Forum Activity for @Clay

Vladislav:

I represent FBM equipment to ChocolateLife members around the world. FBM introduced continuous tempering technology to the artisan chocolatier market back in 1977 and has been a technology leader since then. FBM was also the first company to introduce all-digital controls on their machines back in 1997.

One thing to consider about enrobing belts is that the actual amount of chocolate you need is relatively small. If you are running 500 pieces per hour through the machine and putting 5 grams of chocolate on each piece, you only need 2.5kg of chocolate per hour. Getting a machine with a working bowl of 24kg that can temper >90kg/hr of chocolate is much more capacity that you can use and it costs a lot more than you should have to pay.

FBM makes machines with 7kg and 12kg working bowl capacities that accept an enrober belt and that cost thousands of Euros less than Selmi machines. All FBM machines are made to order, so you can get yours customized if you want. A common customization is a longer take-off belt. You can also get a device that will sprinkle chopped nuts and the like over the top of your enrobed items.FBM will build and deliver the machine you need.

In order to increase the capacity of your enrobing line you need to increase the width of the belt, not the size of the tank. The FBM Unica (which has a 25kg working bowl) can be equipped with a 25cm-wide enrober belt instead of the standard 18cm belt. This increases the capacity of the system by about 30%. FBM also makes tempering/enrobing units with 30cm (45kg working bowl) and 40cm (60kg working bowl) belts.

I can also offer ChocolateLife members a 10% discount off the list prices on all machines (not including shipping, etc.).

Hello!

I have a small factory. We produce about 15 tons of chocolate per year (truffles, enrobed pralines, moulding pralines etc.). Premium segment. While we are working on wheeled machines Prefamac (30 kg each). Next season I want to upgrade production. I want to buy an automatic tempering machine 30 or 60 kg and enrobing belt. Choose between Selmi R-200 and Prefamac.

I want to purchase a reliable and convenient facilities. I do not want to overpay for the bells and whistles.

I ask you to share your experiences and advise which brand to choose? Thank you in advance.

HACCP isn't going to be a cut/paste. You'll need to develop it for your own facility. Main elements will be to identify control points for

1) Micro (usually roasting)

2) Foreign material - usually done via a combination of screening and metal detection

chocovision revolation 1

Fin:

There's no way we can even begin to start thinking about helping you unless you can tell us the brand and model of tempering machine you're talking about.

Great stuff...thank again for the valuable information.

With limited budget, i have some idea on equipment i need for initial setup. I will take a look at this an other sites for second hand gear. I tried to look for some on ebay, but its hard to find second goods for this industry on ebay. I guess people are quite happy with what they are using. Appreciate your feedback.

You don't make "chocolates" with panning. You are right - it's for coating centers such as coffee beans, nuts, freeze dried strawberries, razzcherries and the like. No, you can't make truffles, ganache etc.

BUT - to do the more "fancy" stuff you need expensive equipment if you are to do this in commercial quantiies. You can do some REALLY nice creations for a small outlay but if you want to make money you need to splash out.

I was not really in a place I could do that and I needed to be profitable quickly so I decided on panning.

Others can help you on equipment needed and prices. Clay has access to some great gear at more than fair prices. But it can still get costly. Union Standard in New York have good deals on second hand gear too although that proved too costly for me down here in Australia - but it should be far better for you. And this website has great deals on second hand gear quite often.

Not sure I can say much more except "good luck!"

Colin

Thanks a Coli, thats a great piece of information especially on the demand side of things.

Can you clarify a few points.

1. What kind of chocolate do you make using the panning method. I was under he impression, panning is used if you want to coat nuts with chocolate, sugar etc. Can you use the panning method to make Truffle, ganache and so on?

2. What advise can you give for someone who is on a limited budget, regarding the list if equipments that is required for chocolate based products?

