Forum Activity for @Daniel Haran

I certainly haven't seen as many as Sebastian. There are a few clues that can be suggestive but I haven't found any good indicator. Even smell and taste aren't a sure criteria.

Is a temper meter just a way to log and plot temperatures on a chocolate sample as it cools down?

Unless I'm missing something like added cooling, this sounds like a fairly trivial gadget. It seems all you would need is identical size containers (maybe disposable plastic cups), a controlled temperature environment, thermocouple and the data logger.

That would be less than $100 in parts, not thousands of dollars. What am I missing?

No.

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Thanks again for sharing, Salvatore!

Is it possibly to identify a bean's species based on it's shape and size? I heard that forastero will often have a dimple and look very almond like.

Any tips for identifying a beans species if you had just a grab bag of different types?

Any help would be appreciated!

That´s really helpfull Clay, i had a better impression from IMSA.

I´ll go with your advice, but ihave one question.

Melangers and similar, and ball mills, allow me to refine liquor over 35% fat/butter content.

But, what about the degreased cocoa under that fat content? for example, what is left from the oil pressing in a "Nutrachef" or similar press equipment? how can i refine it?

Chris : As far as the  parts being manufactured in China then reassembled and Korea I do not have that answer. You can contact him directly. Here is a quote from the company I have attached it to the bottom of this message. Let me know what you think. Good luck. 

Here is a you tube link of China Sourcing Academy.  Check out this site their videos will help you regarding sourcing from China. You could also hire them as consultants.  They have many different videos on YouTube. 

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrgVIJD4dymgvTiEcOSoyFA

Here is the quote from National  Engineering. 

No, the tricor does not require a properly tempered 'control', if you will. As with any analytical instrument, it does require calbiration, which it maintains internally.  Since things like flavor release, color, hardness, bloom stability, etc all are a direct function of temper - and since temper is not a yes/no state (there are ranges of temper), if the lab was going to be used to assess such things, having a temper meter becomes a critical tool in defining your 'acceptable window' of temper to minimize the impact of temper on those other variables you are evaluating.  W/o it, you may come to the conclusion that beans xxx are 'better' than beans yyy for whatever reason, and that reason may have absolutely nothing to do with the beans, but rather the fact that the chocolate made with xxx beans was on the far 'left' of the temper spectrum, and the chocolate made with yyy beans were tempered to the far 'right' of the spectrum.

Clay: In my opinion, even that "more expensive" price is fairly reasonable. Again, I'm surprised more people aren't using the Delani or the National models (or, at least, aren't mentioning them on the relevant forum discussions on this site). Thanks for the information, and I'll probably be in touch about that press in the future, barring the unexpected emergence of some better option.

Photos below. Full disclosure - these are to be cannabis edibles. (It's legal here in Oregon now).  I am planning to add cannabis oil to the tempered chocolate, and we have found that it is best absorbed when activated and added (diluted) in coconut oil. Each of my recipes need to contain *some* coconut oil - I try to add the minimal amount in each instance. I thought that 1gm per 5# would not affect the outcome, but it seems it might be a problem. These chocolates do not currently contain cannabis, just coconut and flavoring oils. 

The coconut oil was added to the chocolate callets during the melt cycle, behind the baffle. My hypothesis was that it would emulsify during the temper process. The entire batch contained coconut oil, and it all bloomed. 

The chocolate that was flavored was ladled into a dry, warm bowl while in temper, and a few drops of each flavoring oil (LorAnn for 2, peppermint essential oil) was added in and stirred with a rubber spat. I warmed the oils in a water bath before adding them in.

As you can see from the pictures, I still had some shine and release from the moulds. The tablets with marshmallow, nuts, and toffee did not have any flavorings, just coconut oil. 

 bloomtest0401.jpg - 3.9MB

Hi Tim,

I had exactly the same issue with my premier grinder a little while, and it makes everything look pretty dammed gross. However....

I found a few ways of dealing with it:

1- after each batch you make clean the grinder bowl and remove the wheels from the axels and clean inside them with a pipe cleaner really thoroughly (as everyone has already suggested) - then dry them in the oven to ensure all water has evaporated

2- when re-fitting the wheels on the axels make sure there is a bit of the axel still poking out from the wheel so that when you tighten the nut onto the washer, the wheelse still move very freely, this is largely only a problem i found by cleaning multiple machines at the same time, as not all the wheelse are made exactly the same width.

