I probably had little bit to much in the drum.
The temperature was around 55c so I don't think it was that.
I just realise the humidity was quite high, around 65%, do you think this could make the chocolate thicker? As I had trouble for tempering, the chocolate started to thicken a lot at 27c.
I know the ideal humidity is 50% or less. Is 65% already to much for work with chocolate?
You've got a lot of variables here. You need both stones to be rolling for sure. It sounds like too much chocolate in the bowl or the chocolate is not warm enough. Not knowing your percentages of ingredients, only suggestion would be to make sure the chocolate mass is warm enough to keep it moving. You are probably going to want temps over 125f to help with viscosity unless you are using additional ingredients to improve viscosity. Was the sugar warm when added? If not, it could take longer than 4 hours for the temp to recover.
When you added the milk powder the mixture became too thick.
There is not enough pressure being exerted on the stones - evenly - against the bottom of the bowl - so one or more of the stones stops turning.
If you take out some (or most) of the chocolate does this solve your problem? If you can get the chocolate started and fluid you may be able to add the rest back in in small amounts.
Do you think so? Maybe already it is too much.
The thing is all the chocolate was in since 12h,I added the sugar and butter and let it run for 4h and it is only when I added the powder milk, the stone before the scraper stopped after 1h.
And since then the stone spin when I turn the drum by hand but stay fix when I start the grinder!?
I have 2.1kg in the drum in total, is it to much maybe?
you must control adding cocoa belong. do not put all the cocoa together, first start adding some, and then a few more, and few more.
I dont have the machine, and I ask regards because my english is not well. And its late i am tired.
david
Hi,
I'm just starting making chocolate at home and use my "Ultra Grinder+" for the second time and I have a small problem about the stones, when I had ingredients, one or the other stop spinning. It is always only one who stop. I cannot see any sugar stock somewhere or anything else, the chocolate isfluidso I don't understand, why one stone doesn't spinne.
Should I worries about that or not and is there anything I can do to fix that? Even if this doesn't damage anything, I imagine this slow down the process as only one stone do the work!
Any advice will be welcome, thanks by advance.
Best regards,
Thomas
The Little Dipper is a seed machine - you shouldn't have to go to 80F to form stable crystals. Remove any crystal memory by pre-heating the chocolate and then start to seed as the chocolate approaches 91 (or so) on the cool down.
brian
I haven't successfully made chocolate from cocoa beans, but why do you have to get it to 80 degrees?
http://chocolatealchemy.com/illustrated-tempering/ has a great illustrated tutorial on tempering without seed and they suggest taking the chocolate to 80 degrees to get more types of cocoa crystals then bringing the temperature back up to melt the type I - IV crystals.
However, if you chocolate will only go down to 84, then what is wrong with letting it run there for awhile to build some lower class crystals & bringing it back up to 89?
As far as the chocolate not getting any colder, what is the temperature of your room?
Do the lights come on when the machine is trying to cool to 80? If they do, then that is a machine problem and may be solved by calling Hilliard.
We have a little dipper and it's simple but fantastic.
I cannot imagine the machine would distinguish the difference between percentage cacao chocolates.
Hmmm... Interesting idea Brian. Might just try that! Thanks Colin 
Try pre-coating with a little cocoa powder. It will help[ the chocolate adhere and also if the coat is thinner in spots it will not have a significant color difference.
brian
Thanks Mark. I precoat the centers with choclate thinned down with cocoa butter - time consuming but to date the only way I know to do this.
I do cool as I go by directing air from an air conditioner onto the product.
The chocolate is stright from the box and I hold it at around 45 degrees C so it should be OK. If I take it down too far it goes "oily" which will be the cocoa butter separating.
I don't think I'm adding too much chocolate at a time. If I do it then adheres to the pan rather than the product. In fact I do find that it pays to be generous with the application otherwise the product starts to break up - a real challenge!
I am using untempered chocolate. If it' tempered it's much harder to do and slow. The vibration of the chocolate tempers it I believe.
Thanks so much for your thoughts!
Colin
Chocolate does not like to stick to the dried strawberries. A pre coating of gum Arabic or gelatin can help.
