Forum Activity for @Mariano Garcia

Any recommendation of machines to grind cocoa, before placing it in the Melanger that is not too expensive?

thanksss

Have you checked out Theobroma from DogFishHead Brewery?

http://www.dogfish.com/brews-spirits/the-brews/occassional-rarities/theobroma.htm

Most 'off the shelf' vanilla extracts are what's called a single fold (1x) concentration, and use alcohol.  alcohol based flavors will be just fine in chocolate, just keep the concentration less than 1%.  As there are higher concentrations of alcohol (2x, 4x, 6x, etc) one can't really say  how much is the right amount, you'll need to p lay with levels a bit to find that out for yourself.  Other oils have differenet strengths - essential oils for example can be very, very, very potent - to the point where you may have a difficult weighing out a small enough quantity accurately to be consistent.  If you're getting oils from grocery stores (ie consumer type flavorants) those have already been heavily diluted to make it easier for the home cook to manage.

A cut test is *always* a good thing to do if you're looking for quality control.  The thing is - there's no right answer, what you're looking for and willing to accept is a function of what you want in your end product.  Purple beans indicates either the beans were unfermented or lightly fermented, and they will be higher in bitterness, astringency, and lower chocolate flavor.  Brown / dark beans indicates they are well fermented - how well is difficult to say from the cust test alone, but they'll likely have higher chocolate flavor, and less astringency and bitterness.  Very dark and crumbly probably means they're very old beans that have been in the pipeline for a long time.

Are you happy with the chocolate those beans are making for you?  If so, then do taht cut test 10 times and use those results as your baseline fo what you want to see.  Sadly, doing a cut test *after* you've recieved your bulk shipment makes it very difficult to do anything about your bulk shipment if you're dissatisfied. I have no idea what your scale is, but you may want to consider setting up a sampling/preshipment program where your supplier sends you a small amount for y ou to test, after which you give the green light to ship based on the results.

Buon giono a tutti vorrei un aiuto dove posso trovare in italia o in europa piccoli quantitativi di fave

Hi Larry, 

i saw this link posted to someone else on here (think due to their roasting issues) which is what made me think that I have never actually checked the beans using a cut test, and now I am wondering whether I should mention/complain about the fairly major differences between just 100g of these beans. I don't suppose there is much I can do if they are under fermented is there?

That's quite the mix of beans. Here is a useful link. http://ccib.gov.tt/node/116

I'm not an expert, just regurgitating what I've gleaned from TheChocolateLife

It looks like your purple ones are underfermented and the yellow/brown ones are unfermented.

Hi everyone,

read on here that it is a good idea to do a cut test of the fermented cocoa beans when they arrive. So i took a 100g sample of the cocoa bean and started chopping them up. I have a little picture table with examples of what the colours in the beans mean/represent, and am now a bit concerned about some of the ones i have cut up. I have attached pictures and grouped them in their colours. First one (biggest group) is the partly purple-chocolately brown coloured ones which are all good?

2nd group (and 2nd largest group) are these yellow/brown ones, i am worried these are mouldy? or maybe overfermented?

3rd group are these very obvious purple ones i am not sure if this is a good purple or a bad insufficiently fermented purple? plus one of these purple beans has a bit of white on it, not sure what this is?  

this last group of just the one bean was a very dark brown and was very crumbly which i think probably means it has been overfermented?

any help and advice would be brilliant. i dont know if this is quite common to have such a variety in just 100g or not, and so i dont know whether i should keep using them, or contact my supplier etc.

cheers chocolate community!

Hi everyone,

read on here that it is a good idea to do a cut test of the fermented cocoa beans when they arrive. So i took a 100g sample of the cocoa bean and started chopping them up. I have a little picture table with examples of what the colours in the beans mean/represent, and am now a bit concerned about some of the ones i have cut up. I have attached pictures and grouped them in their colours. First one (biggest group) is the partly purple-chocolately brown coloured ones which are all good?

2nd group (and 2nd largest group) are these yellow/brown ones, i am worried these are mouldy? or maybe overfermented?

3rd group are these very obvious purple ones i am not sure if this is a good purple or a bad insufficiently fermented purple? plus one of these purple beans has a bit of white on it, not sure what this is?  

this last group of just the one bean was a very dark brown and was very crumbly which i think probably means it has been overfermented?

any help and advice would be brilliant. i dont know if this is quite common to have such a variety in just 100g or not, and so i dont know whether i should keep using them, or contact my supplier etc.

cheers chocolate community!