3- adjust the plastic scraper arm thing so that it is not directly up against the metal side of the bowl when you have full tension screwed down onto the stone wheels. This was where i noticed the biggest cause of that grey stuff you see, it actually seems to be largely caused by the plastic scraper rubbing against the metal bowl side and very slowly creating fine metal dust particles. Over a short period this wouldnt cause a problem and wouldnt be noticeable enough (these machine are only made to be used for maximum 30minutes) but over say 12-24hour period like we use for grinding the chocolate and sugar down, these metal particles scrape off, and build up and up and then discolour the chocolate. Similar sort of thing if you ever take bits off a car for example, black stuff builds up parts that rub against each other

4- warm the bowl and stone wheels with a hairdryer or heat gun before adding ingredients, also helps to warm your liquid ingredients before adding too.

Hope that helps, it worked for me and since have had no problems.

Photos?

And please tell us more about how you are using the Chocovision and why (and when) you are adding coconut oil (a likely source of the problem) as well as the essential oils.

Hello! I am a new confectioner (chef turned pastry chef), learning as I go. I am working on a line of artisanal tablets/candy bars, using LorAnn or essential oils to flavor chocolate, and I am still experiencing bloom. I added approx 2 grams of coconut oil to the 5# dark couverture chocolate as it was melting. I am using an automatic tempering machine, (Chocovision Rev V) adding the warmed oils to tempered chocolate, and letting set overnight/days. The ambient temperature in the room is around 69*F but can get as warm as 74*. Is the temperature the problem? Any help is appreciated! 

David:

I have seen the IMSA equipment in operation during the Salon del Cacao y Chocolate in Lima in 2015 as well as at a customer site in Lima in 2014. I can't recommend it. It looks good and the prices are decent, but there are some serious build quality issues, especially with the cracker/winnower.

Going with the requirement for no DIY ... 

I can second Sebastian's recommendation of a Binder oven, especially at the scale you are going to be working at and for the intended purpose. I know for a fact that a  Binder FD53  is used for making both the liquor and chocolate samples for the International Cocoa of Excellence Awards. If your budget stretches I would go for the next size up though it's not necessary. There are no special installation issues with this oven that you'd need to consider when using a drum roaster.

As for grinding and refining, at the scale you're talking about I don't see why you need a multi-step process of disc grinder, ball mill, and roll-refiner. Though otherwise expensive, you can get a 12kg/batch melangeur from Kudvic for under US$10,000 with clear lid and their automatic temperature control system.

[ Premier Chocolate Refiners (not the basic grinder) could be used instead of the Kudvic. The batch size is much smaller (about 2kg) but they are very cheap (less than $300 each) and so you could buy a dozen of them and be processing several different recipes at the same time. ]

These melangeurs are not conches, but with some added hot air flow they do a creditable job that is acceptable for your use case scenarios. I have a non-DIY recommendation for airflow for the Premier refiners.

For small batch cracking and winnowing I would recommend the machines from CPS (Commodity Processing Systems) in the UK. There are two winnower sizes, get the large one. Expect to spend about £3000 ($5000) before shipping.

Again at such a small scale and for chocolate for which there is no seed, I can recommend The Chocolate Wave . It's under US$7000 before shipping and can temper 2-3kg of chocolate in a couple of minutes. While you will need to learn how to temper properly (which us a good thing in any event), it's going to be a lot faster in use than a small-batch tempering machine from Chocovision.

I cannot recommend the Pomati T5 for tempering own-made chocolate. The entire cooling system is just too small (compressor capacity and length of the tempering auger) for consistent tempering results for chocolate that is even slightly more viscous than couverture.

While a temper meter like the Tricor is not a bad recommendation, if I recall correctly from talking with their tech guys (and Sebastian please correct me if I am wrong on this), is that it requires having a sample of properly tempered chocolate to compare against. So it's kind of a chicken and egg situation. You can't measure proper temper unless you have properly tempered chocolate to begin with. They do make a machine to measure rheology and that might be interesting.

I also have connections with a refrigeration supply company in the UK (Angel) that offers a 20-pan temperature and humidity–controlled fridge specifically for crystallizing and holding chocolate. It's about £4000 ($6500) before shipping from the UK.

I can help you get quotations and order machines from Kudvic, Chocolate Wave, and Angel Refrigeration. I don't have a connection at Binder or CPS but I can get them for you if you need. 

That's optimistic.  I'd consider 35-37% as the minimum operational range.