I have received so much valuable advice in this forum that I feel a need to "give back" where I can. However I don't do the really clever stuff that so many in this group do so I held back. But I DO have a market stall and manage to pull in around $600-$1000 a day from that stall.

I could not afford the equipment required for so many chocolate products so decided on panning. Pans are relatively inexpensive and I now have two of them with which I can make up to 70Kg per day (packing is another story!)

Your stall will give you access to all sorts of people and their ideas and also allow you to test your ideas and products.

One REALLY critical thing is to consider who you will sell to and select a market in an area that will give you best returns. I abandonded one market that was giving me back less than $200 a day shifting to one that gave me $600-$1000 a day. The difference was the demographics of the area (the new one has a population with higher disposable income and lots of tourists) and also the time of opening hours. A common "objection" I encounter is "it's too early for chocolate". So I selected a market that opened at 10:00am and closed at 4:00pm as opposed to 7:00am closing at 2:00pm. Made a huge difference!

Hope this helps a bit and if you need more info I'll be pleased to comment.

Colin

Would love to hear your comments?

Hi,

To start with I have to give all the writers in the forum a big Thank You for all the interesting and valuable information. I doubt I will ever find another site that is so informative.

My wife and I recently enrolled ourselves in an online chocolate making course and we are at the end stage of the course. This course has been quite helpful, where you learn about the cacao, chocolate history, tempering techniques, supply sourcing and on how to make your very own Truffle, Ganache, etc.

In time we intend to either start a chocolate stall in a mall or supply gourmet chocolate to retail shops who simply import chocolate. However in order to take this step, I would like to hear your valuable advice, especially on what types of equipment will be required. So far we have been tempering chocolate by hand on top of a marble, i would assume that we would require a tempering machine, melting machine. The chocolate will be made at home mainly at first and then supplied directly to shops etc.

Thanks in advance for your inputs.

oh I didn't see that, thank you!

Older discussion here: http://www.thechocolatelife.com/forum/topics/quest-for-micrometer

Does anyone know of a good, easy-to-use micrometer for chocolate?

I used to use white sugar and sorghum syrup, now I use organic cane with sorghum syrup and brown rice syrup.

The pieces are stable for a couple of days, then begin to crystalize.

Suggestions? Is it balancing fructose / sucrose?

That looks interesting! I might have to check it out. Thank you!

You might try something like this: http://www.pastrychef.com/CONFECTIONERY-FUNNEL--ECONOMY_p_2176.html

Piping bag?

Hi!

I'm a new candy maker and am entirely self-taught in regards to chocolate. My business is not chocolate focused, but I do use chocolate to drizzle over the candies that I make. I'm currently using a Rev Delta temperer, with a ladle to fill squeeze bottles for drizzling. The problem is that my hands are going to give out after squeezing bottle after bottle to do one batch after another. Does anyone know of a chocolate tool, trick or ANYTHING that is easier than the squeeze bottle? My fingers are beginning to lock-no joke! I need a pretty uniform drizzle, so a wire whisk doesn't work for my purposes. I'm hoping there's a heavier duty piece of equipment that will work for larger batches? I'm imagining a gun with tube and pump that connects to my temperer, but as far as I can tell such a thing does not exist for drizzling purposes. I'm really small time, in business less than a year, and that should tell you what I can budget--not much, but I'm hoping to save up if there's something that will work, even if it's a little expensive.

Any help is appreciated, this is my first post and I really enjoy the community and all the helpful things people write.

Thanks!

Thanks for the suggestion. Lowering the temperature might indeed solve my problem. I'll give it a try very soon, but I have a good feeling about it.

