Forum Activity for @Mariano Garcia

Hello Sebastian, I recommended a colloid mill but the price is 5000 dollars.

I need to grind 40 kilos per day

Can you give a sense of what you consider to be 'not too expensive' and the quantities that you're looking to mill?

Youngs Double Chocolate Stout - you should be abvle to get this anywhere

Boatswain Chocolate Stout - I get mine at Trader Joes

and my favorite beer of all: Gearys Winter Ale - the brewery is a mile from home.  

Lucky for us, our chocolate bars go into boxes, so the slope doesn't matter.

In fact, wrapping the bars "updside down" helps us, because our bar boxes are translucent, and having a very smooth surface actually works to our benefit, as opposed to being able to see the pattern of the bar as it's pressed through the foil when it's wrapped.

Hey there, Haven't checked out the dogfish brew yet. Looks like they are selling it here in California too. 

Clay, I'm a former Los Angelino now living in Panama (and making chocolate in the Chiriqui Highlands).  I will be visiting family in Los Angeles in mid-May and would LOVE to find Solbeso.  Will be available for purchase by then?  The company website says they are not yet launched in CA.

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.