Hi everyone,

read on here that it is a good idea to do a cut test of the fermented cocoa beans when they arrive. So i took a 100g sample of the cocoa bean and started chopping them up. I have a little picture table with examples of what the colours in the beans mean/represent, and am now a bit concerned about some of the ones i have cut up. I have attached pictures and grouped them in their colours. First one (biggest group) is the partly purple-chocolately brown coloured ones which are all good?

2nd group (and 2nd largest group) are these yellow/brown ones, i am worried these are mouldy? or maybe overfermented?

3rd group are these very obvious purple ones i am not sure if this is a good purple or a bad insufficiently fermented purple? plus one of these purple beans has a bit of white on it, not sure what this is?  

this last group of just the one bean was a very dark brown and was very crumbly which i think probably means it has been overfermented?

any help and advice would be brilliant. i dont know if this is quite common to have such a variety in just 100g or not, and so i dont know whether i should keep using them, or contact my supplier etc.

cheers chocolate community!

I just made some chocolate and then flavored it with some orange and peppermint oils. It was two different batches. I used about 15 to 20 drops per pound. This was the first time I used essential oils to flavor my chocolate. After I tempered my chocolate, I added drops of oil, stirred and then tasted it. I kept adding drops until I was happy with the taste.

It's because most tablet molds have a pyramid slope from wide to narrow (narrow being the front). If you wrap this way you'll have to invert the outside label and your customer will have to flip the bar over to open it, defeating the purpose. We experimented with this when we started and it made wrapping more difficult and customers thought the bars looked "backwards" when they were wrapped. I guess it depends on your mold.

What is the temperature of the room? What cooling temp and for how long? Only time we really ran into that issue was when the molds were too warm. We also aim for 68F ambient room temp.

Dunno if you've figured out since you posted but vanilla extract tends to have alcohol and won't work in chocolate - in fact, the more you add, the more you'll end up with a thick sludge and won't be able to temper. Have you tried using vanilla bean? You can add as much as you want.

Does anyone know how to make chocolate chips in 5 to 10 pound batches without having to buy a big machine that costs thousands of dollars?  Thanks!

Hi all, I have them a query.

  what temperature should reach the chocolate when finished molding.

How long to wait for that chocolate is ready to be packed?

If I need to save for long a milk chocolate, at what temperature is the most correct?

gracias, thanks!

brad prefect, very good thanks for your help!

Thank you Ben! This is helpfull. Just finished editing my chocolate truffle book. I have your upala bar as a recommended chocolate for one of the truffles :-) It was supposed to be 125 pages. But it is 250 pages without photos :-( So I have a little reducing to do. Will be ebook published first, then do a limited print run.

Yup.

Interesting, I think that could be it. So then to rememdy the situation I should keep the walls thicker, and try to keep the base the same thickness as the walls?

You are correct. I should have said expanding/contracting at different rates. It looks like the bottom "stuck", but snapped off where the base is.

Yes I noticed these walls were pretty thin. What do you mean the bottom is expanding? I was under the assumption chocolate contacted slightly once set.

Could it be the walls were too cold when I appied the cap and it was not able to melt and reset into one piece? 

Just a guess here...It looks like your walls are very thin and your bottom very thick. Perhaps the bottom is expanding at a different rate than the sides and popping.

Hi,

So I have been making chocolate bon bons and the area where the cap and the walls of the bonbon are suppost to meet and melt together have not been lately. There is a hairline crack going all the way around the chocolate and therefore the bottoms fall off when I unmold them. Are my walls too thin? I am not sure how to correct this? Photos attached, any comments appreciated.

image (1).jpeg - 1.9MB

Mariano;

I don't think so, although if you live in a very warm climate it may work, but will take a long time.  At this point in time, the acetic acid is in crystal form and thoroughly embedded in the shell and the bean.  Heat from roasting is the best bet, and then a long conche.

My porcelana is VERY acidic and I have found that I have to roast those beans at a low temperature for almost 3 times longer than any other bean I have.  It seems to work very well, but even then I still have to conche for several days.  The end result however is an amazing, fruity, smooth chocolate.

Brad

Thanks Brad, you think that if I put the sun delete vinegar

The [76] reference in the book I linked is to this book:

http://www.amazon.com/chemistry-flavouring-manufacture-chocolate-confectionery/dp/B00086FPC4

Hi Robert,

I found this reference in 'Chocolate: History, Culture and Heritage' (page 1672 in the link, but page 620 in the hardcover version):

https://books.google.com/books?id=zwVS5gsJMUcC&lpg=PP1&dq=chocolate%20history%20culture%20and%20heritage&pg=PA1672#v=onepage&q=tempering&f=false

It doesn't say much, though.

