Conche question
Posted in: Tech Help, Tips, Tricks, Techniques
Can anyone tell me the gap size between the blades and wall of a Frisse or Thouet type conche?
Thanks
updated by @Mike3: 04/11/25 09:27:36
Forum Activity for @Mike3
Starter cultures for fermentation
Posted in: Tech Help, Tips, Tricks, Techniques
Interesting. I'll be up in NYC a bit next week, and more so the week after.. I'll have to look for some.
Peru in July - are you going down for the chocolate trade show? Someone offered to pay my way for a week if i came down to speak - and i'd love to - but i'm afraid it's not good timing for my family. Next time 8-)
Starter cultures for fermentation
Posted in: Tech Help, Tips, Tricks, Techniques
Sebastian:
I will check into the pH levels with our master distiller when I am in Peru in July and get back to you.
Solbeso is now available in the US. We're registered for sale in New York and Florida and I think we can ship to 48 of the 50 states if you're not in NY or FL. LMK and I can send you the names of our retail partners who ship.
It's an interesting liquid. It has no taste of cacao/chocolate, but is reminiscent of pulp. 40% ABV, so it's formulated for use in cocktails but can be drunk neat or over ice (it behaves a lot like a brown spirit - water softens it and opens it up). Good cocktails are in the sours and international sours families. One of our signature cocktails is called a Beso Picante - hot kiss. Solbeso, lemon juice, orange liqueur, and heat -- cayenne pepper, habaero bitters, muddled jalapeo/cucumber ...
Solbeso also makes a great Michelada. We did one at Taproom 307 here in NYC during Beer Week -- the Midnight Sun Michelada -- that was lime juice, Solbeso, spicy tomato water (from pico de gallo), and a splash of Worcestershire. Shake, pour into a pint glass (salt-rimmed if desired), fill with a black IPA, and garnish with a pickled jalapeo slice and a lime wedge.
It also goes great as a beer shot/boilermaker with Cusquea lager.
:: Clay
Starter cultures for fermentation
Posted in: Tech Help, Tips, Tricks, Techniques
One of the tricky things to manage - especially at larger fermentaries where the cacao isn't grown where it's fermented - is to be sure to manage the freshness of the beans. The second you split open a pod - fermentation begins. Jungles are wonderfully effective incubators, and there's yeast, mold, and bacteria everywhere, just waiting for you to open a sugary pod up and let them begin to feast. Typically the farmers open the pods, collect enough to transport, and then transport - if you're able for receive these beans w/in 8 or so hours of them first being opened, you're going to still have a high bris level (sugars), which is your primary indicator of how much fermentation has progressed. Acidity doesn't really start to play a part until the secondary and tertiary fermentations of lactic and acetic kick in - if you're observing pulp (juice) pH in the 3 range, it's a very clear indicator that either fermentation has been underway for some time (i.e. the beans were harvested before you think they were), or there's a significant disease/pest impact at play. I suspect that if you were to go to the farms and trace the supply chain, starting the clock from when the first pod is cut open to the time it arrives at the fermentation center, you'd find the time is considerably longer than 4 hours...
Edit - huh i've never seen solbeso - is it available in the US?
Starter cultures for fermentation
Posted in: Tech Help, Tips, Tricks, Techniques
Sebastian:
T0 is when the pod is opened?
In our experience in fermenting juice for Solbeso, by the time it arrives at the collection center between 4 and 8 hours later, pH of the juice has dropped considerably into the range I mentioned.
Starter cultures for fermentation
Posted in: Tech Help, Tips, Tricks, Techniques
The Rizeks are going to be the most advanced of the non-privatized folks to work with on this topic - they've got a very nice set up there that a member of this board helped them build in fact. Marcello Corno would be your main technical contact there, and they have a small micro laboratory on site at their main production facility. As noted, yeast selection doesn't really matter as long as the strain is viable, and it only needs to be viable for a portion of the fermentation as it will be quickly outcompeted by the other two phases. I've just reviewed some of my historical pulp pH data - now - and this is critical - assuming you've got relatively fresh pods, undiseased, you're going to have a 95% probability that your T0 pH will be between 4.74 and 4.93. That pH will drop over time as the acetobacter and lactobacter kick in, to be sure, but by the time that occurs that yeast's job is done (it's main functional job is to convert sugar to alcohol - which is important for a number of reasons) - but once that's done, it doesn't matter if the yeast lives or not.
