Forum Activity for @Sebastian

Oh i know the weaver nut folks very well - small world it is!

I want to thank you all for these extremely useful comments, explanation, tips and remedies. Brad's comment stressing that there is no boiler plate and that "rule of thumb" is the guiding principle is a perfet conclusion. I have reached succes about 50% of the time so far, with better results with fatter beans from Granada and Trinidad in which I do not add cocoa butter. The Dominican beans are rather "dry" and I add up to 8% butter. I do leave the chocolate at 29 degre C for 2 hours before warming it up again and I leave the mould in the open in an A/C room at approx. 22 degres, but not under the fan. That works betes so far. Thank you again

Out towards Lancaster and Litiz?  I buy my chocolate from Weaver Nut in Ephrata.  Look forward to meeting you.

No store for me- but i'm about an hour west of you.  I'll need to stop by sometime!

Hello Sebastian.  It's called Chillings and Chocolate in Upper Darby PA.  What's the name of your store?

I am in Sydney, Australia and this is probably the hottest continent on Earth.  It's also very larg.  I send chocolate around Australia and indeed to New Zealand and other coutries and this is how I do it. 

http://www.captainchocolate.com.au/hot-weather-shipping/

This follows ask-maki's suggestion and it does work very well.  I get VERY few failures and if I do I just replace.

At markets I use the same idea but one really important concept is to keep the cold air from getting out and new hot air getting in.  To achieve that I pop the chocolate in the foil bag and then I heat seal it on the stand.  Then the air simply can't transverse.

I can't actually buy these bags - at least not cheaply. So I buy rolls of metalized of the material (metalized bubble wrap) that I use for shipping and cut bags out of that and make the bags myself at home before going to the markets.  Then I just have to heat-seal the opening on-site.

I DO keep all of my chocolate in polystyrene boxes on my stall to keep them cool.  And I take these nice cold bags to seal for Customers.

Oh - forgot to say. I keep my chocolate as cold as I reasonably can and load my van just as I leave for the day.  Temperture is always around 15-18C.

Hope this helps - taking care of chocolates and Customers at farmers markets becomes a real artr and I am now pretty good at it!

Colin

Captain Chocolate, Sydney, Australia

Here is another option that works. Ive heard of folks mailing in these, without ice packs, mid summer with no problems.

http://www.uline.com/BL_1566/Uline-Glamour-Bubble-Mailers

John - what's your business called?  It sounds like you're not far from me at all..

Hey John,

You can get bags like these:

http://www.4imprint.com/search/thermal/product/106542/Therm-O-Tote-Insulated-Grocery-Bag

Maybe you could do a deposit system so that people can bring them back so you're not just giving away loads of bags. Alternatively, you can always just charge them for a bag. Manoa in Hawaii gives you a bag like this if you order over a certain amount of bars.

That sounds great. We would be interested for sure. Our best form of comunication at the moment is by email info@starchildchocolate.com but would love to talk to you more.

 Hello All.  Sorry for posting my previous post in the wrong forum  - (should have gone into tip & tricks).  Still getting used to the new site!  I may have an opportunity to sell my chocolate in a local Tea Room where they serve tea and gourmet sandwiches.  Any thoughts as to pairing chocolate with tea?  The only pairing that  I currently make is a tea & honey truffle.  Thanks for the help, John 

Hello All.  I posted this in the wrong forum and I'm not sure how to "Move" it, so I'm re-posting here - still getting familiar with the new site.

In order to keep selling chocolate in the summer, I'm looking for a way to keep the chocolate from melting when customers transport it a short distance to their house (90 degree f in Philadelphia).  Any suggestions for relatively easy and inexpensive ways to do this?  Thanks for the help, John

Well we're going to start bringing in containers - we can produce 110MT per year.

Thanks for the response, We would be looking for a much larger volume than what is available on your site there.