-Ben

p.s. good to 'see' you! I hope things are going well.

Thanks. I will try to temper again. The moulds are at RT. Is it possible of wrong cooling?

Fat bloom.

Either chocolate not correctly tempered or moulds at wrong temperature.

I hope I can help a little bit here...

The vinegar smell you are getting is actually acetic acid, a by-product of the fermentation process.  Depending on what the farmer does, some beans can be quite acidic.

There are two processes that you can take advantage of to lower the acidity of your chocolate:

1. Roasting - a lower temperature roast spread out over a long time can help.
2. Conching - a long, open air conche will help as well.

Hope that helps.

Cheers.

Brad

I got my Delta machine and started brand new batch. I used default Milk, and try to temper 5lb chocolate as a trial. See the picture..... Is it sugar/fat bloom? Or it is simply not tempered? The default setting is far off the temperature chart from the vendor.

Thanks!

 20150319_165538.jpg - 784KB

Hi everyone at Chocolife! I am between going to the intensive ICE 5 day course in NY {chocolate tecnique 1 and 2] or going to the Chocolate academy in Chicago...for the basic course.

I have some experience, but need to freshen up with  technique in general,molding,filling, ganaches,etc.

Does anyone have an opinion regarding which course is better?

riends, I have problem, buy a bag of cocoa and chocolate when I did I realized I had a very acidic taste ..

It was when I realized that the seeds have vinegar smell. as I can get this smell to make chocolate?

thanks

We had sampled a few of the Mast Bro's chocolate bar for sale at my chocolate store. We carried over 1000 of the best chocolate products in the world. We wanted to like Mast Bro's and were excited for our first tasting.

The rule we had in place was that all the employees at the tasting had to come to 100% agreement on liking a chocolate product before we included it for sale in our store. Our thought was there is no point in trying to sell something that someone doesn't like. All our product line was created this way.

When we started our tasting process we were all surprised by each others reactions. Bottom line: none, no, none of us liked it for numerous reasons from taste, quality, texture, etc. We were dumbfounded. There were 8 of us tasting that evening. We had already unanimously approved 2 other bars from different makers. We saved this for last. So we had to eat other chocolate to lift our spirits.

Greetings,

I have found copius volumes of information on the scientific process of tempering. However I cannot seem to find and verifiable information on the actual history of how the tempering process was developed as it relates to chocolate. The closest I have gotten is that it may have been developed by Lindt as an end process to conching. If anyone can point me in the right direction I would be most grateful.

Kind regards,

Robert

Yup - if I'm not seeding I do.

Ok....

At Clay's request I read almost every one of the 500+ comments on the article.  Heck, I even read the article!  

I'll sum it up for you:  Superfluous Jibber Jabber.

Of the 500+ comments to the article I only found a couple of (at best) luke warm compliments to their chocolate, and ignored the plethora of comments insulting their beards.  Wow... I had no idea people hated beards that much!  Who knew??

Here is a summary of the comments I DID find on their chocolate - the words and phrases are pulled directly from the posts:

• icky
• too intense
• sh*tty overpriced chocolate
• caca
• bitter
• did not measure up
• i had to spit it from my mouth it was so awful
• my palate wasn't sophisticated enough to 'get it'
• I can just tolerate their Special Dark
• chalky and really disliked it
• I live in the neighborhood and I really wanted to like Mast Chocolate - but after many attempts - it has always been disappointing.

This company and it's founders are truly the poster children for what I've been preaching about on this site for years:  LISTEN TO YOUR CUSTOMERS!!!!

Knowing the types of machines they have, and how much volume (of PROPERLY conched chocolate) on a weekly basis each machine can produce, I can definitively tell you that Mast Bros. are taking shortcuts with respect to product in order to address demand issues.  

Those shortcuts will spell their demise.  Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but within the next 5 years.  Mark my words.

I'm sure at one time they produced great chocolate.  However today, according to people who have bought it and tried it, they aren't and that very unsilent majority is spreading the word that it's crap.  They have already spread out significantly into surrounding communities.  WHY?  Because nobody in THEIR community is buying their chocolate anymore.  NOBODY LIKES IT.  

Rick Mast may disagree with me.  Maybe you do too.  But think about this for a second:  There are 2.6 million people in Brookly alone. That means in just Brooklyn approximately 25.1 million lbs of chocolate gets consumed every year.  One would think that if they made "the best", it wouldn't be hard to completely sell out AT FULL RETAIL PRICE of the tiny amount they make with a consumption pool of that size surrounding them. 

Yet they don't sell out in their shop, and have branched out to other communities, selling their bars at a wholesale price, instead of focusing locally and selling out at full retail and being more profitable.