Starter cultures for fermentation
Posted in: Tech Help, Tips, Tricks, Techniques
Tibor -
Vicente Norero in Ecuador -- Camino Verde -- is offering several different fermentations from the same beans so I know that there is someone doing this on production scale and you can buy the beans and taste the differences.
Also, I have heard that the Rizeks in the Dominican Republic have been doing the same for some of their clients. I have not visited either facility so I don't know any of the specifics.
There are commercial sources for yeasts for the various alcohol industries - beer, wine, and spirits. Wyeast Labs is one source I know that several of my beer, wine, and mead friends use. If you wanna go all serious and stuff on this project, Lallemand may be a place to try.
One thing to consider when sourcing yeast for fermenting cacao pulp is that the pulp has a pH in the 3.5 range so you're going to want a yeast that is comfortable working at this level of acidity -- not all yeasts are.
Starter cultures for fermentation
Posted in: Tech Help, Tips, Tricks, Techniques
The three things you'll need are yeast, lactic acid bacteria, and acetobacter, very concentrated. remember that naturally, there are dozens/hundreds of strains out there that are all competing with one another. At the end of the day, it usually doesn't really matter a great deal which strains you have (there are a few exceptions, but not nearly as many as you'd might expect with the thousands of combinations). while the callebaut work is actually being done, it's really more for marketing than affecting actual large scale results. others have been doing this type of thing for many, many years and are significantly more progressed in their understanding and usage of these techniques than callebaut.
Any brew house can give you the yeast, i've never looked for retail available acetobacter or lactobacter, but i'm sure they're available as well. It's important to understand the fundamentals of fermentation before starting to try to tweak the components of fermentation, so i'd encourage you to be certain you've got the basics of that down first otherwise you're going to just get frustrated and not understand why.
Starter cultures for fermentation
Posted in: Tech Help, Tips, Tricks, Techniques
I have heard that Barry Callebaut is working with starter cultures for their fermentation that gives great and consistent results for their fermented beans.(like yoghurt, beer, wine, cheese makers)
I am not so much interested in the consistency part, however the it is very exciting opportunity to create required flavour profile for the beans, like microbreweries do with their yeasts. It gives the opportunity to work with desired cultures, not just whatever "falls" and multiplies in your batch of beans.
Does anybody have any info on this? Should it be possible to use starter cultures used in other products like beer? Where can I find cultures that I can experiment with?
updated by @Tibor Baan: 04/11/25 09:27:36
Keeping from blooming ~ in silicone molds
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Thanks Brad I will try this!
Keeping from blooming ~ in silicone molds
Posted in: Tech Help, Tips, Tricks, Techniques
The problem you're running into is that the silicone is insulating the chocolate and keeping it warm too long at temperatures which create different types of crystals. Your silicone molds need to be cool.
Keeping from blooming ~ in silicone molds
Posted in: Tech Help, Tips, Tricks, Techniques
Does lecithin help chocolate keep its temper? Or is there anything that helps prevent bloom? I use silicone molds and the chocolate starts turning a lighter color after a couple weeks. Chocolate from the same batch that I pour into polycarbonate molds stays fine, only the silicone ones bloom. Are there any suggestions for this? Thanks!
updated by @Juliana Desmond: 04/11/25 09:27:36
Medical Marijuana / Chocolate please share your experiences
Posted in: Opinion
Personally all my experience is with butter various nut oils , olive oil and tinctures. That said I have found that roughly 190 degrees sees the least degradation of the cannabinoids. One process that may be of use is to actually make an alcohol tincture and then evaporate out he alcohol with low heat creating an extract. The extract can then be added in measured doses to warm cocoa butter, though it likely will need to be warmed first to aid in it mixing uniformly throughout the butter. Naturally the strength is going to vary by plant strain, and harvest so each batch has to be individually tested, but once evaporated it is easy to test for potency and determine the appropriate quantity of extract per batch of chocolate.
