Forum Activity for @Mark Allan

The final note on my first use of the machine. The machine did in fact yield 50% cocoa butter, by weight. Also, the cocoa solid easily ground up, in my coffee grinder, into powder. My son took some of the powder to make hot cocoa and gave it a thumbs up. I took some, made an 80/20 sugar/cocoa mix with a little lecithin and stirred it into some milk. That also worked.

I know I'm not on the same level, quality wise, with you artisans, but I am excited about the bean to bar possibilities on a budget. :-)

Hi Clay,

Well, I finally got the machine today, and I felt like a kid opening a candy store, before I even opened it. The company actually delivered it within a week, but it had to go to another shipping company that ships to Honduras and handles customs. That second step took four weeks.

My initial observations:

The machine does in fact press out cocoa butter.

The cocoa butter is not free of solids as it is brown, although completely liquid. Unless you plan on selling the cocoa butter rather than using it to make chocolate, this should not be an issue.

I am going to enhance the feed hopper by putting small rectangular walls on top of it, perhaps made of wood. Otherwise it's a full time job keeping it fed.

The solid is expressed out the front in hollow tubes that break off due to stress when it reaches 6+ inches. The tubes can easily be crushed into cocoa powder. I am eager to try this but there's a meeting going on in my house that I would disrupt. Reselling the cocoa powder is a crucial factor in reducing my costs. There is a good market for this in Honduras as Hershey's powder is about $11/pound locally and people have few phobias about buying outside of the big name brands.

The machine looks pretty solid. When I turn off the motor, the shaft takes 10-15 seconds to spin down to a stop, which is usually a good sign that you have some solid gears in the box. My 30 year old Hobart meat grinder and KitchenAid mixer do the same. Many of my lesser machines do not. Based on this, I am hoping that it will give me years of service.

I was able to express over a pound of cocoa butter in less than an hour, maybe 30 minutes. I am eager to go weigh the butter versus the solid to see my yield, also crucial to costs.

I need to build some kind of container to catch the cocoa solids, which are bulky because of the hollow, spiral shaped tubes that are produced. With this and a feed hopper enhancement, this machine could batch 5-10 pounds of cocoa nibs, hands free. It would probably handle about that much per hour.

Initial impression is that if you are looking for an economical machine to press out cocoa butter, this $200 machine is hard to beat. It's definitely less of a commitment than the $26K Cacao Cucina butter press.

Will update later on the yield etc.

Clay - Currently I'm working in R&D for a Belgian Chocolate company. The position affords me a view over processes that have remained quite artisanal for the company as well as ones that have become more mechanized. It has been nothing if not interesting!

Where we live, it definitely makes sense to invest in a butter press, even if it's just the econo-solution that I am trying. Cocoa beans are cheaper in Honduras and cocoa butter isn't readily available here.

In the "1st world", it might make sense to just let someone else press the butter because importing the beans and pressing them yourself might be more costly.

I will be sure and tell everyone here. If I haven't posted in month, somebody reply to this and I'll get an email reminder.

Mark,

I would love to hear how the machine works out - seems interesting in that price range.

Yes, $100K is well out of my current commitment level and means. We run a little orphanage in Honduras and I am just trying to start a small business that our older boys can start a career with.

Hi Clay,

I think the machine will show up in the next week. I live in Honduras, so I had to ship it to Miami, at a company that only ships to Honduras. There is no national postal system here. Anyway, the link is:

http://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/High-quality-DL-ZYJ02-Traditional-mini_1341961132.html

I will be sure to review this machine as soon as I see how it performs. It presses oils from other seeds also. It looks like a drill bit that crushes things inside a cylinder. So rather than spending $27K on Cacao Cucina's press that will render a liter of butter in a few minutes, I am hoping this machine will plod along along give the 1-2L per hour that the sales person stated it would. If it even gives me 5L/day, that would be far more than I could use at the moment.

Jessica -

It's been about 3 years since you started this thread, where are you on your journey?