Even though it is true that you don't need to temper colored cocoa butter you want to work with it at as low a working temperature as possible. You can still easily spray it at 28-29 degrees. Working at that temperature will give you ability to work up close with your mold as well as apply a thick coat. You need to practice a little bit to find a perfect balance between your cocoa butter and the conditions of your room. I am sure you know this already , but if possible you should always in exactly the same temperature/humidity setting. If you would like to be able to spray for a long time (large mold, multiple molds) you can momentarily heat your brush with hot air (( hair dryer, kitchen torch( I prefer the later)

Hi,

I recently ran into an airbrush problem. I sprayed my mould with yellow and red cacaobutter (untempered cacaobutter at 35C using a compressor, not a can of compressed air) and then I moulded it with white chocolate.

Up till now I didn't have any problems airbrushing, but this time I encountered small areas on some of the chocolates where the coloured cacaobutter stayed attached on the mould after unmoulding.

According to Peter Greweling's book (and from personal experience), it is not required to temper the cacaobutter since airbrushing will take care of this. I was wondering if perhaps I sprayed too close to the mould causing the cacaobutter to have insufficient time to agitate and cool down in order to properly pre-crystalize?

Does anyone has any ideas on what might be causing this? As far as I know, there isn't really anything that I've done differently this time (except I was now using white chocolate). Or is this simply a matter of unmoulding to quickly (which I personally doubt)?

I've attached a photo of the problem.

Thanks,

Clarah:

Are you planning to open your shop in the Cote d'Ivoire?

Well, there's a LOT of variables here. Are you purchasing the land and building for your location, or are you planning on renting? Are you putting the kitchen into the location, or is there already one there? Are you planning on making everything by hand, or do you want machinery to automate certain processes?

Just these three questions can each make a $50,000 or more difference in the cost of setting up your own shop. Giving a little more information could definitely help narrow down your question and hence the answer. Are you trying to do this on as little cash as possible, or are you thinking you'll have the capital to throw down a couple hundred thousand if need be? I'm guessing you're somewhere in the middle there with not quite broke and on a shoestring budget, but not strapped with cash you're waiting to spend on something ridiculous, right? lol

Myself, I'm working on putting together a kitchen in our church to work out of (loving the idea of not having any rent or property taxes for overhead; just paying the increase in bills, and doing various services for the church in exchange), and we're doing it on a TIGHT budget. We're about a third to a quarter of the way done purchasing the equipment (for a general bakery, not a chocolate shop), and we've spent about $2500 so far. I'm not sure how your health district, but ours requires a class 1 hood to be installed over any equipment that has the ability to cook oil (IE: ANY type of stovetop or range). If yours is the same, you'll need a hood to be able to cook any sort of ganache or caramel. That in and of itself is a HUGE expense. I'm hoping to purchase a used 10' hood for around $1000-1500 (craigslist is a huge boon in used equipment purchasing), but I'll still have to get a contractor to install it and the fire suppression system.

Well, that's a bunch of rambling that I hope made sense.

~Tom

Evan;

Have you ever heard the phrase "Give a man a fish, and he'll eat for a day, but teach a man to fish and he'll eat for a lifetime."?

It's pretty cliche', I know.

In my first reply to you, I "taught you how to fish" by pointing you in the direction of a wealth of fabulous advice and contribution from respected professionals all over the world - resources that I myself have used many times on my path of making chocolate.

Your reply was in essence "I don't wanna do the work. Just feed me."

THEN... after getting advice from someone else, you publicly opted to ignore it and wrote that you're going to do your own thing anyway.

I spend a heck of a lot of time helping people NICELY on this site and others - time that I don't earn a single dime for. In many regards it's my way of giving back to the community as a whole - a community that has helped my business become successful.

What I take issue with (and have no problem vocalizing it) is when people ask me to spoon feed them information under the premise of "just being nice". My answer is what you got: "I showed you where to find the answer, now stop being so freaking lazy, and look it up."

But then again, maybe I should be silent and LET you go down the path of making crappy chocolate. After all I'll be opening up a store out in Victoria in the next year or so. It wouldn't be good business to assist a competitor.

I hope that clarifies my "sensitivity" as you so put it. I'll be sure to include a rainbow in my next post just to make you feel better.