One thing to note is that using a super tincturing method is best. That is where you grind the plant matter and then add the alcohol until the plant is submerged by a good inch (typically 750ml of 195 proof alcohol to 1 ounce of mmj) blend well and place in a 3qt pot. place on ELECTRIC heating coil and slowly bring to med. low heat wherein you start to get pin bubbles forming. Lower the heat to maintain just a pin bubble and stir occasionally. Heat thusly for 12 minutes ( sometimes the plant may urge you to stop at 10 minutes or continue to 15 minutes - that's between you and the plant) remove from the heat and poor off into a jar. After it cools, strain and squeeze the last of the alcohol out of the plant matter. Notice you now have an emerald green tincture. Now you can use the tincture for in liquid filled bon bons and such or add to chocolate recipes wherein the low heat levels will naturally evaporate off the rest of the alcohol.
It is interesting to know that if you use 90-100 proof alcohol and the same process, you can actually kill the THC while keeping the rest of the cannabinoids such as CBD. This tincture comes out very tanic looking - brownish, rather than green. If you use dense couch lock type strains such as NYC Diesel or Bubblegum, or other heavy Indicas, you will get a powerful aid for insomnia, relaxing of smooth muscle cramps, aid for indigestion, stomach upset and wasting syndrome. It will also aid in the relief of menstrual cramping and other symptoms as well as for the easing of tension headaches - all with out the psychoactive high. I have not tried it myself but I would guess it might give aid in the other health issues in which CBD has proven to be effective medicine. Since this tincture has a higher water content it is going to be a bit more tricky to use in chocolate recipes, though you could likely pre-evaporate, and thus concentrate the tincture moving it toward an extract.
Medical Marijuana / Chocolate please share your experiences
Posted in: Opinion
Just dissolve the cannabis oil in melted cocoa butter instead of MCT oil, and mix thoroughlyinto the chocolate with a stick blender, before tempering.
I forgot to mention that the cannabis oil must be decarboxylated for edibles. This is done by slowly heating the oil to about 210-220F, until you see small, uniform bubbles appear. Continue for about 3-5 mins or until the bubbles stop. Now your oil is ready for proper processing by the human digestive system.
Medical Marijuana / Chocolate please share your experiences
Posted in: Opinion
Cheebs
Thanks for the detailed information. At this point in time we are more interested in producing a bar. So the next question do you add the oil to the chocolate as the chocolate is being tempered? or after the chocolate is tempered? or does it matter? My goal is to produce a bar with a consistant amount of THC of CBD
Thanks
Medical Marijuana / Chocolate please share your experiences
Posted in: Opinion
Cannabis chocolate is already very common in Holland, where it's mostly sold as a souvenir. It's just a matter of time until it becomes a popular product in legal and medical states in the US.
My suggestion for achieving controlled and repeatable results is to skip the infusion process altogether, and use already extracted cannabis oils. The ones made by reputable companies have been tested for potency and purity.
My personal experience with chocolate medical edibles was making a few batches of bonbons with a cannabis oil ganache filling. For the filling I just dissolved some CO2 extracted oil (4 grams for every 32 bonbons) in MCT oil, and then incorporated that into the melted chocolate. Ganache was made as any other. This was for a double-lung transplant patient who could no longer use inhalation as a delivery system. He wanted them mostly for anxiety relief, so these were made with a high-THC oil, but it can certainly be substituted with a high-CBD oil for other medical needs.
Medical Marijuana / Chocolate please share your experiences
Posted in: Opinion
1. What do you want to know?
2. It already has
:D
Medical Marijuana / Chocolate please share your experiences
Posted in: Opinion
pour-n-pack is a single use, eco-friendly solution designed to produce and package chocolate bars. here is the youtube video showing how its used
Best
Paul
Medical Marijuana / Chocolate please share your experiences
Posted in: Opinion
Sure, send me a pm and we can discuss that in private.
The little elf is my daughter during her first Christmas.
That bar looks interesting. I've been pretty disappointed at everything called "chocolate" I have seen here in Washington. My experiences are pretty limited when it comes to that, but from what I saw, there was one company in the Seattle area selling medicated chocolates, and it was NOT chocolate. I didn't even want to try one after seeing hydrogenated oils in the ingredients.
What is your pour-n-pack program? I'm assuming you're in either California or Colorado?
Medical Marijuana / Chocolate please share your experiences
Posted in: Opinion
Tom
I do believe you have a very unique opportunity. Would like to chat with you. Can we exchange phone numbers? By the way, who is the little elf?
Best
Paul
The pic attached is a bar made by a customer using our pour-n-pack program.