Are you cooling the chocolate sufficiently after each dose of chocolate?
Is your chocolate the right viscosity?
Are you adding too much chocolate at each dose?
I am panning freeze dried strawberries. So quite large (much larger than coffee beans).
Currently using milk chocolate but I use white & dark too.
Problem is that as I pan deep crevices develop exposing the strawberry through the chocolate. At first I thought that if I stopped adding chocolate and simply let the batch "run" the chocolate would close over the crevises and then I could continue to add chocolate and get a nice result. But the crevices actually deepen right down to the strawberry.
I THINK I know why. I think that there are naturally "holes" in the centers and that chocolate covers the center but leaves cavities. The chocolate in the "ridges" becomes tempered by vibration but the chocolate in the cavities remains untempered and shakes out - thus the cavity grows.
This may NOT be a reasonable explanation but from my hours of observation is the conclusion I have come to.
Does anyone have any idea as to how to avoid or fix the peoblem please? It's sending me nuts and consuming a massive amount of time and effort.
Thanks!
I use Dreidoppel flavoring pastes for Strawberry, Raspberry and Orange flavors regularly in ganache and have been very happy with the results.
I am developing a ganache w/ fresh strawberry juice. Also 1 w/ fresh Pineapple juice. I have tried reducing them to concentrate them. The pineapple doesn't work at all, the strawberry concentrates but loses it's brightness( best word I could think of) I use ravi purees for some things. i know they add a little sugar to them but are they concentrated?. Any ideas or techniques to use? Thanks
I called other bar makers & they said they just went to a local printer. I had mine done online. They came out great but not much help on advice. I have to make several changes on the next batch due to my lack of knowledge in such things. I am looking to a local printer so I can work a lil closer w/ them during the process. I don't know the cost difference yet.
I would be highly interested in this for the USA also, so another thread does not have to be made. 
I got a quote from Dion labeling here in the US and it looked like for about 5000 wrappers with full adhesive it was about 20-25 cents per wrapper USA currency.
Info on this would be amazingly appreciated though.
Hi All,
could anyone advise me of companies supplying custom outer wrappers for chocolate bars? I am really struggling with this. Preferably in Canada but anywhere would be fine. I have a long list of packaging suppliers for boxes, foils etc. but can't seem to find anyone who does the bar wrappers. Thanks.
Yeah, Sounds like I will justhave to keep it how I have it, as I do not want to lose durability. I use this for my business.
And yes I am currently using 5oz of cacao butter for my 60% 70% and 84%, I keep it consistent, I like that number.
Steven:
From your description of the problem I am guessing that you're using one of the 12 (5 kilo) machines.
What's happening is that there's not enough pressure exerted on the rollers to keep them reliably in contact with the bowl surface when the chocolate reaches a certain viscosity.
To some extent your telling us the percentage in your recipes doesn't help because we don't know the fat content of your beans and whether or not you add any cocoa butter to your recipes. You can have two recipes with the same cocoa content with very different viscosities.
Cocoatown is now offering machines that enables users to increase the pressure on the stones to help keep them in contact with the base. This might be what you need. However keep in mind that this extra pressure will probably reduce the life of the nylon bushings, which will cause other problems.
I have been using 5% cacao butter which seems to loosen up the chocolate enough to keep the rollers moving. I find issues around seizing happening when I used milk powder much more than when I make dark chocolate.
So I have been running chocolate in my Cocoa town, and we do a few 60% bars and a couple 70% bars. I have noticed that at a certain point the chocolate+sugar will get thick enough that the wheels will stop at these lower percentages. The drum keeps spinning and stays hot, but I thought this was odd. Anyone have any input?
Hi!
I'm pursuing my Masters right now, and for my dissertation, I'm trying to understand the consumer behaviour with regards to Luxury Chocolates... what affects people buying premium chocolates in India, what their perception is, and if anyone affects their purchase choices.
I have created a questionnaire for the same. These findings will in turn be used to recommend companies in their branding and communications in India.
If residents of India could kindly send in their responses -
http://kwiksurveys.com/s.asp?sid=m469e53jofelpus189412
This survey is conducted solely for academic purpose.
