Hi,
I am looking to equip a new chocolate factory.
Apart from tempering equipment etc, can anyone recommend a good online site for buying the accessories, like truffle spoons, etc.
Thanks in advance,
Stu
Your point is correct. That grinding and conching has to be decoupled.
Has anybody used the chocokneader attachment provided with the deluxe melanger? It is a simplified conching tool for the deluxe melanger. Can anyone test it and post the results?
When you use the choco kneader attachment, it just mixes the chocolate liquor around and there is no grinding action.
That makes sense.
Using a non grinding conche process would also decouple the grinding from the oxidisation / volatiles evaporation processes. This would give full control of the two variables. I'm very interested in lowering acidity as acidity needs balancing off with sugars.
So the thing to do is grind down to your optimal mouth feel then conche a variety of durations. Making sure the product is tested at the duration from crafting you feel a customer is most likely to consume the chocolate.
I presume it possible to do this conching in one mixer removing part of the cacao liquor at various time intervals to get a series of different volatiles.
Any idea what process is involved once the chocolate is resting? Some kind of crystalisation?
As far as I know there are two components to conching, to round the particles off for better mouth feel (the 'grinding' component) and to drive off unwanted volatile compounds (the heating/mixing component). These two usually occur in concert but with the Kenwood, as you say, there would be no grinding component.
The thing with conching though is that you need to know what you want to achieve by doing it. Iwork with some beans that I don't conche (anymore than what occurs in the time it takes to grind a batch down to 15-30 microns - heating/mixing/griding) and some that are more acidic that I find benefit from what I would call a medium conche and others that are very acidic that need a damn good conche.There is a lot ofpersonal taste in this too.
To further complicate this the flavour and mouthfeel of chocolate will change quite dramatically over the three weeks after you make it so you have to follow your chocolate's flavour/mouthfeelcarefully for about three weeks before you get good feedback on what you have done to it.
To do the heating/mixing part of conchingin a Kenwood though you would need to heat it with an IR lamp or other heating appliance.
I have seen a couple of references to people using Kenwood mixers to conche cacao for product R&D. Anyone know what mixers are involved (Chefs?) or whether and attachment is used? or how exactly its working??
I've tried mixing cacao in the 703 Kenwood Chef with mized results. The primary problem appears to be thelowest mixing speed is too high. Furthermore the K head does not move close enough to the bowl.
I'm hoping I can use my trusty old 703 for doing a bit of concing R&D work.
Thanks, Brad! Hopefully someday we can achieve a fraction of the great thingsyou've done withchocolate!
Come out and visit us sometime in Oahu!
We almost got a bar ofyourchocolate here, but our "messenger" from Calgary ate it all enroute since it was so good, and all we got were the cool looking packaging!
Great article! Congrats on the press!
Here a nice article in theHonolulu Weekly that mentions The Chocolate Life as "the facebook of chocolate";Kokoleka O'Ka 'Aina, started by Seneca, a regular on The Chocolate Life; us atMadre Chocolate,and other new goings on with cacao and chocolate in Hawaii, including the Hawaii Chocolate Festival that just happened yesterday which was a blast. Hope some of you were able to make it there!
-Nat
____________________
Nat Bletter, PhD
Chocolate R&D
Madre Chocolate
Hi Joseph,
Not sure about the first two questions but, answering the third one, three places you could have a look at are Keylink , Vantage House and Home Chocolate Factory . If you are going to order quite a lot of them, try contacting the original companies that make them. I contacted an Italian one and saved 200 in a 600 order compared to buying them from their distributors in the UK.
Have you find any wet grinders yet in the UK? I am also looking for one at the moment.
Carlos
Hola to all living the la vida cocoa,
Although this discussion title would beappropriatefor fascinating debate about the positive/negative implications of cacao/chocolate on health, the short comings of theHarkin-Engel Protocol, or whether or not there is sufficient phenylethylamine (PEA) in chocolate to reproduce the sense of well being we enjoy when we are in love.These conundrums are more specific and personal (although new insight or information into to the aforementioned debates would be welcome).
My conundrums are as follows;
Thanks in advance to the benevolent andknowledgeable memebers of this great chocolaty community.
Joseph Davies
Thank you, yes, Iceland.
Ive gone through many design ideas many of them using fancy script fonts with classic patterns. Then I tought, a lot of Chocolatiers use those Designs so I thought lets go the complete opposite straight lines, black on cream color background
The Idea with making H and K into "one" letter came from my father who used to use his mark J.K. so he put those together similar to my logo.
Im also working on boxes wich will be simple as well.
Thank you again.
What do you think about my new logo.
ok so Chocovic is like Scharffen Berger, bought by a big one but still sold under the same label with the same manufacturing process. Does that usually work?
Chocovicstill has an independentdistributor in Sweden (sama as before BC bought the company).
The previous owners of Chocovic (Nederland Group) sold Chocovic to Barry Callebaut in 2009.
BC bought the company (the deal closed December 2009) because they needed the production capacity - and it was (I heard) cheaper to buy the company than to build a new factory from scratch.
Last I checked, Chocovic's recipes were still being produced and sold under the Chocovic brand.
Dear Seneca,
You're totally right. All that can be done to reduce environmental impact should be done, and all that can be done to locally add value, the same (principles of slow food?). In coffee we have seen a recent growth of the consumption of quality coffee in countries of origin, perhaps the same will happen with chocolate. As far as I know some countries are net exporter of beans and net importer of chocolate products (Nicaragua, Peru). The emerging small batch processing could bring a positive change to this...
