Forum Activity for @antonino allegra

here we go, extract from an email i sent to a The Chocolate Life memebr.:

Absolutely. - In fact, I prefer when people share this kind of stuff publicly on the site rather than privately via e-mail. That way, every member can benefit, including people who didn't know they wanted to know this stuff.

Hi Clay,

i have pics and info about the Roaster, is it ok to post it?

Hi. Just wanted to add a bit from my experience. I'm working at Coffee-Tech Engineering.

We're manufacturers of coffee roasters and we have several customers roasting cacao with our roasters, some with our 2 Kg shop roasters and some with our 15 Kg commercial roaster.

Drum speed and other configurations were set, in advance, to meet the needs of the customers.

I might also add that our shop roasters embed restricted fluid bed roasting and that on our manual roaster all these can be set by the end-users themselves.

Anyway, if somebody wants more information, you're welcome to contact me or just look us up.

Hope I didn't break any ethical rules with this post

Can you post it please so we can all get the info? Thank you.

Great infocan you send me the information on where you got your roaster.

I've looked into coffee roasters too, and the one issue was drum speed. The people I contacted indicated that they could slow down the drum rotation of any size of coffee roaster they sold, but there would be an extra cost.

It sounds to me like Antonino has it dialed in (no pun intended) with the digital drum speed control. Sounds Interesting!

Cheers

Brad

Sorry, continued:

and unless you mess around with the setting you should have quite a even, consistent product.

we roast 15 kg beans at time and breakage is minimal (anyway, you need to winnow!!) with few tricks we manage to extract certain notes that we wish to have.. just a small change on the flame change the taste from hazelnutty to roast almond.

of course there is no limit to perfection and no limit to theoretical roasting and cost involved, but you are also in business to make money..

Hi Matthew, Colin,

we didn't modify the machine.

our roaster is equipped with digital drum speed control, an electronic/digital thermostat, and 3 point of gas/fire adjustment + ventilation valve that we can adjust as well.

we can accurately roast at temp of 120 or 140C quite accurately and unless you mess around with the settings.

Matthew,

You'll find that most coffee roasting drums rotate too rapidly and tend to chew up cacao. I've tried in a Dietrich and a Joper and both produced significant levels of breakage. Also, these machines aren't engineered for the process of roasting cacao, which has different heat transfer characteristics and temperature profiles than coffee, so you'll find it's very difficult to dial back the heaters to achieve accurate temperature profiling without scorching. There's nothing better out there right now than a properly configured convection oven for roasting at that volume unless you have 200k, in my opinion. You can get used gas convection ovens for next to nothing. A spouting fluid bed coffee roaster would be my second bet, but fluidizing cacao requires much higher airflow than coffee, so you're batch volumes would be smaller than rated and you'll still have issues with erratic agitation and breakage. Good luck!

Hi Antonino-

Thanks for the information, did you have to do any modifications to the equipment?

-M

Hi Yes you can, we do roast in a coffee roaster and we do 1 ton a month if not more.

DO NOT BUY AMBEX!!! we have been victim of a fraud directly from them and lost about $5000!!! unfortunately we are in South Africa and is very difficult to fight them. if you want i give you the contact details of the factory in Turkey that build the ambex roasters and get it for a 5th of the price...

the roaster is based on a italian made drum and system and the rest is build in Turkey. decent machine and with a 19kg gas bottle we roast at least 15 bags of beans.

I wanted to see if any chocolate producers have used coffee roasters to roast cacao. I'm looking for a mid-size capacity roaster that doesn't look like a toaster oven and doesn't cost $30K. There are a good number of coffee roasters that are significantly less expensive and are much more attractive.

Thanks for your response. I am now thinking I want a Savage bros (or similar) auto temperer (that doesn't require seed) and a melanger/concher? I am using cacao powder and butter at the moment and coconut sugar, but want to source paste instead of powder. I am not sure if a melanger is necessary to mix the sugar in, I am thinking it will help my texture though. I am currently using a vita mix to powder the sugar, and I am tempering using a double boiler. I also wondered what is the difference between a temperer and a moulding machine? I saw a Preformac moulding machine on one of these sites, haven't investigated that company yet.

Beth:

There are a lot of resources here on TheChocolateLife to point you in the right direction. It helps to know what you're looking for. I'd point you in one direction if you were looking for machinery to produce 10MT of chocolate from the bean than I would for a tempering machine or similar.

Make sense?

:: Clay

I've always had very good luck with the Classifieds at the Retail Confectioners' Association website.

You might want to try www.unionmachinery.com . Jim Greenberg and his brother buy and sell a LOT of chocolate equipment for many different volumes of production.

does anyone have any good links for searching used chocolate machinery?

Good news, I got a quote! Thanks everyone =)

Thanks Brad! I will contact them.

