Forum Activity for @Helen Staines

I think we met at JMA in April?  Can you please email me photos of the back, compressor etc.  also how old is it?  Helen@decadencechocolates.ca

Hi Helen. Yes, the case is still available. I'm currently using it through Christmas at a pop-up location at the Mall of America in Bloomington, MN, but it's available at that. I originally listed the price at $700, but I would sell for $625 if the timing works for you.

Is this still available?  What is the price?  

Looking for a chocolate display case, preferably European style (straight sides and front) 

Hello, 

Is your Machine still available? 

Of yes,  where are you located? And do you have a spec sheet and photos?

Thank you very much.

Alek 

Hello everybody,

To whoever is interested, KREA Swiss is now making a Christmas Promotion:

Buy a chocolate melter 6kg unit and get a hot chocolate spray gun for half a price

https://www.kreaswiss.com/christmas-promotion

I've watched the water makers parody, and shared that link out, some colleagues actually thought the product was credible... Anyway, the parallels with Mast Bro's video is uncanny, down to the intro, the retake, the zoom, the pace of speach... I would believe it if someone told me that the water makers vid is a parody on Mast Bro's video.

Ben -

I agree, the situation with Groups is messed up. I need to get professional help to make them work properly.

Also, I have noticed that the Forums are working well for what the Groups were trying to so - and people are using the forums for those purposes. So, I am working on fixing the sorting problems for archive retrieval purposes, but pushing people towards using the Forums.

As a part of the process I will be updating the home page - rearranging things - and I will add the last updated timestamp.

The login thing is probably a browser cookie issue, but I will ask the developers. I don't ever have an issue here, and I use Chrome, Safari, and Firefox on MacOS. Is it in more than one browser? What combination are you having problems with?

:: Clay

I'm looking for 2 chocolatiers FT for our Las Vegas Chocolate factory available immediatly.

Please contact me at jma@jmauboinechocolates.com

Thank you

Two issues:

1) The login 'Remember Me' checkbox doesn't seem to work, or works intermittantly at best. I almost always have to relogin when visiting. 

2) The groups are still essentially useless due to the fact that you can't tell what's been updated. It actually seems worse now than when I last looked. For example, the top discussion was last updated in 2009. Besides the fact that the top discussion should be the one most recently updated, you can't tell that that discussion was last updated in 2009 until you go into the discussion. The changes that I think need to be made are for the sorting to be changed so that the most recently updated discussion should be at the top and then descending in reverse chronological order, and that the display on the group page should include 'Last Updated by $user at $datetime'.

On a side note, I wish the 'Latest Forum Posts' on the homepage also included the time it was last updated, like it does on the 'Newest Posts' forum page, which is much more useful than the time it was originally posted. 

Thanks,
Ben

Hi Sir,

We have produced chocolate machinery over 20 years , with the customers of NESTLE, KRAFT, MEIJI, etc., and hope to find a way to cooperate with you!  

If you are interested, let's talk about the details, or you can visit our website www.chocolate-machines.com with detailed information of various machines.

  Best regards!

Tony

YOQ Group Ltd.

Tel: +86 15150501878

Email: cleopatra.tony@gmail.com

Skype: yoqtony

Website: www.chocolate-machines.com

Hi there folks,

We are looking for an enrobing belt for a fbm prima. Needs to be in good working condition. Thanks 

sal@palmacacao.com

I am interested in one ! Contact me if  available 

Hello Clay,

I would like to buy a FBM Prima. Are you the right person to contact?

Regards

Gerardo

Hi, I recently switched to a new wholesale supplier. When I opened the 28# bag of cacao powder I noticed there are a lot of clumps or balls of powder. Is this a sign of too much mositure or some problem? Would you accept such a powder or send it back?

I have been having some problems with foaming while the chocolate is in the temperer, and this is a new problem. I am attaching photos to some the foam and the clumps in case they are related.

Thank you for any advice you share with me!

 clumps2_edited-2.jpg - 43KB

There have been a number of studies on the transition from Form V to Form VI, or Beta 5 to Beta 6 (they are identical, just two different naming conventions in the literature) that have been interesting.  Two that I like are found here (I am not using standard referencing):

Relation of fat bloom in chocolate to polymorphic transition of cocoa butter - http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11746-998-0101-0

and

Fat Bloom and Chocolate Structure Studied by Mercury Porosimetry - http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-2621.1997.tb15455.x/abstract

The first (written in 1998) goes over the different views of what causes fat bloom in the transition from V to VI.  Two elements I found interesting - tempered chocolate stored at 5 degrees C showed no elements of bloom in long term storage, and there was a direct correlation of fat bloom formation to storage in conditions of alternating temperatures (not necessary just hotter).

