Forum Activity for @Clay

Carrie -

Yes, please post photos. And, I agree with Ben - unless a part got broken or lost during disassembly/assembly it should be able to be put back together correctly.

Also, CocoaTown representatives are members of TheChocolateLife and once the photos are posted they should also be able to help.

Unless there is a piece that is actually broken (snapped plastic on the case, etc.), I'd imagine it can be put back together. Can you post some pictures?

Help! Because of a stupid misunderstanding(I wont get into the nitty gritty details, but it wasn't my smartest move) my Cocoatown 12SL melanger is now disassembled and I cannot put it back together. I removed the bottom piece to check the belt, and it has somehow changed size so it will not reattach. The belt and all pieces are in their places. We hired a sort of handyman to try and reassemble it, but he says that it is broken.

I am obviously a beginner; this is my first time using these machines and I am not mechanically minded. Does anyone have any insights on how I might put this thing back together? Anyone else have the same difficulties? I should not have taken it apart in the first place, but I had no idea that by simply taking out a few screws I would ruin the thing forever...

Correct.

I'll be starting it as a home business so that I could cut in rental costs. I'll be starting with the minimum equipment requirements, and I'll just work my way up to bigger Equipments.

A Stone melangeur would be good for Conching and Refining right?

For the winnower I'm planning to build my own customized winnower using a blueprint that was posted here in the website.

If you are going Bean to Bar, then you will also need a roaster, a winnower, a conch. Good cacao beans.

It depends on the quanitity of chocolaes your going to make. Marble slab method takes time and eventually you will need to invest in a tempering machine. There are cheper lower production quantity tempering machine like Chocovision Rev2. Apart from this you will need probe thermometer, bowls, dipping tools, scraper, mold. visit sites like bakedeco, chocolate doctor, ecole chocolat, jbprince, chocolateman. They sell starter kits as well

P.S Bean to Bar.

Hi everyone,

I'm Eirven from the Philippines. I'm a new member here in this forum. I would just like to ask from you expert Chocolatiers if what are the necessary Equipments that needs to be purchased right away, and what other equipments can be purchased later. (e.g Instead of buying tempering machines right away, I'll just use the manual table tempering method using Granite/Marble tables)

I'm 20 years old, and I'm planning to Start-up a small chocolate company here in the Philippines. I'll be starting as a home-based business, and will expand later.

Cheers!

P.S : Bean to Bar.

Thanks Ruth for your thoughts. Yes I've been making sure that all holes are clear and clean. I'm trying to book some troubleshooting time but as you know breaking away from the myriad of things we do to just focus on making something work right is so..meh.

I'll check the breathing holes more and worst case maybe I'll drill them a bit bigger, then start a better comparison of those that work vs those that aren't. Such small differences.

I feel like I'm diagnosing the toffee slab issues again, lol.

Andy, I used to use the same brushes, but have recently changed. I'm sure you are making sure the air hole in the lid is open? I found the same situation as you-I even started to put the "bad" lids aside so I wouldn't mix them up. Have you adjusted the nozzle on the lid?

I recently bought a Badger 175 and I'm much happier with it. I think all airbrushes come with their challenges--you just have to figure out which ones bother you the least:-). I have found that if there is even a tiny amount of butter is not melted, it will clog. I tend to run my butter a bit warm to make sure it is melted. I don't worry too much about temper-it seems to temper when sprayed. The new brush also has less atomized spray so I am not breathing it or losing extra product.

When we began we had a lot of luck looking through this site and egullet's forums, and a few blog articles found along the way for the beginner steps to airbrushing cocoa butter & cocoa / chocolate mixes. Since we're always in operation its hard to dedicate a week to learning and troubleshooting so this has been a multi-month set of experiments and learning.

Currently all we need is broad stroke work so we ended up with a nice cheap, quiet air compressor and the quick change kit:

http://www.harborfreight.com/quick-change-airbrush-kit-93506.html

We also picked up this one but since we haven't needed anything further than bulk spray at the moment its staying in the box--

http://www.harborfreight.com/airbrush-kit-47791.html

The issue I'm running into is some of the time the cocoa butter sprays, other times it does not. Fluidity and temperatures are equal, if I change the lid from one to the other that often fixes it, sometimes the working lid works, but only if its partially unscrewed-- but that's not at all efficient. After I clean and change parts a new one rises to being a working one..

For the ones that currently don't "work" if I detach the top a bit and keep it in the fluid, I can see it get drawn up, but it never seems to make it to the top. Switch a few tops out and one ends up being happier than the rest--but they all look the same.

It's just confounding me. After use I diligently clean in scorching hot water and use the pipe cleaners to clean each and every part. So if all things seem equal, what variable am I missing?

I know these kits are in use in some rather high throughput environments so while I could discount that I'm using cheap pieces I know those here and elsewhere are using them for their broad stroke application.

Anyhow, any thoughts or gotchas that you may have found along the way would be really helpful. If this continues I might take a video of it to show off the finer points of weird behavior.

Great idea. I'll let you know with photos when I get it going. I'm not sure how easy it'll be to get a ball valve in Santo Domingo. Maybe Amazon.

Yep, exactly.

You'll need to change the way you control airflow, though. My thinking was to replicate what I'm doing with my winnower, and use a pvc ball valve. So, I would hook a PVC "T" connector to the husk output of the zigzag winnower. One side would go to the dust deputy and the other would point straight up and go to a ball valve. By adjusting the valve, you'd control the airflow through the winnower.

That's great, because I ordered the Dust Deputy fromoneida after winnowing to protect my shopvac. You're saying I should instead hook it air-tight to the husk exit, right?