Olivier's Chocolate & Candy here in Calgary has a prodution facility with moulding machines and cooling tunnels to address your needs. They can even source out a well priced chocolate for you.

info@oliviers.ca. Chocolate Factory: Bay C 2828 54 Ave SE, Calgary, AB (403) 266-6028

Cheers.

Brad

I apologize, I did not read your post correctly. I thought you would be making the spoons yourself. If you are looking to contract out the work, I have no idea.

I do not know much about chocolate, so I only specified dark chocolate. Assume it is "standard" dark chocolate and not very expensive.

The outsourcing is to take place in Ste Hyacinthe Quebec, approximately 60 km from the "company warehouse" in Montreal, Quebec.

Each batch of 2500kg of chocolate spoons is to be completed every month. Assume delivery is handled by us, not the outsourcer.

We estimate each spoon will be sold for $0.75 at retail.

Assume the molds will be provided by us.

Is there anything else I should add? Our business plan is not supposed to go into minute details so I do not have much more than this, unfortunately. A reasonable estimation is all I need!

Thanks again,
Daniel

Hi Brian,

Unfortunately it is a school project (i cannot say if we will undertake this in the future).

Hi Daniel, are you seeking quotes to potentially actually do this, or just to get numbers for a school project? I can ask at a factory here in Peru that does that kind of small chocolate run, but i can't waste their time on a purely theoretical problem.

saludos,

brian

Please give us more details.

Hi everyone,

I am a student from McGill University working on a business project to produce chocolate spoons for consumption with frozen desserts. I am trying to determine the cost of manufacturing 2500kg of dark chocolate in the form of chocolate spoons (a complete spoon), which is about 275,000 spoons.

The dimensions we have used for the spoons are the following:

4 inches in length, 1 inch width, depth of an inch.
Each spoon is estimated to weigh 9 grams.

The percentage of chocolate desired is 72%.

Would you be able to estimate a cost to manufacture this?

I sent this email to Barry Callebaut as well but I am not sure if they will give a quote on a student project. So if anyone could give some advice on a general number we could expect to pay I would be very greatful!

EDIT: A company replied to me with a quote, case closed. Thank you everyone!

In case anyone wanted to know, they said they would charge us 25 cents per spoon.

Thank you kindly!
Regards,
Daniel G.

I visited WholeFoods last night and noticed how many of chocolate brands are not there anymore that used to be couple of years ago

Update 2: Well, the melting tank arrived back 3 days ago, and I noticed that I could not keep chocolate in a good crystallized state. It appeared to be getting too warm - and sure enough, ten minutes after getting the chocolate pre-crystallized, it goes out of temper and very liquid.

So it appears it has a faulty thermostat now. UG! My other Mol D'art 12l is fine, i have no issues with that one, but with this one: I guess once a lemon, always a lemon. I let the milk chocolate in it cool down after switching it off, stirring - took about an hour - and got it back to tempered state (lovely shiny test and all), checked with thermometer which showed 29.8 degrees C, and what did the thermostat say? It clicked on and off at around 18 degrees...so looks like this one is going BACK to Mol D'art. And this is a brand new machine, twice faulty now.

I am also cancelling my order for 2 x 6l Mol D'art melting kettles, as I have totally lost faith in this brand, so if anyone knows a good RELIABLE brand of melting kettle that would be available in 230v (New Zealand), please let me know.

Update - well, they are now offering to take the unit back and have even given me their UPS details so I don't have to pay the shipping. While I will be down a melter for a while, this is a pretty good change of heart from them.

- Stu

I ran into the same problem with a couple of other pieces of chocolate equipment from Europe.

After tearing the equipment apart completely, I narrowed the problem down to the black plug on the machine where the cord (kind of like a computer power cable) plugs in. Unbeknownst to me, there is a TINY in-line fuse in the plug mechanism, which isn't disclosed on ANY manuals or user documentation. The fuse is on the negative (hot) circuit.

This was a completely frustrating PITA for me, andmay be your problem. My suggestion is to wrap the stupid, and unneccessary fuse with tinfoil, put it back and forget it exists.

Hope that helps.

Brad.

Hi Stu,

Argh! That's a pain! Canyou hire an electrician and charge Mol D'art? I have done some wiring and electronics so perhaps I could see something wrong ifyou sent me a photo of the board where power is coming in, but it's hard unlessyou can test voltages indifferent areas. Might just have to wait till the next time I come down toNew Zealand to visit but not sure yet when that'll be!

The main thingyou have to be careful of when playing with electronics/electrical supplies isdefinitely unplug everything beforeyou open it up but also avoid large capacitors which look like this , and need to be discharged with a plastic handled screwdriverbefore working in their vincinity as they can store charge even when unplugged.

But Mol D'Art should be jumping to fix this, not askingyou to delve into their shoddy machinery!

