Hi folks. I am having trouble with some of my caramels. I have a slightly chewy caramel that is slabbed, precoated w/ dark chocolate, scored then cut w/ oiled knife. I painstakingly separate each one after cutting them so they don't touch prior to enrobing (i find if they touch, they pull at one another and get misshapen). After enrobing, they hold their form nicely except that some (lately many) are cracking the exterior shell of the chocolate. Mostly they are cracking along a horizontal plane and on a couple of occasions there's a tiny dot of ooze at a corner. I don't think this is cold flow - their shape remains quite square.
Anyone else experience this? Should I just double-dip (ugh -don't want to though - I hope to avoid the extra step and thickness), or am I missing something here? Maybe just let my enrobing chocolate get a little more viscous than normal?
Also, I am slabbing caramel one day, then precoating, cutting and enrobing the next. Could this be the culprit? Does caramel need to cure longer or shorter?
Thanks for your help!
Glad to be of help, I agree on the degradation point, it is really dissapointing.
The recipe was 2 cups water, 1 cup sugar, 4 tbs cocoa powder, 3/4 cups frozen berries, 1 tbs jam of the same berries. As I said I haven't played with this but the levels of ingredients seemed good taste wize. Any berry will do, we used rasberry but the recipe actually indicates blueberries.
I look forward to partaking of an ice block when I get up to QLD next.
Cheers Tom that's really useful. I've got some samples from Nui coming and have tried again contacting Big Tree Farms but have yet to get a reply.
Normal ice blocks in Australia seem perfect examples of product "incremental degradation" i.e. the slow replacement of ingredients by cheaper replacements until the product is a sad parody of the original. The leading Lemon / Lemonade "flavours" don't actually have lemon in them at all.
Cacao butter sounds promising I hope it also increases the stability and makes an ice block less drippy. Can't go wrong with replacing cream with cacao butter health wise either.
Any tips on your raspberry cacao sorbet? Raspberry seeds usually need straining but I have good local supplies of the European and some access to the two Australian native raspberries. I'm betting blackberry or sour cherry would work well too. I've recently tried partly candied sour cherry and orange which was great.
It would be great to get them down to SA...
They are the ones!
Ah, I have found a few minutes to cruise the web. Love the ice blocks concept, reallly appeals to the scientist in me - I'd like to try them all, the muslie one last though I think. You should so do a rasbery and cocoa sorbet one, my wife made one one day and it was amazingly good! I experiment a lot with cocoa liquor as an ingredient and found that the cocoa butter does make for super creamy ice-cream but I haven't re-made the killer sorbet with cocoa liquor yet. I have been slowed down this summer by breaking my wrist which makes most things difficult let alone making chocolate. 22 days in the cast to go.
I have a small Spectra 10 machine which I use as a grinder and a conch, I do 1-2 kg batches at a time. All other machines or devices are thecommon or garden variety and I built my own winnower. It is extremelly time consuming! Also have you approached Big Tree Farms in Indo - they do raw choc and cocoa powder - Ben Ripple is on here. Just check me friends list for a quick way to find Ben and Andreas (Nui).
Good luck, hope to see some ice blocks around SA soon.
We make a milk chocolate ice block. I'd like to make a vegan chocolate ice block / sorbettoo. It's not our greatest seller but something we feel we need to do anda recipe we can improve upon. Current ingredients milk, cream, raw cocao powder and sugar. I'm hoping that upping the cocao butter will allow the lowering / elimination of cream. We are also experimenting with a aussie classic vegan chocolate / banana recipe but will probably blend the entire thing.
Vanuatu beans sound excellent. Papua too. Do you have a conche / melangeur? I've been instructed by my partner I've gotto focus on on ice blocks and diversifying into bean processing is too far off course.
Nui is these guys? http://www.nuicoconut.com/categories/Nui-Food/
I am just a hobby chocolate maker at this stage.
So your in the business of making ice blocks is that right or is that just the brand name for you chocolate?
