Andy:
It's that time of year again, so people are looking more and more at hot chocolate. One of the avenues I've been exploring is using one of the insulated Zojirushi water boilers to heat milk instead of water. There are multiple temperature settings, including 175F. Pour your house-made syrup into the bottom of a cup then add hot milk.An alternative would be to create a syrup that has the milk in it and then just add hot water (you can get to boiling in these machines). This would avoid the waste problem at the end of the day that Brad mentions.
I also like the flexibility this approach offers - one for milk, one for water, one for soy milk ...
Price is about $170 each for a 4 liter machine, discounted. Make sure to get the insulated variety as they are far less expensive to operate and can maintain temps above 140F for several hours after being unplugged.
Sam -
Please post photos here on the ChocolateLife (there's a link below the comment box after you click reply where you can upload photos).. Or - you can create a photo album and link to the photo album.
If you share here, you won't be bombarded with lots of individual requests to send the photos.
:: Clay
Samuel:
Would love to see photos of what you've produced. I've been looking into ways to make the less expensively, too.
:: Clay
The rivalry between the two big chocolate companies projects in some ways mirrors what occurred in the race to sequence the human genome, between Celera Genomics and the publicly financed Human Genome Project. That battle was officially declared a tie.
Still, scientists in both groups say that cocoa farmers, candy companies and chocolate lovers will benefit from having two sequences, of different varieties of cacao, that can be compared.
This will help guarantee a sustainable future for cocoa for the farmers, the consumers and Mars Inc., Howard-Yana Shapiro, the head of plant research at Mars, said in an interview.
Having the DNA information, he said, could help in breeding trees that have higher yields and are more resistant to diseases. The cocoa crop in Brazil, for instance, was decimated some years ago by a fungal disease called witches broom.
The full text of the article on NYTimes.com is here .
Richard:
I have a colleague (the buyer at a local chocolate store) who is going to ISM (international confectionery show) in a couple of weeks and I have asked him to see if he can locate it, try it, and see if it's worth bringing in. They already bring in product from Germany so they should be able to combine shipping.
In the meantime, it's available on Amazon.de and other on-line shopping outlets in the EU - the company, Tiroler Edle, is Austrian.
:: Clay
Yes, the Johnson Controls device should work with most refrigerators to get the temp up to 55F or so, which is usually above their range. You may want some sort of commercial fridge because it will have the wire shelves you need - home fridges are not set up for this.
If humidity is still a problem, try one of the PolarFresh units, and you might even consider a very small computer fan on a dimmer to increase air flow.
Chest freezers are available through many retail outlets and tend to be very inexpensive compared with specialty refrigeration made for working with chocolate.
They do need to be modified to work for the purpose of storing chocolate:
a) You need to get a thermostat override device like the one from Johnson Controls. While you might get a 7 cu/ft chest freezer for $300 (here in NY), the controller might cost another $70. This is still inexpensive compared with $5,000 to $10,000 or more for specialty refrigeration. You wouldn't use the chest freezer for crystallization, only for storage.
b) You need to add something into the chest freezer compartment to control humidity. One option is PolarFresh; it works like a box of baking soda but it's specifically designed to help control humidity; baking soda is only about controlling odors. There are other options - but as you say, obtainability is the issue.
When putting things into the chest for storage, you'll want to pack them in a way that protects them from exposure to air and humidity. You don't want any humidity to condense on the items when cooling down or warming up. SO ... the best way is not to use huge tubs that need to be opened and closed, exposing all of the contents to the air each time the tub is opened. You could do that for organization purposes, but then I'd wrap "serving size" portions individually and put those into the larger tubs. Opening up the tub would then not expose unwrapped pieces to the air.
When taking items out of storage, you have to let them warm up to ambient temperature before unwrapping them to keep moisture from condensing on the chocolate ... it will condense (if present) on the outer wrapping.
Linda:
There are a couple of different questions here.
Johnson Controls makes a line of "thermostat override" devices that can be used to modify the maximum temperature a unit can go to. Most refrigerators want to work in the range of 28-46F or thereabouts. Using one of these override devices you can set the max temp to 55F. By the way, one of the least expensive storage units you can buy is a chest freezer. These temp controls work perfectly for that application
That doesn't solve the humidity issue. One way to do that would be to use a product like PolarFresh or panels from Avive, which are placed in the compartment and reduce humidity.
The streaking you're seeing is probably because the chocolate you're using is unevenly tempered. For example, in a Chocovision machine, you need to wait a few minutes after the machine says you're in temper to evenly distribute the desirable crystals to influence even crystallization. Without knowing more, I'd say you need to mix/agitate your chocolate more than you're doing once it's "in temper."
If something like this sounds interesting to you let me know and I can contact Bakon and see if I can arrange special pricing for ChocolateLife members.
If you're right-handed, it would make sense to have a crystallization fridge to the right of a cabinet like this so you can open up the door and slide in the finished mold/piece(s).
Bakon also makes and sells tempering machines and melters, and sells the Koma line of chocolate holding cabinets. Contact me if interested in any of these.
The simpler way to fix this would be to add a fan w/heater to blow into the Santha/Ultra. A device with a thermostat and variable fan speed would be very easy to make and use and not require moving chocolate back and forth between two devices.
Lana: You say:
"For any chocolate makers out there, it might serve asareasonably pricedconche if the temp. can be controlled somewhat accurately."
Do you think you can reasonably run this for 8-24 hours or longer without stopping?
DeRhonda - unless the "stir" speed is very low on the Cuisinart machine (and I did not see it in the video), I don't see how it can work ... well.
I use an immersion blender for ganaches with great resultsand they cost $50 or less. Just make sure to get one that has infinitely variable speed control, not just set speeds.
Erica -
Have you taken a look at Chef Rubber?