There are some reasons to like the CC equipment here in the US - one of the most compelling is that it's UL and NSF certified (which has added to the cost). That said, as Brad and others have pointed out, the equipment is expensive for the throughput it provides (the possible exception is the Win45 winnower).

Mark says that he was quoted over US$100,000 for his system, and I would really like to know what CC is saying is the daily maximum throughput for that price.

It is possible to put together a system (without a cocoa butter press but including a tempering machine) capable of producing up to 100kg per day for under US$50,000. I don't know that I'd want to spend less than this (though many people do - the tradeoff being more labor).

Mark:

If you have a link to the cocoa butter press I'd be very interested in seeing it.

I'd be interested to hear updates as you move along Mark!

A little update on the tempering. We use the method from Chocolate Alchemy's site, to temper in the wet grinder. It's easier to control the temperature in there, and no additional investment is required.

I am waiting on a $300 machine from China, which slowly renders cocoa butter but far more capacity than we need at the moment. It will supposedly extract 1-2 kg per hour. We'll see. It's a pretty simple design so I'm hoping it's durable.

We run an orphanage in Honduras. Incidentally, Hondurans grows cocoa. For this reason I am investigating chocolate production as a fund raiser and as an industry to employ people in a country with 50% unemployment/under-employment. Cocoa Cucina was probably the first site I found that offered everything you needed for smaller scale chocolate production. Unfortunately, buying everything required to bean2bar was quoted at just over $100K.

So for now we are just experimenting with the homemade path, which I like to call "R&D". :-) We roast in the oven. We use the local method of winnowing beans, which is to pour them out in front of a fan, into a large bowl. Then we use the Champion juicer to make the liqueur, followed by a wet grinder for about day, finally tempering in a Kitchenaid stand mixer with a lamp near by to keep it from cooling too much before molding.

Best I can tell, the Cocoa Cucina equipment is for someone who knows well more than I do, is already making good chocolate, but needs to take it to the next level, and willing to stake a good portion of their life's savings on it. I speculate that the CC equipment is about the right size for a downtown chocolate shop, selling at pretty steep price.

Harry;

You're partially correct. There IS a lot of poorly constructed equipment thatartisans are using to make chocolate. Most of it is originally designed to mash soft beans and other pastes for East Indian food. The belts fail, and the granite rollers are antiquated. (such as Santha and other similar models)

Roasting: "too many on the market" Really? Where can I get a roaster that will do about 40lbs of beans per batch for a reasonable price? Nowhere that I could find when I was researching my business. Oh.... wait! Cooking ANYTHING is about heat and air flow! Hey! A commercial convection oven for $3500 NEW does about 40lbs of beans per hour, 320lbs per 8 hours, 960lbs per 24 hours, is STACKABLE, so you can easily double this amount androast as much as 1920lbs of beans per 24 hour period. According to my calculation, for less than $9,000 one can implement a roasting solution which will allow a company to produce the following amount of 70% chocolate per day based on a 55% bean content recipe:

1920 * 0.8 /0.55 = 2792.7 lbs per day X $40 per lb = $111,708 per day in gross sales.

I actually charge MORE than $40 per lb for my chocolate - more like $55-60, and have been told by industry professionals with a lot more credentials than you Harry, that I should be charging more, as it's some of the finest chocolate they have ever tasted.

I've repeated this on many other posts: "Why buy a redundant, single use piece of equipment such as a modified coffee bean roaster (which is what a cocoa bean drum roaster is anyway and that's coming right from the mouths of the people at Probat Burns!) when you can buy a convection oven, and perform many tasksas well as roast beans.

Winnowing: A definite MUST HAVE to make chocolate, and currently the largest hole in the artisan marketplace. I own both a home made winnower, AND a large Jabez-Burns Cracker/Fanner, purchased from an auction last fall. My home made winnower cost me $1,000 in parts and an afternoon of work and easily (and effectively) winnows about 130lbs of nibs per hour. My Jabez Burns is spec'd to crack and fan (winnow) about 200lbs of beans per hour and cost much more.