I just realised you are not a member of the 'Chocolate Down Under' group. You might find some more info in those threads especially about Nui which makes raw chocolate bars from Vanuatu beans - they are my primary source of beans also - though I roast mine. They may be interested in helping you, Andreas is a member on here.
Which cocoa liquor you want is going to be flavour dependant, they are all quite different in this region. Vanuatu is boozy and chocolatey in flavour the Australian cacao have strong notes of pineapple and liquorice, Fiji (which Nui are also importing) are mild and have really nice honey and nut notes (similar to the beans in Samoa), Bali beans have a more orange citrus note and Papua is fruity and chocolatey - I haven't worked with beans from there myself though.
Using cacao from this region is best in my opinion, there are arange of flavour profiles, ithelps our neighbours, lowers your businesses carbon footprint and saves on shipping.
How much do you make Tom? I probably dont need that much initially, we get through about 30 kg raw Cocao powder a year currently projected to rise to 80-100 kg. But obviously if it's liquour that willbe more.
I've not used liquour for making ice blocks yet though which is another unknown.I guess the thing to do would be start with a kg or so and make a trial batch or two.
No replies for the hippies up north either, ive tried a "yummy" "cocao & almond"bar that contains some Australian cocoa, it was nice, but the taste of dried fig over powered the cocao and I don't personally like unroasted almond.
Definately keener on PNG, Vanuatu or Bali cocao too. It seems silly importing stuff from Peru when great stuff (in PNG's case) is on our doorstep.
Nicely researched list of Pacific cacao suppliers! If you're willing to look further afield, check out Whittaker's and Shoklade in New Zealand. They may have some pure chocolate liquor available for you, which is what you were describing as "Ground conched fermented [roasted] country variety cocoa bean".
Guittard makes a product like this called "Oban" but that'd be a long way away (California) to get chocolate for you.
Another interesting little company wholesaling organic chocolate ingredients. http://www.organictimes.com.au/
I'd prefer to use some form of 100% powder or blocks.
My experience with couverture (e.g. Rapunzel) is that they contain soya lecithin and added sugar. The first is unacceptable to me as Soya is a common allergen and I would like to be completely in charge of additional refined sugars. I guess cocoa butter separation and recombination that seems to be a common practice is to facilitate easier grinding to the correct size?
Do any couverturs contain 100% bean i.e. is just ground conched fermented bean maybe lightly roasted to bring out flavour if necessary? Thus the ingredient would be "Ground conched fermented [roasted] country variety cocoa bean"
I've got a couple of email to hear from yet but if they don't come through I may give Zokoko a call and see if they can produce someting from their PNG beans.
Here is some notes I've collected.
http://www.oxfam.org.nz/resources/onlinereports/learning-from-experience6.pdf
Pacific Spices Ltd. PNG www.pacificspices.com.pg
Bris Kanda PNG www.briskanda.org.pg .
They are currently working with around 1500 cocoa growers and are distributing seedlings to a larger group.
Vanuatu Organic Cocoa Growers Association (VOCGA)
VOCGA was established in 1989 and is an umbrella cooperative for ten primary processing cooperatives that supply organically-certified dry cocoa beans.
VOCGA BP279 Luganvile Santo. Vanatu. Phone. 00678 36337 / (687)7747345. Fax. 00678 36337. Email pwaresul@hotmail.com
Alternative Communities Trade in Vanuatu (ACTIV) ( www.activ.com.vu );
TradeAid in New Zealand has given them a letter of intent to begin importing cocoa value-added products (cocoa butter, powder and chocolate) once they obtain the certification.
MARALUMI 64% from Markham Plantations at Lae, Papua New Guinea. Sell to Chocolaterie Michel Cluizel (Paris, France). Markham Farm
about 30km outside Lae City along the Highlands Highway. Po Box 3419 Lae 411 Morobe Province Papua New
The cacao farm up in Mossman you may be talking about is very fledgling and I haven't heard about them shipping any beans yet, let along pressing them for cocoa powder. Can you use whole chocolate in your pops instead of powder? You may have better luck finding whole chocolate couverture from some of the local chocolate makers like Haighs or the others mentioned in this post:
http://www.thechocolatelife.com/forum/topics/zokoko-australia-weigh...
and these guys Chocolate Farm
We are having troubles with our local cacao supplier ensuring we get the same product (Northern NSW Australia). Thus we are looking for something better and with more "local" origins. We currently use raw Cacao powder. Organic and fair trade is important as is carbon miles. Raw is not hugely important as we are more concerned about taste, but having as pure and natural product as possible is important (as is ethical packaging).