Hello All.  This will be my second summer in business and last summer I pretty much discontinued my chocolate sales (I sell ice cream also).  I'd like to keep making / selling throughout the summer but I'm not sure how to ensure that my customers can get the chocolate home, without melting.  I live in Philadelphia and the temperatures stay in the 90's (f) for much of the summer.  Is there a relatively easy and inexpensive way to transport chocolate for small distances during hot summer months?  Thanks for the help, John

We have Guatemala beans for sale on our site onlinecacao.com

We will also have new beans from our own farm in Rio Dulce coming soon!

The James Cooper PLC is turning the shells of cocoa beans into paper

http://www.cropper.com/news/post.php?s=2014-01-17-sweet-innovation-as-cocoa-waste-is-transformed 

Wide - perhaps - not sure about wise 8-)  Certainly it could be used for fertilizer.  I'm not sure how much nitrogen or phosphorous it has, but shells do have a fair amount of potassium in them.

which is the chronological order and how often each ingredient placed?

you can use it as fertilizer on land?

Thanks Sebastian, you are very wise!

What to do with the shell?  Mulch (but it will attract bugs).  Burn it?

Absolutely do NOT use it for anything edible.  Shell is notoriously high in heavy metals and mycotoxins and all sorts of stuff that you don't want to eat.

I roasted cocoa beans and many have already separated from the seed husk. that I can do with it?

I have received three boxes of zChocolat's beautiful confections now and I have enjoyed every one (although not every chocolate in each box).  The ganache is always perfect and there are finely ground pieces of nuts in many of the chocolates that create a delicate crunch.  Just wondering if anyone else has had experiences with zChocolat and what your thoughts are?  I love the signature 'Z' chocolate so much I want to order a whole box of just that and forget all the other flavours (my Canadian palate still can't get used to lavender in chocolate - blah!). This is my most recent post about zChocolat's Mother's Day box - they sent it to me last week: http://ultimatechocolateblog.blogspot.ca/2015/04/zchocolat-will-help-you-say-i-love-you.html  I was amazed that it was so well packed that the ice pack was still cold when I received it 5 days after they sent the package from France to Canada (and a 7-hour drive north of Toronto).  Anyway, let me know what you think! I am curious about experiences that other people have had.

Anybody know of a source for a quality organic bean from Guatemala? I have had four people in the past week ask us for Guatemalan chocolate and we have yet to find a good source. Thanks

Is it fat migration from the peanut butter?

Is your center cold? that might explain the bloom and the collapse? warm it up a bit maybe that'll help?

thanks for the advice, but I think that the first machine is very small and the second very large, hehe, I hope to hear from someone who use the machine I was suggesting

hello Gap,

thanks for the advice, but I think that the first machine is very pequenia and the secondvery large, hehe, I hope to hear from someone who use the machine I was suggesting

Check out my Piecaken blog for instructions and the recipes you need to make this extravagant dessert. With an upfront rum flavour that slowly melts away as the chocolate and maple flavours take over, this dessert is a show-stopper. It's not gluten free, it's not butter-free and it's certainly not delicious-free.  http://piecaken.blogspot.ca/2015/04/pecanpiecaken-pecan-pie-inside-maple.html

 Maple Pecan Chocolate Glaze.JPG.jpg - 424KB

Here is another quote from Mark in another thread:

06/17/14 12:00:03PM  @Mark-Allan :

The screw press is not as effective as the conventional butter press. A bit, maybe 20%, of the solid is still in the butter. It's not cost effective for someone in the USA to use, because your beans are so expensive there. However here in Honduras, where they don't even sell cocoa butter, it's the cheapest way to enable bean to bar. It's also more time consuming, requiring about an hour of hands on labor, to make 2 kg of butter. On the bright side, you don't feed this machine heated chocolate liqueur as you would a butter press, you just feed it room temperature cocoa nibs.

A local machinist wanted $700 to make a conventional butter press powered by a hydraulic car jack, but he had never made that type of machine before, so it was risky.