As an analyst, this tells me their product ISN'T the best (or even close), and that they don't give a flying pinch of pigeon poop what their customers think or want - justifying their ignorance by spouting off about not caring about what the critics say, or pushing their own beliefs of good chocolate down the throats of those who enter their shop once, and most likely won't come back, as they 'aren't sophisticated enough'.

In business, refusing to listen to your customers is a great recipe for failure, and while they will make some headway in the next few years due to their funky look and the media interest in the craft chocolate industry, I assure you they won't be the media darling for much longer.  When the cameras disappear, and the media dust settles, they'll be left standing there scratching their hipster beards and saying to each other, "Hey dude... where did everyone go?".

I make and sell chocolate too, and in a city that is a fraction of the size of Brooklyn.  My team and current equipment can't keep up with local demand and it's a hell of a lot more industrial than the units the Mast Bros use.  I CAN'T expand without taking a giant leap and building a large factory, and I'm certainly not going to sell a single bar at a discount if I know we can sell it at full retail pop in the next few days!  Doing otherwise is truly stupid.  In a city of only a million people Choklat has become so popular that my shop holds chocolate and wine tasting events 4 nights a week in Calgary, and twice a week in Edmonton, and we are sold out until 2016.  Yup.  You heard it!  You can't reserve a seat in any of our events until NEXT YEAR!!!

The bottom line here is that somebody will always stand out from the crowd, and unfortunately it's all too often that the media dictates who that somebody is.  (Remember a few years ago those douches named Sacred Steve and David Wolfe, who were spouting off about "raw chocolate" all over the place?).

In this case it's the bearded hipsters in Brooklyn, and while I don't personally think the attention they are getting is a bad thing for the craft chocolate industry (after all it's creating awareness in the marketplace), I think that in time the market will dictate what it wants, and if Mast Bros. doesn't give it what it wants, they will join Sacred Steve and his funky hat somewhere in "Faded Fad Land" where they can debate the popularity of their beards vs. Steve's hat.

In the meantime I too will continue ignoring the self indulgent, pretentious critics, just as I have done in the past.  However, at the same time I WILL be listening to my customers and selling a boatload of chocolate because of it.

Cheers

Brad

With the subtitle: "Why do specialty shops refuse to carry one of the best-known craft chocolate brands in the country?"

While "hate" is a very strong word that I don't agree with, it certainly has attracted a lot of attention and comment on Slate, Facebook, and other outlets.

Here's the link to the article  and I recommend reading the comments before sharing your thoughts with ChocolateLife members.

 Slate_MastBros_bros.jpg - 79KB

I also have a real quick question which regards to tempering chocolate. Do you need to temper chocolate that contains cocoa butter and vegetable fats altogether? 

This problem is not related temperature.  It's related to physics, and understanding the behaviour of the chocolate you are working with.

When making chocolate confections, you have two compounds with different properties and different behaviours:  You have your centers, and you have your coatings.

As the centers warm and cool, they just sit there and for the most part, do nothing.  However it's important to keep in mind that some centers are softer than others, and also have more air incorporated into them than others, while other centers are dense, and less inclined to give in to slight compression.

Then you have your chocolate.  THIS IS THE CULPRIT.  As the cocoa butter in the chocolate crystalizes, it shrinks (which is why it comes out of molds very easily when properly tempered).  Chocolate with a high cocoa butter content (such as good quality couverture) shrinks LOTS, and when properly tempered, has zero maleability.

Your truffles are rolled round.

When a sphere shrinks, it shrinks inward.

You cover a round ball with tempered chocolate, and as the chocolate sets it tries to shrink.  However when it can't, something has to give, and as a result a crack appears.  It really IS that simple.

A very soft center with air incorporated into it (such as a whipped/piped ganache), will allow the chocolate to compress it and as a result will not crack.  A hard center will not give the chocolate an opportunity to shrink, and as a result many will crack.

Understanding the behaviour of your ingredients, you have a number of options:

1. Use a couverture that has less cocoa butter
2. Incorporate air into your centers by whipping them
3. Double dip your confections (the first dip will crack, but the second generally won't)
4. coat your truffles with something (which adds structure for the chocolate to grab on to and compress)
5. Use a milk chocolate to coat your confections

This lesson here is further supported by the process of molding chocolates.  The molds are poured, emptied, and scraped, and allowed to set before the filling is piped in (this gives the thin chocolate shell time to shrink).  The center is piped in, and the bottoms are poured.  Thick bottoms can cause cracking whereas uniform bottoms very seldom ever do.

Cheers and Happy Chocolate Making

Brad