-Nat

____________________________

Nat Bletter, PhD

Chocolate Flavormeister

Madre Chocolate

http://madrechocolate.com

I purchased a 12l melting kettle through Chocolate World, it is a Mol D'art model. I am in New Zealand which is about as far away from Belgium as you can get.

It failed after one week and it is not the thermostat, the unit is not getting any power.

The advice from Mol D'art through Chocolate World is that it is possibly something wrong with the wiring and suggested I open the melting kettle up by unscrewing all the screws and check the wiring.

Not being an electrician, or having the faintest idea about wiring, this seems pretty strange advice - and extremely unsafe! Has anyone else experienced issues with warranties on Mol D'art products? Have I just bought a lemon?

- Stu

Hi,

I'm new to this site, thought i might get some help here,

I got the Chocolate world magnetic molds, my prints on the chocolates end up with cracks!

Anybody had the same issue? tips greatly appreciated!

How i do it:

I print on transfer sheets from Deco then pour a thin layer of white baking chocolate before filling the mold with brown truffle, leave it about 15 minutes to cool off then put in freezer for 5-10minutes

when the chocolates are out, the designs on them appear cracked:(

I tried:

1.having the white chocolate on a low temperature before pouring it, (as per deco)

2.keeping the designs lightly colored (as per deco)

even tried not to use the freezer at all and keep the molds laying for 12 hours, but then they are so difficult to pop out of the molds, and the molds are difficult to clean,

Any trick how to eliminate the cracking?

Thanks in advance for your help!

So........how are these used inside the curved egg mold? Not sure what you mean here?

Hi Andy,

Take a look of these plastic grill for decoration with variety of designs if it can help you with the decoration of the easter eggs.

Here an example of 3 design I chose for you and there is a lot more

Has anyone got a trick or technique to use standard chocolate transfer sheets in a curved mold such as an easter egg or sphere mold? I am trying to figure out a wall to "pre decorate" easter eggs in the molds with transfer sheets. PCB Creations has terrific blister molds with the transfer decoration in the actual mold-- they are beautiful but when I tried to order them they informed me that that product has a colorant in it that the FDA did not approve and they can not ship them to the USA! Bummer! Does anyone have any ideas? I do not want to airbrush cocoa butter in the molds either

Thanks

Andy J

Clay, I agree.

Brian's evidently very passionate about what he does, and he should be. I've watched some of the videos, and I think it's pretty cool what he's doing. Sometimes I wish I could spend timeat the plantationswhere my beans come from. I certainly don't want anyone to think I discredit his efforts and passion there.

That being said, my question was asked and answered, and my opinions contributed. I have nothing more really to add.

Cheers

Brad

Brad -

At this point I have to step in and point out that it is probably NOT Brian who is making the statements about Maraon being the world's rarest cacao or chocolate. It's the marketing people in the US who are doing it, not the guy who's working the beans in-country.

Brian may (or may not) have any input or comment on the language bring used on the website and in the marketing materials.

Brad and Brian - I think the discussion has been pretty interesting to this point and some valid points have been contributed by a number of ChocolateLife members - but I don't want the thread to devolve into a back and forth in the same tone and spirit as the last couple of posts. That won't do anything to move the discussion forward.

Brian;

You call me a hypocrite, yet you openly admit to not knowing if your chocolate is the rarest or not, while at the same time actively promoting that it is.

You call me a jerk because I openly ask the question and call you on it.

I never once called you abrasive.

I simply called you to justify how you call your chocolate the world's rarest, and you could provide NO definitive justification for doing so. Instead, you resorted to calling the person who asked the question, a hypocrite, abrasive, and a jerk - tactics ofsomeone who's been caught in a lie andbacked into a corner, which is exactly what I did to you here. I backed you into a corner.

Nobody canquestion how rare the cocoa is that I use, and I don't claim to make the world's rarest chocolate, because I don't make the world's rarest chocolate.

Nor do you, so stop publiclyclaiming to.

I have no problem being the "bad boy" of the industry - pointing fingers and blowing whistles. Somebody has to. At the same time, if I'm wrong, and I seldom am, I will be the FIRST one to admit it, and make changes to make things right.

I post on forums like this, not because I'm out to make friends. I post on forums like this to legitimately help people when I can, and to let people know that what they read isn't always accurate or true.

Having said that, not a single person who has involved themselves in this conversation believes you have the world's rarest chocolate. It's not just me.

Like I said before, you should focus on your fabulous relationships with your growers and the special effort you make to harvest the cocoa you use to have your chocolate made for you. That IS truly special.

Brad.

I found everyone's comments very interesting and educational. Let's just say, a very rare cacao. I like the idea of marketing the direct connect with the farmer and the hands-on in the post harvesting and processing. What knowledge all of you have shared will sure help me ask better questions as a wander cacao farms in the DR this summer. Thank you all.