Medical Marijuana / Chocolate please share your experiences
Posted in: Opinion
I do not currently have any practical experience making THC infused chocolates, but I have been looking into it pretty hard. I've done plenty of infused outlets and butters for medical purposes, but never cocoa butter. Being in Washington, I have a pretty unique opportunity. I have all the equipment to make bean to bar chocolate, I just need to devise a safe, reliable and consistent way to infuse the cocoa butter with the cannabis.I'm thinking the lowest cost option would be to infuse the cocoa butter directly with the dried plant matter. I think a sous vide system, vacuum-sealing the coca butter and flowers together. Heat to ~200 for 8 hours and then strain the cocoa butter to remove plant matter, and then send a small sample to get tested for potency. Washington state laws require every infused product to be tested for potency, so each infusion should be of as much cocoa butter as is practical, since potency testing must be done by a state licensed lab.
Medical Marijuana / Chocolate please share your experiences
Posted in: Opinion
I haven't made any of these products myself (not since college anyway), but in regard to your second question I think that answer is a very big yes. There are already a number of companies doing this. A quick Google search will bring up a slew of them.
I think the biggest holdup at the moment is that the legal issues still aren't worked out. For example Colorado is working on legislation that would require marijuana-infused food products to limit themselves to specific amounts of THC per serving, and I think most States are going to want to see something like this. This makes sense, but controlling for specific amounts of THC per serving strikes me as something that's going to be beyond the ability of most small-batch producers. Somebody's going to have to figure that out however, at which point I think this will turn into a niche, but sizable, market.
Medical Marijuana / Chocolate please share your experiences
Posted in: Opinion
As the debate heats up regarding the recreational use of marijuana, it is legal in 23 states for it use for medical reasons. Can any share there experiences with the group in making chocolate infused with marijuana. Second, do you think as more and more states legalize its recreational use, we will see more edible products, especially chocolate, becoming a "new" product category?
updated by @Paul DeFruscio2: 04/10/15 10:08:42
Whats going on with my chocolates?? Quality Control-Appearance concerns
Posted in: Tech Help, Tips, Tricks, Techniques
Thank you for taking the time to respond. Great Info from you two.
Whats going on with my chocolates?? Quality Control-Appearance concerns
Posted in: Tech Help, Tips, Tricks, Techniques
There's nothing wrong with it. When you go to temper it, the fat will melt out and, assuming you achieve proper temper, the spots will go away.
To stop the heat streaking, once you're at temper, use a spatula to thoroughly mix up the tempered chocolate, let it sit a couple of minutes, and do it again. You're trying to get a consistent temperature in all the chocolate. If there's a lightbulb or some heat source that's coming on durign this time, turn it off.
For the sugar bloom, you're going to need to stop the condensation - end of story. W/o seeing the setup myself, it's hard to say exactly what's wrong, but it will boil down to controlling your relative humidity and temperatures. There are condensation charts out there on the web that'll help you understand - at a given RH of your room or cabinet - at which point it becomes cold enough for condensation to form.
Whats going on with my chocolates?? Quality Control-Appearance concerns
Posted in: Tech Help, Tips, Tricks, Techniques
Its untempered, fresh from the grinder
Whats going on with my chocolates?? Quality Control-Appearance concerns
Posted in: Tech Help, Tips, Tricks, Techniques
That is fat bloom, caused by untempered, or incompletely tempered, chocolate. Not to say there' sno moisture present (it's hard to tell from the photo), but i'd bet you your next batch of chocolate that what is visable in this photo is fat bloom.
Whats going on with my chocolates?? Quality Control-Appearance concerns
Posted in: Tech Help, Tips, Tricks, Techniques
I did get a new baffle but I still have the issue. I am thinking about sending in my tempering machine to have them just look it over.
I am convinced it is moisture coming from somewhere on my production line. Maybe a few places. Here are a few more pics. After I grind the chocolate I store it in ziploc bags which I then store until we are ready to temper.
On these pics you will see what appears to be moisture that was caused by sealing the bags too soon. Does it look that way to you?
Also, What is the best way to store chocolate that has just come out of the grinder?
Whats going on with my chocolates?? Quality Control-Appearance concerns
Posted in: Tech Help, Tips, Tricks, Techniques
Thank you Clay!