The screw press machine itself, ordered from Alibaba, was delivered to me for a total of $230.

- See more at: https://www.thechocolatelife.com/clay/group_discuss/955/new-to-the-chocolate-life#sthash.tSfrrXML.dpuf

This is a post from this link: https://www.thechocolatelife.com/clay/group_discuss/966/longlasting-machines

07/08/14 09:49:22AM  @Mark-Allan :

Good morning again,

This is the press I bought:

http://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/High-quality-DL-ZYJ02-Traditi...

If you end up getting it, let me know and I can give you some operating tips that will save you time. Also, let the heating element warm up the drive shaft for a good 10 minutes and your output will be much more pure. I found that out on my last run. I tend to grind out enough for 3-4 batches of chocolate at once so that I don't have to run and clean the machine that often.

If I were going for higher output than 1-2kg/hour, I would look at this one:

http://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/New-Condition-and-Cold-Hot-Pressing_1922574051.html

I have used the machine in the first link a few times and I think it looks similar to yours. I've had similar experience to what Mark mentions above but have only used it a few times. Maybe Mark can chime in or your can send him a message through Chocolate Life for more information.

 It is worth adding you wont get pure cocoa butter. There will be some cocoa solids left in it and it will be black (not clear/yellowish colour). But it can be used to make chocolate.

these Chinese machines are good extraction of cocoa butter?

 Automatic_Stainless_steel_small_home_peanut_oil.jpg - 129KB

Kind of like bankers and lawyers today.....  Oh...and real estate sales people, and credit card companies.... Haha!

I think 500 to 500 mesh powder should be fine with icecream.

As far as the hammer mill, find the one that has the largest screen as possible.  It is critical to mix with lots of air during grinding process to keep the powder form getting hot and melt inside the mill.  Perhaps mix the feed with dryice could keep it from melting during grinding.

Just curious if these mini enrobers are ever seen used for sale out there by anyone...I've been looking forever and never seem to run across any.  Any small enrobers for that matter.  Thoughts?

I can make the cocoa beans taste like almost anything, depending on how they're grown, fermented, and dried.  Best thing to do is get a sample and taste them to see how that particular grower's beans taste.

I've just recived an email with this:

http://www.unionmachinery.com/Product.asp?Number=78136

Glad it was helpful - good luck!

The competition will be accepting submissions until April 24. Judging will be held in the New York City area shortly thereafter. For information on eligibility, how to enter the competition and critical dates. visit the International Chocolate Awards website .  The competition admission fee is USD $65 plus USD $40 for each entry.

And this year there are new categories for micro-batch chocolate makers. The categories were added to recognize the leading role that the U.S. craft chocolate scene has played in this world-wide movement.

The Americas Competition is one of 11 competitions taking place in 2015, with other regional rounds for France, Italy/Mediterranean, Belgium, Scandinavia, Eastern Europe, the United Kingdom, and Canada.

The World's Final judging will be in London in October.

Maricel Presilla, the awards co-founder and grand jury member, says in the four years since starting the Americas competition, the number of entries has continued to grow in number and quality. "The competition showcases the widespread revolutionary changes that have transformed the chocolate industry in the last two decades," Presilla says.

Judging for the Americas round takes place in NYC on April 28th and 29th. If would like to be considered to be a judge, please go to the judge registration page for more information and to sign up.

 international-chocolate-awards_422x2811.png - 69KB

Hi there, were you able to find the enrober you were looking for? I've been looking for over a year now and can't find one reasonably priced.  Was just curious.  Can't believe the prices of these things. 

Hi Sebastian,

thanks for the info. on tasting the different coloured beans i was getting the flavours exactly as you describe. I have made a few batches, and have been pretty happy with the outcomes so far, so with that in mind, and the fact that i am just starting out so very small productions at the moment i will just carry on, using your advice. However as demand seems to be growing i may have a bit more leverage with my supplier to do like you suggest and send a small test batch before I bulk buy.

Thanks for the help