Chris:

The price is about US$14,000 for a 50kg/hr press (that's mass, not butter), before shipping. If you decide you want to place an order please do it through me so I can expedite and keep track of it for you.

Caotech just gave me their response. Their ball mill needs a minimum fat/butter content of 30% to operate.

Salvatore: Thanks for your response. My assumption was that National is the original designer/producer. When you spoke with them, did you happen to ask if the machines are actually built in Korea with parts manufactured in Korea? My concern would be that it's simply designed or conceived or sold by a Korean company while actually being made in China using cheap parts. If they are the real deal, it seems that many people would already be using them - if they work as they claim, the price is quite good, no? Surely if the design is good enough to copy, many someones out there must be using the originals successfully, no? Yet, all these forum discussions seem to lament a lack of smaller presses under $25,000...?

Clay: Indeed, that's the spec sheet I found on their Spanish language site, and the manufacturing/correcting scenario you described is what I assumed. I have already requested a quote via their site, though haven't heard back (though, weekend), so if you already have that information to forward to me, or if you care to share a ballpark figure with the forum, feel free.

The 1st ever DC Chocolate Festival will be held this Saturday, April 9th, 2016. There will be about 30 chocolate businesses sampling and selling their products, including a lot of local DC chocolate makers, chocolatiers, etc., but also several chocolate makers from outside of DC. Additionally, there will be several classes/demos/presentations in a separate learning room.

Info and tickets are still available at http://www.dcchocolatefestival.com/ . Also, I believe there are still one or two vendor slots available, so if anyone is interested in attending as a last-minute vendor email me at info@potomacchocolate.com.

-Ben

I would not personally use the ball mill for anything other than making liquor, given your setup.  Also consider that it's going to be a very loud piece of equpiment to operate.

For automated small batch tempering, you might consider the chocovision revolation unit (or perhaps a couple of them).  If you're lookign for consistency in tempering results, also consider a tricor temper-meter.  

Something i omitted above would be two very precise scales - one that's a very small measurement (0.000x grams), and one that allows for kg size measurements (xx.xxkg) - those can run you a few thousand dollars as well.

hi thanks for your reply, but occupied a mélanger but a machine that makes me liquor and then use the Melanger

I forgot about something. They are planning to buy a refrigerator for tempering and keeping samples. I honestly don´t have any idea about the specifications of this equipment, i have only tempered by hand in Bogotá which is 20°C bellow from here.

Thanks!

Hi Nicole, 

I dont think mine was a grease issue afterall. It looked similar to what I see at the bottom of the bowl on the Santha, and had a look like it was trying to keep itself separated from the chocolate.  After looking at some chocolate after it had solidified though, it was most definately not grease. It was a clumping of granite dust.

In the santha, the only thing I can recommend is cleaning out the center shaft and the bottom of the bowl (outside) really well and wipe down (do not degrease) the wheel assembly that the bowl sits on/in.  If you feel the need to degrease I strongly reccomend getting another foodsafe lube to replace the grease on the wheel assembly. I think that grease/lube is necessary to prevent friction of between the two different materials.

Daniel and Sebastian, you both got me thinking.

Roasting: ill stick with IMSA, as i´m not allowed to buying equipment that needs modification. The legal advisor was very insistent with it.

Winnower: Same as roasting, not allowed to build machines or parts for machines.

Grinding: i was reading the specifications of the CAO B5, Caotech Ball Mill. Apparently it can refine, from cocoa powder to cocoa liquor and everything on the middle. I´m not sure about that, as i was convinced that ball mills were required for high fat content products (as cocoa liquor) and roll refiners for degreased cocoa liquor.

I was planning to use the disc mill for refining cocoa cake from the cocoa butter press, but that no longer seems necessary, same for the roll refiner.

But as it´s been repeatedly pointed out, i don´t know much about this, so i would like to hear about your experiences.

Tempering: As Sebastian said, i would choose to temper by hand, but there is a lot of politics inside this project; you are absolutely right, it has to work great, but it has to "look" great too.

I´ll get for me some premiers and the nutracheff oil press by July to try the number 2 option Sebastian mention. But that´s for me with my cocoa clones.

That's helpful David - thank you.

A couple of thoughts, if I may.