The second (written in 2006) concludes that even well tempered chocolate is porous - with a weak correlation between the percentage of cocoa butter present with the "empty space" present in the tempered chocolate.

In combination, this would tend to indicate that fat bloom forms when some low-melting point oils within the tempered chocolate structure slowly migrate, helped by the structure alternately heating and cooling, to the surface of the well-tempered chocolate as the chocolate becomes denser (tighter packed triglyceride structures) over time in storage.  There are of course variations in bloom formation mentioned in the studies due to changes in humidity and the like, but that is a problem I rarely have being in the desert.  From a practical standpoint, I am exploring the effects of storage at 5 degrees C for my ganaches to see how long and if they maintain an acceptable mouth-feel when brought back to room temp. 

In regard to tempering with Beta 6, given the above there should be no theoretical difference in final result than using the 5 - the Beta 6 has the same basic structure, just (simplistically) more densely packed (and you do not get Beta 6 crystals in chocolate when tempering with Beta 6 crystals - you get 5). The heat of your melted chocolate, even at 35 degrees C, is going to impart enough energy to the Beta 6 to bring it back to Beta 5.

I also do use Mycryo extensively.  I prefer using standard seeding, but if I have a relatively full vat I will use a little standard seed to drop the temperature a bit more quickly, then finish it off with Mycryo.  I have found in practice that I get a great end result in any of the three variations: 100% tempered chocolate as seed, part tempered chocolate and part Mycryo, and all Mycryo as the seeding element.  The chocolate does seem to thicken faster, however, limiting production times, when using the Mycryo instead of tempered chocolate as the seed at equivalent temperatures.

Thanks Clay! I'm definitely thinking after the holiday season is over, we are most likely 3 months or so out from an upgrade but I want to get my research done soon so we're ready to pull the trigger.

Just out of curiosity, what is your opinion on Savage Bros machines? I've had my eye on them for a while but haven't hear much either way about them.

I saw that myself, and two outfits in Australia.  Price on the chocolate is not surprising (coconut sugar is expensive), but the shipping would kill me.

Originally published on LinkedIn Pulse

ICCO’s Ad Hoc Panel on Fine or Flavour Cocoa met in London last week to update the list of countries where they consider fine or flavor cocoa grows – and the percentage of the crop that is considered fine or flavor. From the ICCO web site:

"The share of fine or flavor cocoa in the production of cocoa beans of individual countries has developed over time. Successive International Cocoa Agreements recognized producing countries exporting either exclusively or partially fine or flavor cocoa. The list of countries and their proportion of production of fine or flavor cocoa under the successive International Cocoa Agreements of 1972, 1975, 1980, 1986, 1993 and 2001 are reproduced in Annex C of each Agreement."

The last time the panel met was in 2010 and in the intervening five years the landscape of production has changed. Jamaica has been moved out of the 100% category down to 90%, and Peru’s fine or flavor production figure has been reduced from 90% at the meeting in 2010 to 75%. Ecuador held steady at 75% despite presenting documentation that more than 25% of exports are CCN-51.

Hondura and Guatemala (both at 50%) and Viet Nam (40%) were recognized by this year’s panel. Perhaps surprisingly to some (but not to me, who visited the country twice this summer), Nicaragua was added to the 100% list - the only such addition this year.

The final list as recommend by the panel according to the requirements of the International Cocoa Agreement of 2010 follows. This is the recommended list, as the recommendations still need to be ratified by the ICCO General Council at a meeting in Dominican Republic in May of 2016. The percentages listed are the percentages of that country’s EXPORTS that ICCO considers to be fine or flavor cocoa beans, not the percentage of total harvest:

100%

• Bolivia
• Costa Rica
• Dominica
• Grenada
• Madagascar
• Mexico
• Nicaragua
• Saint Lucia
• Trinidad

95%

• Colombia
• Jamaica
• Venezuela

90%

• Papa New Guinea

75%

• Ecuador
• Peru

50%

• Belize
• Guatemala
• Honduras
• Panama

40%

• Dominican Republic
• Vietnam

35%

• São Tome

1%

• Indonesia

The Panel also recommended that it met bi-annually to review the list and that a standardized grading scheme be developed. For more information about the history of the Panel, visit: http://www.icco.org/about-cocoa/fine-or-flavour-cocoa.html

I love, love, love, love the Timmy Bros, Water Makers parody. For those of you interested, here's the link to the Mast Bros video that's being parodied .