Cheers

Brad

Ruth -

Thanks for the reference materials.

It is a little confusing because chocolate is not technically an emulsion but a suspension or dispersion so while lecithin in an emulsifier does it act as an emulsifier when it's not used in an emulsion?

Free water does play a role, and lecithin works, in part, by reducing the surface tension between any water in the suspension and the rest of the ingredients. The physics and chemistry is a lot more complicated than that, of course.

Evan - as for the question in the last paragraph you'll have to test it out for yourself. Using liquid sweeteners is not common in chocolate and most of the people I know who do use liquid sweeteners do not use lecithin.

You might want to read this article. http://www.lecitina.it/pdf/Lecithins%20in%20the%20Chocolate%20and%20Confectionery%20Industry.pdf

Dude im not sure why you are so sensitive and harsh but im sure it would be much appreciated by many if you took a little more time to love and be humbled in this life. Your words would go much farther into peoples awareness and your help be welcomed if you shared with more care. Im not going to waste any time refuting or challenging your petty insults and will instead bring up your somewhat helpful advice and see what we can figure out together, cause we are all trying to make awesome chocolate here, arent we??

I only say lecithin binds with water as on chocolate alchemy the administrator on there mentioned it for that specific reason. I cant find the specific quote on his site anymore but further research led me to descriptions on a cosmetics site stating "lecithin iscapable to bind water & fats (prevents fat-water separation)"... Which, by definition, is an emulsifier. I imagine thats what the administrator was meaning but didnt lay out a full description. So I guess better to say that it actually binds fat and water, which is why im wondering if that will help the chocolate to temper more easily while using more water based sweeteners??


Many thanks for all the advice fellow chocolatiers.

Evan;

Lecithin doesn't bind with water. In the case of chocolate it's not an emulsifier (something I have already written about in another post, so here I go again repeating myself needlessly because you choose not to do any homework).

For those interested in making QUALITY chocolate dark, lecithin isn't even a consideration.

...but then again, what difference does it make what anybody says? You get advice from two very "wise people who just want to help you out" (your term paraphrased, not mine). and then go do what you wanted to do in the first place anyway. Why even bother asking for help?

I mean really.... How hard is it to google "Soy Lecithin" ? The first link that appears is a Wikipedia breakdown of everything you need to know. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lecithin

Instead, you are too lazy, and expect people to "just help you out."

I did help you out. A lot.

Given that you aren't going to listen to Clay or myself, I'm sure the next question you're going to ask, is "how come my watery, gummy, chocolate won't temper? Can somebody help me out?"

Nope. Don't think so....

Geesh.... some people....

Thank you very much Clay. This is what I was hoping to hear from a forum. I have spent many hours on forums and although it is wise to link people to already worked information it is also wise to just help someone out who has multiple/slightly specific questions. So thanks for the reply.


Im going to pick up some sunflower lecithin and just give it a go (using a very small amount) as im sure the market around here, Coastal BC, will be turned away by the word soy no matter how non GMO it is. Some companies seem to be working with it with no problem so I will do my rounds of testing. As the sweeteners are watery im hoping the lecithin will bind with the water enough to ease tempering ability.

Many thanks, I will repost what I come up with to give further insight into the journey.

Good Eve

Clay;

Your first paragraph implies that I failed to credit the content of this site. That's not true. I credited this site equally. by referring to ".....THIS AND Chocolate Alchemy's site."

Cheers.

Brad

While Brad is right that many if not all of your questions will be answered on Chocolate Alchemy as the owner of this site I like to think that members of TheChocolateLife so have something to add that could be unique.

Question Set 1)

If you don't want to go bean to bar yet, your only option is to work from paste and/or butter and/or powder. Many companies in the raw chocolate community got their start this way and continue to work this way. If you use a liquid sweetener or coconut palm nectar you do not need a melangeur to incorporate (grind) the sweetener into the other ingredients. Because of the water in honey, maple syrup, and agave syrup and they are the identical sweetness of cane sugar you will find that tempering is different from chocolate that uses a crystalline sugar and that recipes will differ.