Roasting - while i have not used the Inox directly, i suspect it's a perfectly suitable piece of equipment. I also suspect that it's more than you require, and i might recommend a Binder oven as an alternative.  Fantastically good temperature control and heat distribution for a fraction of the price.  Regardless of the oven you select, i'd recommend having your machine shop fabricate some standardized roasting trays to hold a fixed amount at a fixed depth with airflow through the bottom.  This will help you with your oven 'recovery' time (when you open the doors and put x amount in, your temperature will drop - the amount of time it takes the oven to come back to it's set temperature is it's recovery time, and is very useful in creating a standardized assessment method).

Winnowing - again, it probably a perfectly suitable unit, but if you're open to it, you can build something equally as suitable for 1/5 of the price yourself.  Now, part of what you may want this lab to be is a showcase as well - meaning looks are important - if that's the case, i'd stick with purchasing the commercial unit as a DIY winnower - while as effective, isn't likely to look as nice.

Disc mill - perfectly suitable.  why do you want this?  you've got a ball mill listed later, which i'm assuming  you want to use to make chocolate liquor.  A disc mill is going to perform the same task as a ball mill.  Not sure you need both.  An alternative to both of them i might recommend is a colloid mill.  a number of years ago i was looking for a suitable milling operation that i could install in the jungle anywhere in the world, and i secured a JML colloid mill literally off of ebay to test it.  very cost effective, and while it required me to clean the living daylights out of it beofre i used it, i found it to be a remarkably robust, easy to operate, and efficient piece of equipment for making liquor.

Roll Refiner - i'd recommend testing this unit before you buy it to ensure it can achieve sufficient particle size reduction.  Some 3 roll refiners don't have sufficient tensioning built into them to get to small particle size (20um - some of them struggle with achieving even 50 um).

Tempering - if you're going to be doing 5kg batches, it frankly might be easier to hand temper them.  A good hot plate, an aluminum rectangular pan, and your cooling tunnel will enable this.  There are a number of small batch tempering units that are in that 5kg size range that cost $1-2k that are suitable as well.

You also want to give some consideration to how are  you going to cool your chocolate once it's been tempered.  This can be as simple as modifying a refrigeration unit to be suitable for chocolate, but in your environment, tempering without cooling will be very problematic for you.

Any refractometer you get should have at least a 0-30 brix range - anything higher than 30 isn't going to be useful for you, assuming you're going to use it to assess cocoa pulp.  Not sure what you're going to do with a hygrometer.  Other useful pieces of equipment, assuming you're also going to be working with the cocoa beans, include a set of good stick thermometers, a field portable pH meter, and i'd strongly recommend somerthing called a Dickey John mini GAC+ to allow you to do rapid cocoa bean moisture analysis.  If you're going to be working in the field with fermentation and drying, i might also suggest a good set of data loggers that record both temperature and humidity.

Please use the following format to make it easier for people.

There are three parts. Whether you are selling or buying, what it is you are selling (F/S, For Sale) or WTB (Want to Buy), and where you are located. Each of these three parts should be separated a space-dash-space. See below:

For Sale / Wanted to Buy - What you are selling/looking for - Where you are (as precise as possible - country at least).

Examples:

• F/S - Used Batch Tempering Machine - Chicago
• WTB - Undeodorized Cocoa Butter - WA

Thanks.

Please also take a look at the guidelines for closing posts, which is also pinned.

Does anyone have a guitar cutter (preferable Dedy or Bakon) with 5mm base they are looking to sell?

Hi David,

It is really useful for me to see those prices and options, thank you

How much production per week do you need to have?

Here's my current setup:

-Roasting. Right now I am using a convection oven (CAD $4,000), which can roast 4-5 perforated pans at once. It does result in a lot of smoke. I usually roast ~4kg in under 20 minutes, as there is a lot of airflow so using the same roast curves others post here leads to burning.

-Winnowing. Sylph winnower with shop-vac and "dust deputy". A Champion juicer to crack the beans feeds into the Sylph, and I separate nibs by size for 2nd and optionally a 3rd pass. I control for remaining husk by weighing what's left in 100g of nibs (marijuana scales are cheap and have 0.01g accuracy). ~CAD $1500 for this setup.

-Grinding. I have a universal and several smaller test mills, both a Spectra/Santha and 5 Premier Wonders. When testing recipe variations I can use two Premiers side-by-side. Each of those can easily handle 2.5kg and will result in very good chocolate; I highly recommend you start with those. I keep those small mills over a heater at 40C in a baking rack holder with cover, which doubles as a warming cabinet. Premiers can handle 100g of nibs every 5 minutes, so this lets me skip pre-grinding.