Russ -

Given the time of year I generally do not recommend that you try and put a brand new machine with a different technology into production right now. The time you spend to get it integrated into your work flow can lead to production interruptions. You are right to worry about being down at the busiest time of year, but that should not be an issue for a brand new/demo/refurbished machine. Going forward, good preventive maintenance is the issue to keeping the machines in production at the busiest times of the year - something that many people neglect to do.

The challenge I see (and that you neglected to mention in your post) is that your chocolates are sweetened by honey. It's a challenge to temper honey-sweetened chocolate. FBM does have customers who do, but in general it takes larger machines - with longer tempering pipes and greater cooling capacity - to handle this kind of specialty chocolate because of the moisture in the honey, which inhibits crystal formation and spread.

As you may know, I represent FBM, in part because I believe that they are technically superior machines to Selmis. I don't think I have a machine in the US that is kitted out to handle honey-sweetened chocolate reliably. It would require testing and I don't think we could get that done in time to get you into production before Christmas. Because of the way I know that Selmis are built internally, I think that would be no more effective than FBM. The same is true of Gami, Bakon, Pomati and every other company that uses the tempering screw approach.

I'd like to say it was easy, but it's not. If you were working with conventional couverture I have at least one small demo machine (a PRIMA) here in the US (220V, 3-phase power) that I could get to you in a week or so. However, I could not in good faith recommend it for honey-sweetened chocolate without extensive testing. 

I know of no measured depositors that attach to your Chocovision machines.

:: Clay

PS. Here's the link to the FBM web site where all of their chocolate machines are listed. The one being used for honey is the Maestria, outfitted with the craft chocolate upgrade and the pneumatic doser. The list price on that machine is about €31,000 which is a lot for 80kg/week of bar production.

Good luck on this, my quick research into this shows only one company - Real Food Source in the UK - offering something like this. I doubt they are making it themselves, though, so the challenge would be to find out who's making it for them. Also, the prices are in pounds - that's 50% higher than USD$ prices right off the bat.

I need a supplier of couverture sweetened with coconut sugar instead of pure cane for a particular customer of mine.  Initial requirements are low - @ 20 kg for the initial order, but potentially could grow to the 1000 kg/month range.  Does anyone have a lead on a source?  Please email me at troy@lajoliesse.com or post in reply. 

Thank you,

Troy Lapsys.

I know there are a lot of opinions about what tempering machines to run and the answers vary widely based on capacity and needs.

We've been running several Chocovision 3z's for almost 2 years now and I love them. However, my business is growing and their shortcomings are starting to cut into my efficiency. Most importantly, we are making on average 300-400 chocolate bars twice a week and hand pouring each one is quite labor intensive. I know there are machines out there with depositors and I'm hoping to find one that is metered so we can dial in various amounts based on what types of molds or products we are making.

Another factor is that the 3z's take quite a long time to heat up even though we are pre-melting a large portion of our chocolate. Idealy we want to upgrade to a larger capacity machine with the ability to deposit and at least has an option for enrobing as that is something we are interested in moving towards. I've been looking at Selmi machines and some Hilliards as well. Are there other good machines people have experience with? My biggest concern is reliability so we aren't down a machine in the busiest time of year.

Mack -

The uploading problem was probably not a filetype issue - but a matter of your profile not having full privileges. I have move you out of the "unassigned" user category to the "chocolate maker" category so you should now be able to upload.

GIF, JPG, and PNG are all supported.

 You guys seem to know a lot about chocolate melter units. I just ordered this one with the promotion of a chocolate sprayer. Has anyone ever used one of these products?

https://www.facebook.com/KREASwissFoodEquipment/photos/a.527730707280305.1073741825.353907527995958/908041275915911/?type=3&theater

Thank you!!!

Hi again, this time it looks like it accepted my photo, yay!