Refining: Why spend $75,000 on a fancy rollrefiner (such as Netsch) whenit won't accept nibs? Yes, that's right.TheNetschrefiner needs to have the nibs pre milled into a paste. At least that's what the techs said when I was inquiring into the chocoeasy machine. Heck, even a MacIntyre conche/refinerat $30,000 will take ALL the ingredients (nibs, sugar,vanilla beans)and refine and conche it just fine without the need for a mill of any type.

If you look around, you can even find MacIntyre knock-off's for much cheaper (like, say... $8,000 per machine), which will work just fine 24/7 for a couple of years before needing maintenance.

Now you know whychocoeasy doesn't deal with winnowers or roasters : their machines are designed to accept liquor/paste, and NOT nibs.

So... Now the secret's out. A person can buy a convection "roaster" for $4500, build a winnower for $1,000, purchase a couple of MacIntyre knock-off's for $16,000 and be making about 150lbs of world class chocolate per day.

Total: $21,500.00

None of this is my opinion. All of this is my reality.

Just curious Brad, what do you consider outrageous pricing? You make several hundred pounds of chocolate per week, what do you charge for that chocolate? $10/Lb? and it costs you what, about $4/lb to make it? I seem to recall you made a similar statement about the NETZSCH ChocoEasy. Yes it's expensive, really expensive, but it's worth it. Is your chocolate worth it? I don't know, never tasted it, but I bet it has a metallic taste based on what you've described in other posts.

I keep reading and hearing about people using this cheap equipment and having to work on it constantly. What's that worth? I've been to BLT, they are good people, and in my opinion, their equipment is more geared in quality and therefore pricing towards the large food companies for R&D, pretty much like our equipment. Our equipment is scaled down for R&D and then the larger production machines are actually very much competitively priced against the traditional conches and roll refiners.

Jessica - you should take a look at that equipment, don't be put off by one bad review. You might want to take a look at our equipment as well, although we don't have roasting, there's too many on the market. Cracking and winnowing however seems to be a real need in the market for a machine, Cacao Cucina has one that works, but it is relatively expensive.

www.chocoeasy.com

And the above is just my opinion

Based on my personal experience with equipment in the chocolate industry, the quotes I've received from them (their company is to the best of my knowledge a spin-off from "Bottom Line Processing Technologies" in Florida), and the equipment that I currently use to make several hundred pounds of chocolate per week, their prices are outrageous for the capacities their creations can produce.

...but that's just my opinion.

Cheers.

Brad

Anyone able to offer reviews/have personal experience with their equipment (any item of it?)

While I'm not looking to get into bean-bar right now, I stumbled across their site the other day and thought "This looks too good to be true". So is it?

Hello, fellow chocolate lovers?

May I ask a favor?

Do you know a contract chocolate manufacturer in either the US or Colombia who can produce 85 % plus cocoa, gluten-free and allergen-free batches (certified).

Can anyone suggest someone?

Thank you!

Regards,

James Swanwick

james at jamesswanwick.com

Has anyone tried the new Terra Cacao range by callebaut? im so excited to test

http://www.terracacao.com/about.html

Hey Tao,

Their # is(828) 855-1895. (The first bad sign is that the number's hard to find!) I've never removed the bowl before-it would involve quite a bit of disassembly! The hair dryer's the way to go. I've been there! No fun, I know. I'd guess the motor's ok if it's still making noise. The bowl can't spin just while it's firmly attached (by solid chocolate) to the wheels, since they spin in place.

Good luck! Hopefully you're unstuck by now!

Thanks for the responses...I am too far away, and the logistics too difficult and expensive to try to send the machine back and replace it. I have tried the calibration reset recommended by Kumar, and it seemed to help for about a 1/2 hour...or basically until there was chocolate in the machine again.