-Tempering. I experimented a lot before deciding on a continuous tempering machine. For higher throughput production it is not tempering but _dosing_ that is finicky and time-consuming. If you care less about these concerns, you can use cheaper tempering machines or even skip them and temper on stone. A higher-tech solution is an EZTemper (USD$1,000) or a cheaper PID controller setup that keeps cocoa butter at the same temperature.

For optimal tempering I would consider refrigeration (my setup is a baking rack holder with cover and an A/C unit blowing cold air in).

I'm not sure what use a refractometer would be. I found hygrometers for $20 and so have a couple around the workshop. The laser (infrared) thermometer is the other gadget I wouldn't want to be without.

My next purchases will probably include a tiny cocoa butter press (Nutrachef, USD$250) which I suspect will be pretty common amongst craft makers. From online descriptions it can get 160g of butter from 500g of liquor in 30 minutes.

I'd also like a proper conche and will look at the one you listed. At a larger scale a Kleego might be more compelling as it can vary many parameters independently.

I think you could put off the roll refiner and ball mill and replace grinding with multiple Premiers, which would let you try many more recipes in parallel.

Chris -

It's hard to tell who the original design/manufacturer of these presses is. Once a design becomes popular it gets knocked of then you end up with knockoffs of knockoffs and so on.

I have a copy of the info sheet on the Delani version of this press in Spanish. I don't see how I can attach it to this post but I have uploaded the file to my profile and you should be able to download it by clicking on this link .

Delani buys these presses from a manufacturer in China and ships them to Peru. There they are checked to make sure that they are wired properly and that there are no manufacturing defects. Delani also includes parts they manufacture that enable the press to operate more efficiently. And, as you can see in the photo on the info sheet they add an enclosure. Yeah, they are more expensive, but you get something that works, not something you're going to have to work on after you get it and before you put it into production.

If you are interested I can help arrange for a quote - I am representing Delani in the US.

Hi everyone, my total budget is 260.000.000 colombian pesos, that´s about 80.000 dolars.

- Cocoa Roaster 5 kg per batch. Machine: ERTC-05 IMSA $10.300 Perú

  This machine is programmable, INOX, has a cooling cicle and fumes extraction            system among other stuff i find trouble translating.

- Winnower 15 kg/h IMSA Perú $6.300

 This one is the smallest i´ve found.

- Disc Mill (no brand in particular) $1.000

- Cocoa Butter Press: I haven´t found any for $11.000 i think i would need to get a "kitchen" or domestic machine for this purpose. We just need 1 kg of cocoa butter a day and 10 kg of degrased cocoa liquor a day.

-Roll Refiner: Three Roll Mill Model T65 Torrey Hills Technologies $8.800

 This is the smallest roll refiner i´ve found.

-Ball Mill + Conche 5kg per batch each. Caotech CAO B5 + CWC5 $33.000

-Tempering machine 5 kg per batch. Pomati T5

  I think this one cost about $8.000, but i haven´t looked for any definitive machine.

With that money, i also have to buy hygrometers, refractometers, guillotine, therometers etc. But those aren´t hard to find. I would expect to spend no more than $3.500.

I´m open to suggestions, i can´t hire a professional or buy second hand equipment.

I just had to sit down and listen a legal advisor for two hours just for trying to change the budget they gave me, until he found a legal exit for doing this.

I really appreciate everyone´s contributions to this topic.

Thanks!!

Sebastian, you´re right. The main goals are to make some resarch, provide assistance to farmers and create a small chocolate maker and chocolatier programme as the institution i´m working for is the public learning service.

David - it's also helpful to understand why you're makign chocolate (what the purpose is).  Is it to highlight columbian cocoa to support the agronomy?  Is it to establish a standardized means to assess various clonal materials and post harvest practices?  If i had to guess i'd suspect more #1 than #2 as 5kg is a lot for standardized assessments.

Hi Tim,

Just wondering how you are going with your grease issue? My santha has just started doing the same thing. We have pulled it apart and cleaned all the grease out of the wheels and shaft and currently waiting for it to dry. I have been using my santha for 12 months now and never had a problem before.

Did the above steps you have mentioned solve your problem or did the grease come back?

Thanks Nicole.

Thanks everyone, i had a chance to talk to my employer about the challenge of trying to set up a lab with fixed budgets and names.

They found a alternative way of purchasing the equipment (burocracy), but now i can chose the equipment and buy it directly.

i´m polishing the details, but for now i´m aiming for 5 kg per batch equipment.

i´ll post tomorrow the specific equipment i´ve seen until now.

