We are always here to help. After 100 years in the business, we have come to find great satisfaction in helping companies start up, grow and prosper.
Brad, always a pleasure to have such nice feedback.
Jim
Thank you all for this great info!! This is very helpful...
Cheers,
Jacqueline
Jim;
I went back and re-read my initial post, and would like to make a clarification. My last sentence could be interpreted that your prices are high. I would like to, for the record here comment that the prices you and John have quoted me for equipment in the past have been in line with what is typical in the industry, so your prices are in fact NOT high.
Not sounding like one of your sales guys here, but I would also like to point out for the ChocolateLife community that when I was originally looking for budget-oriented equipment, both of you were an invaluable source for some information, and for that I thank you.
Cheers and Best Wishes
Brad
Jim -
Just responding to the "Call me anytime to chat" in your reply. There's a lot of stuff that starts out as public conversations that gets taken private so only one person benefits. Responding publicly means that more people can benefit while making TheChocolateLife more generally useful as a resource.
I did not realize it was private - not intended to be so, Clay.
Thanks,
Jim
Jim:
A general discussion on ROI issues surrounding equipment - that all members can read - would be valuable to all members rather than taking every conversation private.
Jim Greenberg here from Union Confectionery Machinery...jim@unionmachinery.com
Brad is correct in that without real throughput the ROI on a foil wrapper is long and arduous.
His comment about pricing is also correct - even a used machine presents a barrier to entry in the machinery acquisition world for small co's. Call me anytime just to chat and I can educate you on your options without any commitment from you to buy and then you will have some fuel for thought going forward.
Thanks,
Jim Greenberg, President
Union Confectionery Machinery
Hi Jacqueline;
Foil wrapping machines are very expensive if you're only doing a couple of thousand bars per month. One part time,$10 perhouremployee can easily wrap 100 bars per hour, so you're only looking at 20 hours worth of work for one person for the entire month (about $0.10 per bar)- hardly enough to justify a $15,000 machine, the cost of theelectrical, cost of training to set it up, AND the monthly cost of renting the floorspace for it to sit there idle most of the time.
If you look at the cost of the floorspace alone (Sherwood Park, right?), let's say $14/foot plus $6 op costs for a total of $20 per square foot, assuming you're in an industrial area, and not a retail space where premium square footage costs would be charged, you would need at least a 10X10 space for your machine, and walking room around it (100 square feet). According to my calculation, just the space rental would be about $167 per month. Right there is almost all of your part time person's wages to do your bars.
My suggestion would be to wait until you have at least two people dedicated to working full time wrapping bars, before you consider purchasing a machine like that.
That's just my opinion for what it's worth.
Cheers and Best Wishes from Down Here in Calgary.
Brad
Now.... Having said all of that, if you're still set on blinging out your shop with a foil wrapper, Union Machinery sells some used and reconditioned ones. Just make sure you're sitting down when you get John or Jim's price quotes! www.UnionMachinery.com
Hi everyone,
I am just wondering if anyone has a good automated solution for wrapping chocolate bars in paperbacked foil? We are currently hand wrapping (2,000+ per month), and it is time to invest in some equipment to automate it. Any suggestions?
Thank you!
Thank you Sarah. I will look into it. x
Have you tried Modpac? I don't really think it's too expensive. I used to work at a store that had a printer for doing it in house and it never worked out. Not only was the machine very expensive along with training it was difficult to use. The prints always come out crooked and with the time it took to print it was easier just to order from modpac.
Today I am researching digital foil printers to personalise our corporate and wedding chocolate boxes. We get orders for anywhere between 50-1000 boxes per order and outsourcing for hot foiling is expensive! Any thoughts? Holly
We use coldmolds to make fudge pops and they rock. We tried metal molds and found their ability to release sub-par and the stick locations sometimes 'bled'. The silicon work real well and you can fit quite a few on a sheet pan and just do a rotating production schedule and you're g2g. Do what we did, ordered a few to make sure we liked the idea--not very cost prohibitive to try and if you like it scale up.
Hi Brandon,
For stainless steelPopsiclemolds, you may want to visit: http://stainless-steel-popsicle-mold.com/ .