Best regards and thanks for the link
Rodney
Dear Clay,
Thanks for the feedback! To my knowledge (but perhaps it's too limited) not all cacao's do equally well in full sun systems, especially the criollo's require quite some shade (their natural habitat). In shaded systems the application of fertiliser is less effective in terms of production increase (the limiting factor is sunlight?).And very true, the origin of the fertiliser (organic/inorganic) matters quite a lot.
In Peru the farmers seem to replace coca production for cocoa. Coca is quite bad and after a couple of years result in highly degraded land. Cocoa is much better and at the same time sequesters carbon while being planted (especially when shade trees are added as well).
Best regards
Rodney Nikkels
I think it does bear considering that the first thing chocolate makers do with the commodity they just shipped is discard about 30% of its mass after roasting and winnowing. Certainly not the most efficient use of a pretty long supply chain :-)
However, it certainly is true that bringing the value-added component of finished chocolate closer to the agricultural supplier has many more powerful economic effects for local communities than some global reduction in transport cost to the environment. For the purposes of thinking about how chocolate fits in the slow food movement, that's probably a more topical area of inquiry.
Land use is central for emissions concerns, as you rightly point out. If anyone's interested, here's a link to a blog post on part of what we're up to in this area, including some good reference links:
http://kokachocolate.wordpress.com/2009/10/16/cacao-agriforestry-an...
Rodney:
To be clear, it's not the type of beans that are being grown it's the system of agriculture that is employed. It's possible to grow any type of bean in a "modern" (i.e., high density, no shade, intensive agricultural input) way- irrespective of "resorting" to pioneer farming (the clear cutting of primary or secondary forest for agricultural use).
The origin and source of the fertilizers being used also needs to be considered. There are examples of appropriate-scale on-site organic composting in the cacao industry.
Cacao is a good choice for rehabilitating degraded land if the planting is managed carefully for the long term and organic techniques are used (e.g., nitrogen-fixing plants are incorporated into the shade tree selection) - and in part because of the potential for economic return.
Correct?
Dear Seneca
Just a quick comment regarding the carbon footprint from fine chocolate. The carbon emission from transport is relatively limited, compared to the emissions from production stage (farms) and the chocolate manufacturing stage, therefore I don't think it matters much where the chocolate is manufactured, especially because the large scale industry is relatively efficient in terms of GHG emissions per TM of output. Perhaps for the fine chocolate industry the source of energy is something to consider (wind, water, solar, bio-mass?)
For tropical commodities, like cocoa beans, the carbon emission caused by deforestation plus the use of agro-chemicals are by far the most important GHG sources. In that sense one could say that the fine flavour (criollo, trinitario) beans do have limited impact compared to the west african cacao systems (land converion from secondary forests to cocoa plantation) or the Asian cacao production (highly fertilised). The criollo cacao beans don't cause much land conversion and use very little inputs in most cases (especially when grown by small holder farmers).Perhaps the increasing demand for fine flavour beans triggers the conversion of degraded land back into cacao farms?
It is a complex subject, so I hope I didn't make it more complex......
Best regards
Rodney Nikkels
To the extent that the slow food ethic embraces local foods, chocolate manufactured at or near the site of cacao production seems to fit well. There are an ever-increasing number of such efforts in such diverse locations as Madagascar, Ecuador, Grenada, Central America, and of course here in Hawaii.
I think the twin topics of carbon loading and the colonial production system in chocolate are vital issues for all of us to consider as the fine chocolate marketplace continues to develop...
Pimm:
Having just got done doing a very successful chocolate tasting for the NYC Slow Food chapter I would have to say that all of these companies fall within the constellation of attributes that Slow Food embraces. However, the chocolate brands themselves may or may not consider themselves to fit the Slow Food mantra.
Much chocolate is among the least-sustainable, least "locavore" gourmet foods going - beans grown in the tropics, shipped to Europe, converted to chocolate, shipped to NY and then to LA to be made into confections and then shipped ... around the world in some cases.
Something to consider.
:: Clay
it's 100% about control of water activity. if you start with fresh cream and boil off the water in the cream, for example, you've got very little shelf life concerns from a micro standpoint. if you add sufficient soluables such that any remaining water has had it's Aw lowered, you're in similiarly good shape.
Can you use fresh cream and make a shelf stable product? Absoultely. Just understand what drives the mode of failure and how to control it.
Try this: 1kg of tempered milk chocolate
1 kg of white temperd chocolate
750g of red wine , or muscat
stir all together.It will get harder but warmup the bowl on the stove and keep stiring until it comes together, smooth. spread the mixer between the frames (or a baking tray),and let set for 24 hours. and shape as you pleased
Wow, the amount of help and advice that I have received here is unbelievable! I couldn't thank you all enough! I will be trying all these things throughout the week (I still have 55 hrs a week of duty in the Army), so it may take me a while to try all these out at home, but once I figure out what worked, I will post back here to let everyone know so if someone else searches this issue later, they will have whatever worked for me.
Thanks again so much everyone!!!
technical point of clarity - while canola and rapeseed are closely related, they are different and legal definitions that distinguish them, chief of which is the fatty acid distribution. Also, his issue of shelf life will be primarily one of flavor - not food safety - as there's no water present and will be solely due to oxidation - no one's likely to get sick; it's just taste bad.
Now back to your regularly scheduled programming!