Foam Cacao4.pdf - 1.4MB

Hi, with my latest batch of cacao powder and butter, I have noticed a "foam" that floats on the surface of the chocolate while it is being tempered. It is bubbly, but very small bubbles in texture, can be skimmed off the top till eventually it is gone, but if left ruins the bars. I skim it off the top, and the bars are ok, but it is a lot of work, as it requires skimming for perhaps ten minutes, and wastes a lot of product.  If I leave the foam, the bars have spots on the tops of the bars when removed from the molds. Any ideas as to if it is the powder or the cacao butter that is the issue? The powder has clumps in it when I open the bag fresh, and newly delivered. These are 14 kilos bulk bags from a respectable wholesaler. Should cacao powder be considered acceptable if it has clumps and lumps? I have tried to upload a photo, but I can't figure out the extension acceptable on this site. tiff, jpg, jpeg and pdf don't work.

Hi,

Selling a used Hillard 240 with 6inch coater/enrober belt. Looks same as the unit in the picture but doesn't have the extra end table or lamp. The unit is used, but works well. I purchased about 6 months ago and have not used it at all, it has remained covered in storage, the unit is at least 10 years old. It appears to have a brand new heater/blower unit installed. I can send pics upon request. I will deliver up to 200 miles away for $150 fee, we are located in Norwalk, CT 06850. 

Specs are here:

http://www.hilliardschocolate.com/pages/cfEquipment_SixInchCoater.cfm

New this unit costs about $13k

$6950 + delivery charges

Contact - Trent Lewis

trentlewis@gmail.com

T 203-822-7792

on ebay as well at http://www.ebay.com/itm/301803553364?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1555.l2649

You want a real good laugh?

Here are some Brooklyn Water Makers (Wow, the parallels!  LMAO)

Timmy Brothers – Water Makers

[Note: Edited to correct typos on 11/21/2015.]

Another fun substitution game. Substitute hipster for expert!

“Thousands of chocolate lovers make the journey to visit our factory every week,” says Mast. “These are our chocolate [experts|hipsters]. If it is the perspective of a(n) [expert|hipster] that you seek, I encourage you to become that [expert|hipster].”

For those ChocolateLife members and others who do not know ...

there is more than a little controversy surrounding the Mast Bros.

Quelle surprise!

Much of the backlash (from people who know what good chocolate actually is) stems from the astonishing hubris of the Bros marketing and PR apparatus. In an article in Vanity Fair , Rick Mast grabs hold of that hubris, pins it to the breast of his chef coat, and wears it as a badge of honor: 

“I can affirm that we make the best chocolate in the world.”

WTF? Says who? Not any acknowledged, reputable, chocolate experts, anyway.

In an  article on Slate.com the very next month, that: 

“We are a dangerous company because we are outsiders to the chocolate industry, never leaning on industry norms.”

Um, no. The Mast Bros are dangerous, IMO, but not because they ignore industry norms. The danger is when other chocolate makers copy them, thinking that if they make chocolate like the Mast Bros they too will be successful, as I point out in the Slate article. Rick jumps through the open door willingly to sum it up: 

“Thousands of chocolate lovers make the journey to visit our factory every week,” says Mast . “These are our chocolate experts. If it is the perspective of an expert that you seek, I encourage you to become that expert.”

I was reading Ethan Siegel on Medium this morning when I ran across this quote in an article on NASA's EM drive :

“No man is so foolish but he may sometimes give another good counsel, and no man so wise that he may not easily err if he takes no other counsel than his own. He that is taught only by himself has a fool for a master. ”  [Emphasis is mine.]
— Hunter S. Thompson

Freakin Hunter S. Thompson of all people just nailed it. On. The. Head. In the immortal worlds of Emeril - “BAM!”

I encourage everyone to read the entire article, substituting 'cocoa' and/or 'chocolate' for 'any word vaguely related to maths, science, history, and/or physics.' Here is an edited version  [text in brackets]  of Siegel's text to show you where this leads, if you are too busy in your workshop actually educating yourself about chocolate with an open mind and curious heart:

“We like to think, as human beings, if we can only keep an open mind, that anything is possible. That if we put our minds to it, buckle down and do our research and apply ourselves 100%, we can not only understand what’s going on as well as any expert, but that we ourselves can make valuable contributions to whatever field we’re interested in. We think this about ourselves when it comes to [energy|chocolate] , [the environment|chocolate] ,   [health and medicine|cocoa and chocolate] , and even   [physics and mathematics|cocoa and chocolate - refer to the title of the article that spawned this thread ] .

Yet simultaneously, we’re also aware of the years — if not decades — of study that’s typically required in order to become a legitimate expert [in any one of those fields|in chocolate] . We know it’s difficult, even for the smartest and most talented among us, to make groundbreaking discoveries in a field we’ve spent our entire lives working on.