Delani -  The machine you see in the video is manufactured in China.  It is a knock off of the original manufacture from Korea. National engineering company LTD.  I received a price quote on two of the machines ( from National ).The Hanaro Type A- and Type B. Type A  -  $ 12,500. Type B  - $ 13,500.  These prices were quoted to me through email in May 2015.  I also noticed that their price has come down between 11,000 and $12,000 on Alibaba.com.  The Chinese manufacture who has some what copied the Korean manufacture are allowing Trading companies to distribute their machine through AliBaba for the price of $3000 per machine. Give or take a few hundred dollars depending on what Trading Company in China (  which they all claim to be suppliers/manufacturers ) you email.  If you do decide to inquire about the Chinese machines I would also recommend  that you look closely at the trading process regarding payment and so forth. There is a website which I will attach here which you can find out if you're dealing with reputable supplier.  I have no affiliation with this company I just ran across their site while researching. They have very informative videos regarding suppliers from China. 

Question ? Has anyone constructed a press pot out of billet stainless steel.  I am looking into building my own press.  

OK, back in in the USSA [sic] and ready to report. The best offerings I found (regarding wide, quality selection- not individual stores of makers) were at Eataly in Torino/Turin and La Rinasciente in Milano.

First, when I speak of the Eataly in Torino, I'm speaking of the HUGE (once you find the alcohol section downstairs, almost doubling the square footage) grocery located in the Lingotto area of Torino - a 5 minute Metro ride from Porta Nuova (main train station); NOT the smaller one in the center of town, which is focused more on the restaurant aspect of their business model. They have a lovely selection of pretty much everyone except Amedei. Their Domori selection was the biggest I saw in Italy, and they had Gardini, too; I managed to buy the LAST TWO, gold-medal-winning cherry giandujia cremino. (If I don't get an email in the next few days, I'll contact you, Clay; tempting as it is, I won't eat yours.) Pro-tip: skip the Gelato there and head to Grom, Orso (especially here for espresso! They actually had 7 mono-origins and 2 blends- separate grinders and all!), or Marchetti (Pepino is OK, though more historical than presently enriching, imo).

Then, La Rinascente's literal penthouse of food is definitely worth checking out in Milan. The chocolate section is a step-down from the first option mentioned, though they had a bunch of Gardini's aforementioned treat as well as Pacari (multi-award winner from Ecuador), which was a nice detour. Their selection is pretty clogged with chocolates that are less worthy of your time - whereas the Eataly of Lingotto had tons of top quality on top of the "lesser" quality. Even if you have no intention of buying chocolate here, it's worth the multiple escalator rides to the top to have a nice lunch on the outdoor patio, where you're seated a small leap (no jumping allowed ) from the roof of the beautiful Duomo.

Feel free to ask any other questions should you seek info on Italia; I visited all (I think...so many!) Cioccolatieri in Torino, and tons of Gelatieri as far south as Rome.

Anyone know about the hydraulic presses from Hanaro or Delani? What little I know about the two:

Hanaro's website claims it's based in Korea, though I believe the same hydraulic presses (or just very similar) are made and sold by Chinese companies on AliBaba...? Last I checked they were 11-12k..? Video on their site:

http://www.nationaloilpress.com/hydraulic-oil-press-machine-hanaro-a-type/

As for Denali (from Peru, I think), I have no idea what they sell. First, they have a youtube video advertising a press that looks just like the Hanaro:

Cocoa Butter Press

If you click on the info link there, it shows you, via their English site, a totally different press for sale. THEN, if you dig deeper and go to their Spanish site (delani.biz) you find two machines meant to work in tandem: a.) what looks like the aforementioned, possibly Korean (or Chinese?) press enrobed, if you will , in metal and b.) a clarifying machine to rid the cocoa butter of impurities/cocoa mass.

Anyone have experience or information on these 2, 3, 4, or 5 machines? I sent an quote-inquiry via the English site, so I'll update when I hear back.

Great recipe. Thank you for sharing.

I tried your recipe but I put the salt a bit lot in caramel milk and just to show off I put lot of pecans in the cake. It was not that bad but Yes! I messed up the taste. Usually I pefer purchasing from wholesale restaurant desserts since they will provide facilities like cutom made cakes and other desserts with your choices of ingerdients in proper quantity. But I really wanted to try baking since I like the chocolate cake. Anyway I will try again this recipe being cautious!