Thanks! I look forward to seeing the video.

One idea would be to hook it straight up to a vortex dust collector on a 5-gallon bucket, replacing the built-in shell collection chamber. I use one for my current winnower and can winnow 30 Kg or more before having to empty it.

I will put a video this W.E. The good thing about this set-up is that you immediately see what falls in the husks and can adjust the air intake. So, provided you manage a fairly consistent intake of beans from the juicer or manually, the result is really good. I did 8 Kg of roasted beans in 15 min.

My only issue is that I need to stop the vaccum cleaner in order to empty the husks side and that breaks the rhythm. Not sure if/how I could do that.

I'd love to see it in action, too! What kind of yield are you getting? Any problems with husks in the nibs or vice versa?

By strictly following the measurement and plan from the realseeds.co.uk you'll get a perfect wooden winnower on the cheap. The wood material is attractive and the plexiglass front provides a show as well allowing to check what really happens.

No problem--glad to help!

I'm not sure what you mean by it being cut 3/4 of the way and bent. When you cut the hole in the pvc, you're left with a disk. That is then bolted to the inside of the pvc pipe blocking the bottom of the feeder pipe.

It's not bent (other than the existing curve of the disk). The drawing makes it look like the curve goes top-to-bottom, but really the curve fits into the curve of the pipe, as shown in the photo on that page.

Does that answer your question, or am I still misunderstanding?

Hi Donny,

John talks about the deflector disk in this blog entry:

http://chocolatealchemy.com/2011/07/13/chocolate-alchemys-diy-winnower-part-2/

There's a lot of great info in all of the blog entries and comments about the winnower:

http://chocolatealchemy.com/2011/07/11/chocolate-alchemys-diy-winnower/

http://chocolatealchemy.com/2011/07/13/chocolate-alchemys-diy-winnower-part-2/

http://chocolatealchemy.com/2011/07/17/chocolate-alchemys-diy-winnower-part-3/

http://chocolatealchemy.com/2011/09/02/announcing-the-aether-winnow/

http://chocolatealchemy.com/2011/09/12/the-aether-sylph-winnower/ (this one has tuning instructions)

Ben

Hi Donny,

Ben

Dear Donny,

I have made that winnower a year ago and it still works well. I assume you refer to the piece of pipe you'll need to cut out and use to create a kind of convection in the supply tube? You'll just put it in-side, place look at the photo's that are placed on the site where you got it from. The system works oke for small scale, a constant supply is crucial to obtain a oke efficiency (depends a lot on the cracking of the beans).

Good luck!

Rodney

I noticed you posted a question on a DIY seed cleaner winnower that I posted a while ago.

If you are looking to DIY something yourself, I recommend this "visible" design where you can see what's happening, take it apart, and tweak it. I posted some thoughts about how to improve the basic design for use with winnowing cocoa in the comments to the video.

Donny -

This blueprint is from one of the early iterations of the "sylph" winnower that John Nanci over at Chocolate Alchemy designed. Have you asked on that forum?

BTW, you uploaded a very small thumbnail that's impossible to read.

thanks man for all your insight you have been giving me sir. I haven't gotten the book yet but I have been looking at the callebaut tv site on key tips on different brands of choc. I'm in the process of ordering callebaut choc so I will let you know what happens.

so true and that is what I have been doing all day today. I'm new to this but it is the same as my catering, the only way to find a good product is to try it out.

Harold;

Asking that question is kind of like asking the general public what the best wine to drink is.

Taste your ingredients, and then pair them accordingly. Just because you buy "good quality" chocolate doesn't mean it's going to pair well with the other ingredients you use.

You want a fruity truffle, use a fruity chocolate. You want a deep rich truffle, us a deep, rich, less fruity chocolate.

sample, sample sample.

Brad

Harold,

High Quality chocolate will really help with High Quality results.

Take a look at Callebeaut TV. It's free and they have a lot of good content.

To answer this specific questions, go to http://www.callebaut.com/uken/callebaut-tv/tutorials/the-basics-of-working-with-chocolate/choosing-the-liquidity-of-your-chocolate

this video discusses viscosity of chocolate and how it will affect your results.

Some of the differences between the chocolate chips you used and a good couveture chocolate will be the particle size, cocoa butter content, and I'm not sure what else. Essentially chocolate chips are designed to retain thier form at high heat. They can have a larger particle size because the other ingredients associated with chocolate chips i.e. flour has a much larger particle size and you wouldn't taste the texture difference.

Anyway, I'm not sure which chocolate is best. I'd play with some callebeaut or valhrona to start with.

You may also enjoy the Chocolate Apprentice blog. It is written by a lady who took the Ecole Chocolot course. It is fun to read about her expiriments, successes, and opportunties for imporovement.

Did you order the wybauw book yet?

Have a great day!

Larry

what's the best chocolate to use when making truffles?I have been playing around with some different things and thought I could just use the Toll House Semi sweet chocolate but after I made the truffles and itsat out for a day it becomes very gritty to the bite. My logic was if I could make something taste good with the "bottom of the barrel" chocolate I could make a masterpiece with a higher grade of chocolate. can anyone help me out.

chef Harold

gonna have to give a lot more details of the formulation and temperatures of operation mate. my guess is that it's simply not tempered.

Hey everyone!

Ive been playing with different beans in my melanguer and the last batch came out after 24hrs of conching. It was all fine and dandy till it set up, it got all grainy, and crumbly. Odd I thought. I tried to melt it down, and temper it, and its still grainy... Any ideas what has happened?

CHeers

Alan