Thanks! I'm still looking for any suggestions, so thanks a bunch! And if you come across the Italian place you were referring to, I would love to learn their name/website.
Hey Brandon, I'm pretty sure there's an Italian manufacturer out there that does larger trays (20+) but for the life of me I can't recall their name and can't find them in my bookmarks. If I find it, I'll send it but in the meantime these guys do silicone pop-molds with stick holders too, though it looks like it's only 6-8 molds per tray: http://www.coldmolds.com/pops.html
Silikomart also does silicone pop-molds with stick holders (more per tray than coldmolds, but still not 20+): http://www.silikomart.com.au/all-molds/make-ice-cream-bar/
Any good quality silicone will be stainless & relatively easy to wash/care for.
I'm considering doing some popsicles to help with summertime sales at the shop and looking for some commercial molds. All I keep finding are sites linking me to China. Does anyone know if there's any US distributors for something stainless with 20+ cavities and stick holders? I see there's plenty of plastic molds on amazon and the like, but I hope to find some thing like this (to fit in a regular single-door freezer): click this . Ideas? Thanks!
I am using cocoatown's but I had to modify the equipment and reduce the pressure on the granite rollers because it was depositing stone into the composition previously.
In general it's best to pre-powder the sugar in a vitamix, coffee grinder, or other high powered blender. It is much harder than cacao and is therefore hard to breakdown.
What melangeur doyou have?
35% sugar in my batch of chocolate has been in the melanguer for 24 hours.
I used table sugar thinking that the melanguer would take care of it after a day.
But it hasn't. The chocolate feels like eating fine sand. It is in fact sugar because it does melt in the mouth.
I have another 20 hours to go till I want to stop this batch but right now Im not certain if the sugar will break down by then.
I did not expect the sugar to give me more problems than the cocoa nibs.
Your tips and guidance are much appreciated.
--Ning
We use the 1800w (120v) for small batches about three to five times a week. For larger batches I just purchased a 3000w 220v model that does the job very well. However, this still is only capable of making medium-sized batches (2-3 kilos) efficiently. A used Firemixer would probably be a very good investment if you want to cook 25-kilo batches.
Thanks for the info.
We were looking at one that is 1800 watt and not 220V, but would only plan on doing a few small batches a week.
Daniel:
You're probably not going to be able to make batches of caramel that size on an induction burner efficiently and cost-effectively. Best to invest in a machine specifically designed to make caramel in those quantities. Consider electric models because, depending on where you are (and you have to check w/ local authorities) you may not need special venting and fire suppression. Gas units may require a hood at least.
Savage Bros also make water-jacketed cooling tables.
Kim: Many induction burners have cut-off switches that turn the burner off when a certain temperature is reached for a certain time. When you have to get huge masses of sugar hot for a long time, it's common for the burners to turn themselves off to keep them from overheating.
If I was going to be making a lot of caramel, I would purchase the highest wattage (2000 minimum)220V professional unit I could.
What would you classify as "overbuying wattage"?
Thanks for making me aware of such equipment. I probably would want to make a batch of caramel that could fit at least a six foot cooling table (more equipment I don't know much about). I'd be curious to hear what other members use...
Daniel -
What kinds of production quantity are you talking about? Induction burners can be made to work (you should overbuy wattage), but if you're making a LOT you might want to look into something like aSavage Bros FireMixer 14 or 92 .
I make a lot of fleur de sel caramels and I am thinking of investing in specific equipment just for caramel production. Does any one have any reccomendations? Are induction burners completely out of the question? Thanks!
You don't *need* to but you may choose to. Depends on how fluid the chocolate is to start with and what the application is. I sometimes thin chocolate with cocoa butter when I am hand dipping to getter a finer coating. Like most things, it depends 
Thank you for the response and you made me laugh. I may be a beginner, but I know thats not cocoa butter.
No you don't need to add extra cocoa butter to a couverture.
Also, that's not cocoa butter in your photo, it's white chocolate.