But there’s this romantic notion we all hang onto, nonetheless, that if some talented maverick with a novel perspective comes along, even without the proper background, they (or possible we, ourselves) can change the course of  [history| chocolate] forever.

This is the story we tell ourselves about a genius like Albert Einstein, whose general theory of relativity turns 100 this year. It’s the story we tell ourselves about Tesla, Edison, Faraday, Newton and more [are the Mast Bros in this category?] . We all know the danger of following the crowd, of a herd mentality, and of accepting what’s presently known in science [chocolate] as absolute, indisputable truth. And that’s why, when it comes to the biggest lies and hoaxes of all, it’s often the [most intelligent|hippest]  among us who are the most gullible.”

Amirite? Or Amirite?

[Note: Edited to correct typos on 11/21/2015.]

I wish there were like buttons.  Like to all the above  posts.

I chuckled when I read this.  I have Bernard Callebaut.  You have Rick Mast.  Let's unite and declare Jihad on such despicable chocolate infidels!

behold, the power of marketing!

It just keeps getting better - a gift the keeps on giving!

"Another step is tempering, where chocolate goes from its naturally bumpy texture to the smooth surface we are used to as consumers."

Chocolate has a naturally bumpy texture. Who knew? Wonder what branch of topology that belongs to? But is topology maths, not physics?

Pretty Stupid, Apparently.

In a June, 2014 article on the World Science Festival website entitled, The Mast Bros Unveil the Physics Behind Chocolate , some rather amazing claims are made, and not all of them about the physics of chocolate. To be fair, it's impossible to know if the quotes attributed to Rick Mast are accurate or whether the reporter took a liberal interpretation. Either way, the site, which encourages visitors to "rethink" science [sic], is presenting a revisionist version of chocolate  physics.

"... raw beans have a much higher acidity level so it’s a more botanic flavor,” Mast said. “Roasting brings out other flavors to balance out the acidity.” The bean’s sugar and protein molecules gain energy in the higher temperature, and that increased activity leads to new atoms coming together and new molecules being formed."

There is so much unnecessary obfuscation in the above paragraph I don't know where to begin. Sugar and protein molecules gain energy creating new atoms? Okay, the beans heat up and chemicals in the chocolate change. Why not give the compounds names? Pyrazines, furans, esters, and ketones are among the classes of compounds formed during roasting, Rick, via processes knows as the Maillard reaction, Strecker degredation, and pyrolysis/polymerization, among others. It's science, not sex education, you can be explicit - the more explicit the better - with chemical names and processes, they are not pornographic, are they? Are they too explicit for young scientists' ears?

Furthermore, the flavors created do NOT directly balance out the acidity. Which acid? Acetic or citric? Some of the acetic acid evaporates out [during roasting], but enough remains so that the Dutch had to invent alkalization to neutralize it  (oops, that's history, not physics) . Conching does reduce acidity among other things (and arguably, the Mast Bros do not conche properly if at all) - and conching effects acetic acid more than citric acid which is why some chocolates have bright fruity notes and others don't. Fruitiness is not a generally-recognized flavor trait of alkalized chocolate, however.

"... For that to happen, the particles have to be just a miniscule [sic] 20 microns across (for comparison, the width of a strand of hair is 50 microns) § . The grind “is still acidic until all the sugar crystals have slowly emulsified with the cocoa butter so it tastes like one thing" 

​I am sorry. Could. Not. Stop. Laughing. The chocolate is still acidic until the sugar has emulsified with the cocoa butter? No. That's not the way it works.  

First off, chocolate is not an emulsion. Chocolate is a suspension of particles in fat. Emulsifiers are used to reduce the surface tension of the fat molecules so the chocolate flows more easily. There is no physical process (and no chemical process) that I am aware of that reduces the acidity in chocolate by simple grinding, emulsification or no.  There is a reason why the chocolate is just so bad.

After eight years, Rick still appears to know very little about the real science - physics and chemistry - of chocolate. To give him some benefit of the doubt ... maybe he does know the science but chooses not to communicate it clearly. I don't know - but the end result is the same. 

§ - Or maybe not. According to Wikipedia ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/100_micrometres) the average width of a human hair is 100 microns. Footnoted as: ^According to The Physics Factbook, the diameter of human hair ranges from 17 to 181 µm. Ley, Brian (1999). But - maybe red beard hairs average 50 microns? Yeah. That has to be it.

[Note: edited to fix typos on 11/21/15.]