I've seen good things about pacific cacao (Vanuatu), Papua New Guinea (Markham Farm?) and Indonesia (Bali). There is also some fledgeling Cacao farms up in Cairns?
Any ideas from the experts and enthusiasts our there? We would love to help some farmers who are producing some high quality cacao for our mutual benefit. We don't want to get into bean processing at the moment and are not chocolate experts. http://www.iceblocks.name/
Hi,
This is my first post. I have a small artisan truffle business. Currently my truffles arent organic. However, I have an opportunity to grow my business but its contingent upon my truffles being organic. Ive been trying to find distributors of Organic Callebaut but have been pulling my hair out trying to get anyone to respond to me.
Could someone point me to a distributor that carries organic Callebaut? Also, does anyone have any idea how much it goes for per pound.
Thanks!
Cherie
You can certainly get panning machines for a lot less than $16K. However, they do require a good deal of skill to learn to use well. (Hint #1 - you do NOT use tempered chocolate when panning). If you don't want to learn, or don't have the time to learn, a system like the Selmi Comfit is basically automatic. However, you do pay for it.
Enrobing does sound like it could work, but one thing to look for is that the enrober has a "bottomer" feature. This is when the carry chain goes below the level of the chocolate for a brief period to ensure that the bottom gets coated, not just the top.
In the Selmi line the smallest machine that accepts an enrobing belt is the Plus, and the combination is well over $20k, last I checked. FBM's smallest continuous temperer/enrober combination is about 10K Euros (~$13,500) after TheChocolateLife member discount. You may be able to find a batch/wheel combination for less.
Otherwise, a used machine may be your best bet.
If it's pretzel like - it should be able to be panned. Suspect you can put together something for panning for less than $16,000 unless you want a nice one with built in heating and cooling like the Selmi panner.
Clay,
It's a round shaped pretzel product.
Thanks for your input.
The panning machine I looked at cost $16,000 which is crazy out of our reach - are enrobers less expensive and/or more readily available second hand?
Margaret
At 250 pieces an hour (based on your 2000/day assumption) you will need some type of cooling whether a tunnel or take off paper to refrigeration even though you are using compound.
I am assuming you are doing a cake ball of some description and they do enrobe because they tend to have a somewhat flat bottom and thereby are more enrobe-able. I have seen cake balls done on Selmi enrobers both with and without tunnel.
With Clay on the panning - great solution to items that are firm but would not be a solution to cake ball or the like.
brian
Margaret:
Panning is an interesting concept, put would only work if the center is really solid. It wouldn't work on a ganache center for example.
What kind of center do you want to coat?
Steve:
If you could post a photo of what one of the items looks like, next to something that will give a good size reference, that would help.
You could probably use an enrobing line that comes with a "bottomer." If you post a photo, I can forward to someone who does this for a living and he can let me know if it will work for you.
Steve,
Did you ever solve your enrobing a round product issue?
I too have this situation, my product is smaller than a golf ball but bigger than a malt ball, and am thinking of attempting the panning process.
Please let me know what you came up with.
Thanks,
Margaret
Thanks Ruth. Yes, it is compound chocolate. I thought an enrober might not work well with a round product, but perhaps a "shaker" attachment might make it work.
Best,
Steve
Thanks for replying Kerry. You are correct, it is compound chocolate.
Best,
When you say you are using couverture so you don't need to temper - do you mean you are using compound chocolate?
Round things are a little harder to enrobe on an enrobing line due to the shape. If you are using chocolate that doesn't require tempering - then I expect a cooling tunnel is less necessary.
