven, can be fairly long, and there is the risk of humidity in the room damaging work. In the Irinox, crystallization is consistent - quality and timing. While expensive, if you could triple production (or more) just by using a proper cabinet - making no other changes - then the price tag could actually be very affordable ... if you focus on total cost of operation, not price.

There two other company making units like the Irinox, both Italian. One is Koma and they are more expensive than Irinox. The other is thecompany I referred to above, Desmon. At the moment they do not have a North American sales agent. The Desmon equivalent of the Irinox TP-20 costs 60% less.

Last year I was introduced to refrigeration produces from an Italian company, Desmon. I have been trying to work a deal with their US distributor and just got off the phone to discover that they are no longer the US distributor.

That said, they have about 70 pieces of equipment in inventory they are looking to sell at deep discounts. All of the humidity-controlled units went first and there are none left. However, the Avive panels I mentioned would address this issue without any problems in any of the units. Some are under-counter lowboys with marble tops, others are one and two door display cases.

I am expecting pricing information and brochures in the next few days and I will post in Classifieds. The company also makes humidity-controlled walk-ins just for chocolate and I will be getting more information on those as well.

There are many, many different brands of wine coolers, I don't know them all, and many have angled shelves. They tend to be expensive for what they are, and they're not made to handle chocolate, so they are expensive - and may not do what you need them to.

The real issue in cooling is moving heat away from the chocolate. With wine, we generally don't care how long it takes to get to temp from whatever temperature it's at when it goes in the fridge to storage/serving temp - usually overnight or longer is okay. Bottles already in the fridge have a pretty good thermal mass and are not likely to warm up by more than a fraction of a degree when opening the door of the fridge and adding a bottle or two.

With chocolate we do care about the speed of removing the "latent heat of crystallization" (the heat given up by the chocolate as it cools and crystallizes) - too fast or too slow can result in sub-optimal results.

Therefore, we do care about temp and volume of airflow and "recovery time" (how quickly it takes the fridge to return to the set temp after the door is opened) and other variables. There is a reason why cabinets made specifically for chocolate crystallization and holding (e.g., Irinox) as expensive as they are.

In general, the larger the volume of the cabinet, the better the recovery time is. Airflow needs to be controlled and directed to remove the heat added to the cabinet, which can vary widely. If you're molding 500gr blocks of chocolate and put 50 of them into the cabinet you have to move a lot more heat than if you put 20 bonbon molds in to crystallize.

General rule is make it larger than you need it so that you can use the volume of the room to help you. One confectioner I know in NYC set up a cooling/storage room in their facility that measures 10x20 feet. Everything comes in on trays on speed racks. The room is set to about 62F and airflow is relatively modest. Not everyone has this luxury, of course. But you can do use the same concept in a much smaller space.

Susan:

I don't see why not ... keeping in mind that they are really for converting a room into a "walk-in." You wouldn't use one in a cabinet. Keep in mind that you can also use the CoolBot on a split AC unit (not just thru-wall), where the compressor is physically outside and the blower unit is mounted inside the room. While AC units are also dehumidifiers, you may need additional humidity control (as in a real dehumidifier) not the PolarFresh or Avive products depending on where you are located.

The CoolBot site does have a page that gives the BTU rating for an AC unit for a given sie of room - assuming that the room is adequately insulated.

There are a couple of ways to control the humidity in wine (and other) cabinets if you have a cabinet that does not contain built-in humidity control. MOST inexpensive wine cabinets do not have humidity control.

One is to use a product called PolarFresh . It works a lot like a box of baking soda is supposed to. While chocolate fridges don't have the issue of ethylene gas production that is part of fruits and vegetables ripening, PolarFresh also absorbs humidity, keeping it in a more acceptable range.

A more "professional" product - and one that works over larger volumes more cost effectively, is from Avive Technologies .

Finally, you can use a CoolBot to use a conventional residential through-window air conditioner into a cooler for a walk-in style fridge. Most AC units won't go below 60F; the CoolBot will let you go down to just above freezing.

Thanks to everyone for contributing here ... and to Braun for being so open and for making the special offer for his chocolate.

It's discussions like this one that form the reason for my starting TheChocolateLife in the first place: collectively, we know far more than any one of us can.

:: Clay

US sources for transfer sheets include:

• Chef Rubber ( catalog index page )
• American Chocolate Designs ( home page )

Many other sources are going to be reselling PCB, etc. Sourcing from the US might not be such a bad idea as the Pound is so much stronger than the USD at the moment. Plus, there are probably going to be some designs you won't find in the stock European catalogs.

Javier:

What capacity (trays) and/or throughput (kg/hr) are you looking for and what is your budget?

:: Clay

Brian:

Your observations bring to the conversation just the sorts of nuances that only actual on-the-ground experience can bring to the issue. As outsiders, we walk into situations with assumptions about "the right way to do things" that are simply untenable when considered from the POV of the producer.

We can make the claim that better post-harvest processing is always better ... but if the buyer is unwilling to pay enough for the labor involved (and no, ten cents per pound is not enough) and lost opportunity costs, then there is no economically justifiable (to the farmer) reason to invest their labor.

:: Clay

Brian:

Keeping the interests of the farmers in mind is an important principle, I think. Many of the systems are more about forcing Western European/North American values than about being "fair" really.

Also, the paying of certifications by NGOs and USAID/aid organizations provides zero incentive to reduce their cost and the producers get hosed when the aid money runs out.

How large would you say the average produce association is? Is technical assistance in post-harvest processing also needed/wanted?