Last night, I had it set on low so that it wouldn't disturb my sleep too much, but apparently it wasn't turning fast enough to keep it warm, and the whole batch solidified. Now at it with the hair dryer, but not having any luck getting the wheels to turn, so not sure if the motor is burned out (although still makes the screeching noise) or if the belt is broken or what...with a full batch of chocolate in the machine, it is difficult to know what to do...will try recalibration again, and then empty the chocolate, and try taking the drum off. ANYONE KNOW HOW TO DO THAT? WE COULDN"T FIGURE IT OUT BEFORE...how do you get the drum off the stem? Is there a screw on the bottom that releases the stem/column?

Madeleine, you said you spoke to them on the phone: Do you have a phone number for SANTHA? I

have not been able to find one in any of the literature, communications or website. Much appreciated.

Hi Tao,

The same happened with my Santha when I bought it a year ago. The sound was from the motor. I exchanged it and the replacement machine was slightly better. Took it to a machine shop and was told that it was just a really cheapo motor. Turned out to not be worth it to replace the motor because of the speed controller. I kept it, and miraculously the noise went away after a few months.

I spoke to Santha on the phone and got the impression that this happens with some of their machines though they wouldn't really give me a straight answer.

They only exchanged the machine very grudgingly and didn't offer any help with the second machine.

Good luck!!

Often times the squealing sound is just metal on metal from the wheels. I am assuming you bought it new and this is probably the case. I had the same thing with my Cocoatown small grinder. You just have to let it run sadly until it stops and kind of wears away whatever is too tight that it is squeaking.

That was my experience at least! Hope it helps!

Hola,

I just got my Santha Spectra 20...and it squeals...high pitched, unbearable, screeching...kinda like living inside a forest of chicaras (if you live in CR, you know what I mean). Is it the belt? Is it something else? Any clues before I try to open it up to find out? Kumar said some "noise" was normal...I agree, and I anticipated "some noise", but this is unbearable. Help!

Hi Ben!

I have replaced the belt once. Next time I'll go for fiberglass- thanks!

I don't think that the belt is the problem, but I'll check just in case. When I first got the machine, the motor made a really high pitched (bad) sound. I took the santha to a machine shop and they pretty much diagnosed the motor as a low-quality cheapo. (They improved the noise a tiny bit by doing something with the bearings, and then one day months later the noise pretty much evaporated. But at the same time I noticed the drum rotating more slowly. (speed control still says 1500)

Because of the conversation with the mechanic, I just assumed it was time for a motor replacement.

Thanks, Madeleine

Hi Madeleine,

Are you sure it's the motor? Have you replaced the belt already? If not, I'd do that first as the stock belts are not great and wear out pretty quickly. Per Brad's suggestion a few years ago, I only use the fiberglass link belts on my melangers and they've been great. No stretching or breaking. I've had one on my Santha 40 now for over a year with no problems (the stock one broke on the third or fourth batch).

-Ben

Hi Brad,

(If you're still there!)

Do you have any recommendations for a replacement motor for the santha 20? The machine is less than 6 months old but I've noticed that the drum has been spinning more slowly..

Thanks! Madeleine

Duffy - the latest version of the chocoeasy has a pre-grinding rotor installed in the refiner that allows feeding very coarse materials, like nibs or crystal sugar, so the company you are familiar with may have an older unit.

To start with nibs you need to use some cocoa butter to circulate the nibs into the refiner. depending on the size of the ChocoEasy unit, the amount of butter required to do this is about 3-4 kilograms.