Hello everyone,
I own a bakery and we make a ping pong ball sized product that is currently hand dipped in chocolate using, ahem, a spoon. As our volumes (about 2,000 per 8 hour shift) have outpaced this antiquated method we are about to invest in enrobing equipment but really need your expert advice. I am using a couverture chocolate so tempering is not necessary. I simply need to get a nice, even coat on a round product.
I've thought about the Hilliards Compact enrober but want to get ideas on used equipment as well. I'm trying to avoid a cooling tunnel due to costs, hoping that a six to eight foot belt at the end of the enrober will give me enough cooling time at room temp to move these to a tray.
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Many thanks for the help!!
Steve
I'm interested in purchasing a small machine to increase our current hand/manual only production. This would include the tempering machine, enrober belt, etc. Wondering if anyone is interested in selling their unit?
El Palacio Nacional (which I think is in the same place or right next to the Museum of Anthropology) has some great Diego Rivera friezes that depict the Aztec and Maya history of cacao, unfortunately the best one is in the corner upstairs. Not a great viewing spot.
Mayordomo shops around town, the closest one 2 km away,
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&source=s_d&saddr=Norte+3860,+Centro,+72000+Puebla,+Mexico+ (Chocolate+Mayordomo+de+Oaxaca)&daddr=Plaza+de+la+Constituci%C3%B3n+1,+06060+Mexico+City,+Mexico+(Palacio+Nacional)&geocode=FZhYKAEdrM8W-iFTFEI1emVTfw%3BFYprKAEd1owW-iEbSuaAdLTwCg&hl=en&mra=pd&mrcr=0&sll=19.402654,-99.176466&sspn=0.103462,0.115185&ie=UTF8&t=h&z=15
have a good selection of moles and coarse ground chocolate bars. This is the standard Oaxacan drinking chocolate.
I will be in Mexico city for a week, are there interesting chocolate related places? I am planning to visit the Museum of Antropology and El Moro, the hot chocolate place. But perhaps there are classes or something else....Please let me know
Thank you in advance.
Jeff - as someone noted, it's a pretty large topic to cover in a 5 minute web post on Christmas eve 8-) Mass of fermentation, length of ferment, is it co-fermented with something, the type of container used (is a container used?), the degree of aeration, the degree of 'weep' removal, temperature control, type of microorganisms used and when introduced, etc all factor into it. Of course, don't forget that the most important factor is, of course, the bean itself and it's genetic heritage. One of the issues you're dealing with in Indo (and they're legion i'm afraid), is that the majority of the genetic material that has been planted is simply not that good for flavor or fat levels, but it can be a high yielding variant. Of course you've got pod transportation issues, CPB pests, emerging phytophthera issues, and not many people ferment. The majority of indonesian stock can, however, be fermented in such as way as to produce a flavor profile that emulates many other origins - but even so, the fat levels will be depressed.
What's right or wrong? It depends on what you want to get - the question in and of itself is sort of like asking if a red car or a blue car is better 8-)
Same author, and also worth a read, but not the book. Try looking it up on Alibris or abe's books online. Copies do show up from time to time.
I would also recommend checking out more general texts on cacao like Wood & Lass' Cocoa:
http://www.amazon.com/Cocoa-Tropical-Agriculture-Wood-DTA/dp/063206398X
There are some very good reading lists in other threads around the site, so spend some time poking around older discussions as well...
I googled the book and nothing about book came out.
Looks like it's gonna be very hard to find, but well, finger crossed. 
Thank you for the warning.
I am currently learning about chocolate and cocoa.
One thing I've learned is that the quality of beans in Indonesia is below standard(mostly) due to the post-harvest care.
I have a dream to have my very own bean-to-bar chocolate factory in Indonesia.
I realize that it's gonna be time-consuming, that's why I might as well start now.
Do your best to find Arthur Knapp's Cacao Fermentation. I know I've mentioned it elsewhere, but although it's out of print and old, it remains one of the very best resources on the subject.
Be prepared...fermentation and drying together are a truly massive subject, and anybody serious about post harvest processing of cacao is likely to spend an inordinate amount of their time (and probably their entire career) thinking about and refining fermentation and drying processes.