Question Set 2)

The trend is definitely toward lighter-weight bars especially for bars made from expensive ingredients that would otherwise have a very high price point. I've seen them as low as 25gr (Domori) up to the 70-80gr range. What makes sense for your market depends on your cost structure. You can choose the price point - bar weight - based on your cost of goods and cost of manufacturing.

Question Set 3)

If you are looking for custom molds and don't want to spend US$5k or more, you are looking at thermoform molds. I don't who the manufacturers are in Canada. Tomric in Rochester, NY offers a good thermoform mold program and Micelli Brothers (also in New York) is offering a mold program for custom injection polycarbonate molds for small producers at $5000 for 100 molds that includes design, prototypes, and manufacturing, but not shipping.

Question Set 4)

Everyone I know who knows anything about sunflower lecithin says stay away from it in chocolate because it does not have a neutral taste and it will affect the taste of the chocolate negatively. You can get certified GMO-free soy lecithin (if GMO is the issue, not allergies. Lecithin will improve the workability and texture of conventional chocolate. As you are looking at sweeteners with a very high water content, I am not sure what the outcome will be.

seconded Brad.

Deadendish....

Ok... to avoid posting repetitive answers, my suggestion would be to read the many many many contributions on this and Chocolate Alchemy's site. They will answer all of your questions, and eliminate the need for redundant postings.

Cheers

Brad

Thanks for your insight.

I may be early in my development and some of the questions might not have validity in their thinking, however some do and to say "do more research" is somewhat deadendish in its support. I am doing more research continually and this is part of my research. Any insight into what I asked would be much appreciated.

I will check out chocolate alchemy and see what more I can find.

Thank you kindly

Evan;

This will probably be the most valuable feedback anyone can provide you, given the nature and context of your questions: "Do a LOT more research before starting your business. You know absolutely nothing about chocolate."

There is a wealth of information on this site, and www.ChocolateAlchemy.com which will answer your questions (and then some), and give you the foundation you need to have at least a small prayer of hope in success.

Hello everyone! First of all I would like to give thanks to all who contribute to such a wonderful site, the information has been hugely helpful for me so far. I have a few questions that havent been exactly covered or at least I havent found them. Here we go!

So I am now undertaking the wonderful journey of chocolate. I have aspirations to go all the way to bean to bar production, go down south and find my favorite little farm, have baths in cacao liqueur and eat chocolate every day forever and ever

However, I have chosen to just start out working with raw paste (i will be making mostly raw chocolate but am not limiting myself), melting down, working my recipes, tempering on stone and molding bars for sale.

Question set number 1:

Is working with paste a good way to start? Is the raw paste available from most distributors already melanged enough for commercial grade chocolate?? I will be using honey and maple syrup for sweeteners (which im hoping are shelf stable) so i dont think I will need a melanger for breaking down the sugar particles.

Question set number 2:

Does anyone have any opinion on bars?? Have you noticed people preferring bigger bars (100g +) or smaller (+-50g) in general. Im thinking of hitting about the 75g range so the bars arent too pricey and still big enough to enjoy a full chocolate experience.

Question set number 3:

Who makes the best molds around for bars?? Where is the best place to look for packaging materials in Canada? Im going to go with foil and paper as it seems to be the easiest.

Question set number 3:

Will I get more shelf life, creamier texture if I use sunflower lecithin?



Many thanks!! I am aiming to get the company off the ground asap and am super thankful for any feedback.

LOVE

Thanks for all the suggestions!

Not in the USA but...... http://www.pcb-creation.fr/

My favorite brand of transfer sheet is PCB and Qzina supplies them. Also, www.bakedeco.com is a excellent source.

I also really like Choco Trasfer Sheets. Nicole and Kurt are great people.