Soon you will be able to visit our new facility in Orange County, Ca. There you will be able to learn everything you need to know about making chocolate, truly from Bean to Bar. The Qzina Institute will open in September, together with the Stephane Treand Art of Pastry School. We will have numerous machines to test, along with a big variety of beans, and other ingredients. We also carry molds, small and large tempering machines, melters, tools, flavors, powders, and all kinds of ingredients for Chocolate, Dessert, and Pastry Professionals. The Institute will have Small Melangers from both Cocoatown and Alchemy, roasters, winnowers, grinders, and even larger (mid size) equipment for more serious production. We are working onhaving commercial roller refiners and conches for 2012. The idea is to teach customers andenthusiastseverything from how to source the beans, to various production methods, and from there ourin house Chocolatier and Pastry ChefFrancois Mellet, with assistance from MOF (Best Craftsmanof France) Stephane Treand, can teach you how to make incredible top quality truffles, fillings, cakes, pastries, andchocolates.We are not a school, butmore of anR&D institute for the industry. We will also display machinery in our showroom from a host of top manufactures, including enrobers, mills, small processing equipment, etc. We also stockmost of the top chocolates of the world, from Callebaut to Valhona to Guittard, and many many more, for those wanting to supplimentproduction. We also have refined liquor,cacao butter, nibs,on and on. Contact us for more information. We are justoutfitting our new building now, and hope to be ready in Sept or October. This is a facility like no other in the United States, located minutes fromNewport Beach Airport, Irvine Spectrum Mall, andDisneyland (for those who want a side trip), half way between L.A. and San Diego.

Sales Alert!

Maybe you all should take a look at ChocoEasy - this is a German machine so it's expensive, but built to last forever, serviced here in USA by yours truly and customer service is our best sales tool.

I'll tell you up front that the 50 Kilogram machine is $99,500 and the 300 Kilgoram machine is $186,000. These are fully automated machines to control temperature, process time. Produce 25 to 50 Kgs in 8 hours to below 15 microns. Can start with nibs and butter

So if you're ready to use a BMW versus a Tata, please take a look. NETZSCH is having a seminar on this machine in Las Vegas at Chef Rubber on July 28th-29th.

www.chocoeasy.com

Thanks!

I didnt even look into those because on first glance they appeared to be only for milling powder. If nothing else that expands my options - who wouldnt want "The Rolls Royce of Grindeurs"...

You may want to look at CocoaTown's line of larger melangers that they call grindeurs. The come in 30, 40 and 65lb versions.

http://cocoatown.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&...

Yeah, I just canceled my order after a week of them not answering the phone or responding to my messages. Do you recommend any other Melangers?

Im really dissappointed because I was excited about the 40L volume and the variable speed control. Alas, I should have known it was too good to be true...

The only other models I can find on the internet are the Cocoa Town melangers ( http://www.cocoatown.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=48&Itemid=55 ) and the Ultra Melangers on Chocolate Alchemy ( http://shop.chocolatealchemy.com/collections/equipment ). But neither really have the throughput Im looking for.

Yes the machine is not reliable I have 3 of them (sigh)

Ernesto

When I first started making chocolate in my home in 2005, I used a small version of the Santha, and pretty much destroyed it. The end result was a complete rebuild with a more powerful motor, fibreglass belts, and numerous changes to the bin where the nibs are ground.

I know there are artisan chocolatiers out there who are using the machines you refer to, but given their design and original intended design (not to grind cocoa beans, but rather grind soft beans into pastes for East Indian food), they will all inevitably fail. In the end, the question is: How handy are you? I guarantee you will be replacing belts, and having to add some type of heating mechanism to the machine to keep the chocolate warm enough to stay liquid.

I don't want to discourage you from starting your own venture. It's fun, and exciting, and rewarding, and scary all at the same time. And... Like I said, there are micro chocolatiers out there who are using modified versions of this machine. I'm just trying to tell you from experience what to expect from it going in!

Cheers and best wishes.

Brad

Greetings Fellow Chocophiles,

I have recently begun the process of purchasing a Spectra 40 Stone Melanger - http://www.santhausa.com/Spectra%2040%20Melanger%20Speed%20Controller.htm

Is there anybody out there on the Chocolate Life who has experience using this equipment, or who knows anyone who has?

I am receiving an extremely low level of customer service, and the warranty is very limited on the product, as well as there being no facility in the United States (where I am) to service the melangeur in the event of mechanical problems. On top of this, I have been told I will have to wait several months for the Spectra 40 to ship directly from the manufacturer in India.

With an investment of this nature, my business simply cannot afford for this type of equipment to be anything other than top-notch for many years to come, if not decades. Any advice or information regarding the Spectra 40 Melanger specifically, or Santha in general, is greatly appreciated.

.:SiriuS:.