No personal information is required. The findings and data are confidential, and only for this piece of dissertation.
Your participation would be greatly appreciated!
THANK YOU!
I am brand new to The Chocolate Life. The main reason I made an account is to get on here and start talking with others to broaden my personal knowledge as well as help others whenever possible.
Here is my question. I have been looking into an X3210 for my small business, I sell chocolate at the farmers market, currently I run 5lb batches in my premier/cocoatown stone grinders which leaves me with 10lbs after the job is finished approx 6 hours laters. I have been reading into these machines, and figured that with my liquid chocolate I would be able to just pour the chocolate into the machine (all 10lbs) and press the temper button and let it go. I recently was reading and also watched a youtube video about the Chocovision X3210 and realized... Okay now I need a perfectly tempered seed chocolate to achieve this?
I don't ever let my chocolate harden without it being tempered, I currently temper by hand, simply by pouring it into a bowl, and using a wooden spoon and stirring it with the bowl in cold water to hit about 81-82 degrees F and then heating it back up to 89 degrees F and it always comes out of my molds shiny and with no streaks, this takes about 15 minutes of stirring to achieve.
So I am wondering if I should just stick to this method? It is just kind of a hassle to have to do it manually when I could have a machine do it, but then I also look at the price and realize that this also may not be very cost effective if my current routine is working and I have a finished molded product approx 20-25 minutes after it comes out of the stone grinder.
My final concern on this topic with the X3210 is that I also do different percentages ranging from 60% all the way up to 84% and all of the 60%'s are flavored. The real thing that is bothering me is the need for a seed in these machines, I would think that for that amount of money I can just take my liquid product out of the stone grinder, pour it into the X3210, and press the temper button, and come back a little while later to have a perfectly tempered product.
My final Question on this topic is that in the video it looked like you could temper 10lbs of chocolate from a block, but can you temper more than this is a unit like the X3210 if it is liquid to begin with? And to add one more point, does it have trouble dealing with a thick 60% as apposed to a liquid like water 84%?
Thank you so much,
Glad to be apart of this wonderful community
Steven
depends on your scale - most are adjustable to read whatever the local norm is. i find it easiest to work in grams.
Thanks Sebastian.
That helps a lot. If you are using ml for volume, then what is the scale for mass? Grams? Ounces?
ah - well, if you've got the exact measurements, determining the volume is trivial. Your chocolate supplier isn't likely to have the densities for all their chocolates measured, and you can ask them to do it, which they will if they have time, or they'll make time if you're a large enough customer. If precision is important to you, remember that specifications have a range (ie fat is normally +/-1% on industrial chocolates) - so that range will result in a range of densities as well.
If you want to do the density yourself, you'll need a graduated cylinder and a scale - density is simply mass over volume - so fill your cylinder (on the scale) to 100ml of chocolate and read it's mass. D = m/v. The reading on the scale divided by 100 (the mls you used for the reading), and you've got a density calculation. Obviously if your scale is not calibrated, if you're not accurate in filling the cylinder, or if your chocolate temps are all over the place, it will impact your calculations.
Once you've got your volume of your cavity - simply multiply that by your density, and you've got the grams/unit of measure. Be sure not to mix your units of measure between your cavity volume calculations and density calculations (ie don't use both inches and centimeters, for example - one or the other)
Hi Sebastian. Thanks for the response. Perhaps I should give you a bit more info about my situation, so it makes more sense. I am actually manufacturing my own molds. I will always know the exact dimensions of my molds every time. So like Clay said is actually really trivial. I just need the densities of the chocolate I plan to use, and figure out the formula to calculate the mold volume and density (I'm suspecting that it's something like: w*h*d*Density etc. Yes, I can approximate with a cubic inch (like using the chocoley calculator), but since I have access to the exact measurements (perhaps I'm completely off base), it seems to me I can get much more accurate results by doing the math. I apologize to anyone if my responses sound stubborn or like I'm taking the wrong path. It just seems to me if I have my mold dimensions, and I can get the densities I can get relatively close estimations of my needs (especially on large scales) by doing some math, and perhaps as a result save money on my chocolate needs etc.