Sooooooo, I went to Whole Foods and got a small block of chocolate (like top item pictured below). I'm going to experiment further in my new chocolate tempering machine. My question is when using the dark chocolate block, or even if it were milk chocolate, would I need to add extra choco butter during the tempering process?
If so, when and how do I do this? The cocoa butter also comes in a block brick form, (not powdered) so when and how would I incorporate this??
(PS. I am using the Revolation 2 from Chocovision)
The left over coloured cocoa butter can be re-used whenever you want. just re-melt it and it's ready to go. There's nothing special about the acetate sheets I use, just plain acetate. Thicker than what you use to wrap parcels, but i've done this with the plastic A4 pockets you use in ringbinders as well
ok, tomorrow Ill try everything you 've said
Onlytwo more questions, how can I use the mix left? and which acetate sheets do you use?
Thanks a lot
I use 5-10% fat soluble colour in cocoa butter (so for 100g of cocoa butter, I add 5-10g of colour). Mix very well (even using an immersion blender if you have enough coloured cocoa butter to do so) and strain through a stocking.
If you've added your own colour to the cocoa butter, you've probably heated the cocoa butter quite high to allow the colour to mix properly, so your coloured cocoa butter will not be in temper. As mentioned above, you temper cocoa butter the same way you do chocolate (actually, when you are tempering chocoalte, you are tempering the cocoa butter in the chocolate). I agree with Andrea that tempering coloured cocoa butter will usually need to be done by tabling because of the small amount used.
Thanks...
I have read your answers, I dont know if any of you have used powdered color with cocoa butter, I am not using exactly colored cocoa butter. I think there must be differences in the mix, todayI read in internet that I have to use 1 part powder 6 parts cocoa butter, what Ive done might have beenthick to get a desirable color. If any of you have used powdered color let me know the mix please.
I read in chef rubberthat, to temper cocoa butter you have to warm cocoa butter in increments to approximately 86 degrees Fahrenheit or 30 degrees Celsius.
You temper cocoa butter the same way you do chocolate. In this case you might need to do it using the slab technique since you would be doing such a small quantity. There is a chance that if you heated the cocoa butter too high that it may not be salvagable, although it is probably worth a try. I melt my bottles from Chef Rubber in the microwave and do it very slowly (with the caps off BTW). Do not melt the contents of theentire bottle out and once you have enough liquified and ready to work with give the bottle a good shake and you should be ready to go.
I agree with Gap - if you are going to spread chocolate on the acetate sheet it has to be very thin and you need to cut it into your chosen shapes before it has fully set and the pieces will be delicate even once they are set since they are thin.
I, too, am confused about all of the cocoa butter transferring to your dipped pieces - even the parts not touching the chocolate. I am thinking, like Gap,that the cocoa butter design is too thick. I've never had this happen. I have made transfer sheets where the color is too think and pieces of the designare peeling off the sheet even prior to use. If this is happening then I wouldn't use those sheets and the color would have to bespread thinner when remaking new transfer sheets. If you are using multiple colors when making your sheets try not to layer too many colors on each other to help avoid this problem.
Spreading chocolate onto the acetate can melt/smudge part of the design - you can work that in as part of the design if you want. You need to cut the chocolate into squares before it sets. It should be partially set so that the cut you make stays acut and doesn't flow back into a single piece of chocolate, but the chocolate shouldn't be set hard- that way you don't get irregular cuts and they will fit uniformly.
I'm not sure I understand your issue with the second method. It sounds like your cocoa butter is too thick and the whole design is coming off in which case make you cocoa butter pattern thinner (but I might be misunderstanding what you have written).
Thanks Gap and Andrea, we are trying to make hand dipped chocolates with acetate decoration on top.
We have done 2 methods:
If any of you have done acetates decoration for hand dipped chocolate, can you tell me what you have done from the beginning to end?
Thanks Gap and Andrea, we are trying to make hand dipped chocolates with acetate decoration on top.
We have done 2 methods:
Ifany of youhave done acetates decoration for hand dipped chocolate, canyou tell me whatyouhave donefrom the beginning toend?
Andrea, can you describe what you do with molds, so we can decorate them this way.