Thanks again for the feedback guys. I really do appreciate it.
I honestly think you're taking the path of most resistance, mate..now, even though i've had as many calc classes as they offer, i'm not a math guy, and for most moulds, mathematically calculating the volume's going to be an incredibly tedious process. If you must know the cubic inches of the mould, the mfr should be able to provide that, as their molds are made using design software that should be able to provide the volumetric with a click of a button. That's what i'd do, but the scale i work at is perhaps a little different than most 8-)
Hey Clay. Thanks much for the response. Yes it's a single test mold. For this purpose, I went ahead and did a few molds (thankfully I had a little Guittard chocolate on hand), and weighed each piece. I then scaled my mold size up/down based upon the chocolate weight. So for my immediate need that worked. Not my preference of course, but I think it worked. I know you guys prefer to measure with chocolate rather than a calculator, and I totally understand that, but I would also like to have the capacity to calculate with a calculator to get close measurements. I can easily get my mold dimensions so that isn't a problem. I'll contact Guittard and see if I can get the densities of their chocolate.
Clay: Can you give me a formula that would calculate the mold capacity using volume and chocolate density? How would you put that together? (w*h*d = volume +*/- density?
Thanks again guys.
Brian -
Actually, I think the empirical way to arrive at the solution is the elegant one. The challenge you face is that you don't own the mold - a single-cavity prototype? - so doing the work is a little cumbersome.
You could come up with a mathematically precise answer, but to do so you'd need to know the exact volume of the mold (non-trivial) and need the densities of each chocolate at the temperature you're using for each mold (contact Guittard for this information - but I don't know that they have it handy). You could end up with a different weight of chocolate - probably within a percent or so - for each chocolate you use. Precise but inelegant - and maybe more work than doing it empirically.
Plus, I have to agree with Sebastian - I find working with chocolate a lot more fun than working with calculators.
Thank you so much for the responses. Unfortunately, I don't have that mold in my possession, so I was hoping for a way to closely/accurately measure the chocolate needed to fill the cavity. Thanks for the clarification on Chocoley's calculator. That makes sense. I do have some Guittard chocolate in possession, but don't have a simple way to calculate a cubic inch of the Guittard chocolate.
I do have a smaller version of the same mold however (only one cavity though), so I guess I'll have to fill that one, then weight it, then figure out how many get me a pound..I was hoping for a more elegant solution, but I guess that will have to do.
Thanks again guys.
Actually, volume doesn't care about density. Ounces is a measure of mass - volume is a measure of space. His question was about volume; but i suspect he's really asking about mass 8-)
If you're looking to measure the mass / cavity so you can better estimate how much chocolate you'll need to order, probably the most simple way to approach it, assuming you have said mold, is to mold up a form of chocolate using it, weigh the 20 pieces that come out of it, and determine the average weight per piece. Don't forget to add in an overage to compensate for waste/working mass. That way you don't need to compensate for the subtleties of temperatures impact on volume/density and complexities of volumetric calculations of irregular cavity shape.
Plus everyone knows that making chocolate is more fun than doing math 8-)
Chocoley's formula basically states that 0.708 ounces of chocolate will fill 1 cubic inch and the mold is a perfect cuboid. Of course some chocolate is going to be more dense than others and I have yet to see a mold that is a perfect solid shape (e.g. without bevels, curves, patterns, etc.) so this formula is only intended to get you in the ballpark. You can get a little more accurate if you can figure out how many ounces a cubic inch of Guittard chocolate weighs and substitute 0.708 with this value.
Hi All,
I'm trying to calculate the volume of chocolate for a mold with the following dimensions:
1.80x1.21x0.58
I used the following website's chocolate calculator to calculate the volume:
http://www.chocoley.com/chocolate-candy-making-guide/how-much-chocolate-per-mold.htm
Is this accurate for all chocolate or just theirs? If it just works for theirs, I need to calculate for Guittard chocolate.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
I am not sure how this ended up in tasting notes, I apologize for that....I was on my phone.
Darlene:
When asking questions like this, photos of the mold will help us visualize what you're trying to achieve.