Whats going on with my chocolates?? Quality Control-Appearance concerns
Posted in: Tech Help, Tips, Tricks, Techniques
Jennifer -
If Sebastian is right, then one step would be to install a dehumidifier in the room and also to install some sort of humidity sensor so you can discover the environmental conditions that lead up to this. This will help you understand the sugar bloom issues. (I often notice a textural change in chocolate that has sugar bloomed - it can taste sandy and granular.)
As for the swirls appearing in the chocolate. Get a good fast-reading digital probe thermometer and check to make sure that the thermocouple in the Rev is actually reading properly. Replacing the probe (by replacing the baffle) could help solve that problem.
Whats going on with my chocolates?? Quality Control-Appearance concerns
Posted in: Tech Help, Tips, Tricks, Techniques
Thank you. What's strange is that the " bloom" is happening so fast. Sometimes within a week. This never happened before but I think you are right about the moisture. Just wondering why now all of a sudden.
Whats going on with my chocolates?? Quality Control-Appearance concerns
Posted in: Tech Help, Tips, Tricks, Techniques
Not having looked at the post in detail, from the pictures you've got a combination of sugar bloom and something called heat streaks. Sugar bloom is the result of your chocolates getting wet at some point (likely condensation after cooling), and heat streaks are the result of your tempered chocolate not being thoroughly mixed/agitated, resulting in some areas being cooler than other areas within the chocolate mass itself.
Whats going on with my chocolates?? Quality Control-Appearance concerns
Posted in: Tech Help, Tips, Tricks, Techniques
I was hoping that some of you could chime in on what is happening on my chocolates. I have been in business for 4 years in the SAME location. I am still in my certified home kitchen.
What we are finding lately (the last 3 months or so) the chocolates have not been holding their flavor very long. Also, and the most concerning, is what appears to be a fast spreading "bloom". So much so that I have had to pull chocolates that are only a few weeks old (in some cases only a week) and sell them as seconds or use them as samples.
I am attaching a few pictures for you to look at.
Humidity: The weather has been changing from winter to spring. THere has been some rain so I know this is adding to the humidity.
from fridge to room temperature: I have always stored my "centers" before dipping and chocolate after dipping and wrapping in a typical refrigerator. We have 5 now. It has always worked in the past even with the "shock" it sometimes goes thru when we pull them out of the cold into room temperature (65-68 degrees). When choc's would start condensating we would immediately stop for the day but this only happened on the most extreme days (high rain or high heat outside).
I have since turned up my refrigerators as far as they can go to lessen the possibility of condensation.
Candy Pads: We store our chocolate with candy pads in between each layer. We have recently switched to regular food service film between layers. Lately wherever candy pads have touched the "bloom" (for lack of something better to call it) makes it look worse. However the 'bloom' is down the sides of the chocolate too where the pad didn't touch.
Tempering:We have a Rev 3210. We have only just begun making sure we are continuing the tempering process after dipping by leaving the chocolates out for several hours before they go in the fridge.
We think we have a moisture issue which is why we turned UP the storage refrigerators to lessen the condensation.
Swirls:As long as we keep the temperature consistently between 88-90 while dipping we are usually ok but in the picture you will see that swirls are also an issue. Especially over the last 9 months or so. As a matter of fact they have gotten worse until recently.
Any info you can give me would be greatly appreciated. Like I said, we have pretty much been doing the same thing with the same recipe for a few years but all of a sudden we are having this problem.
Thanks!
Jennifer Davis
The Great Unbaked
p.s. this is RAW chocolate if it matters.
updated by @Jennifer Davis: 04/11/25 09:27:36
Adding Rum into chocolate truffles
Posted in: Tech Help, Tips, Tricks, Techniques
I understood now. Thanks Jim. 
Adding Rum into chocolate truffles
Posted in: Tech Help, Tips, Tricks, Techniques
Recipes ordinarily call for adding any liquor (or other liquid flavoring) to the ganache mixture--after the emulsion of cream and chocolate hassuccessfully been formed. The liquid should definitely not be added to the chocolate as you are tempering it. That would be just like pouring water into the chocolate--not a pretty sight.
Adding Rum into chocolate truffles
Posted in: Tech Help, Tips, Tricks, Techniques
Hi guys,
great to know you all. I just like to know how truffles were made with rum ? Do you add the rum into cream mixture of milk/dark chocolate for making ganache or during the tempering of the chocolate to make the chocolate shell? thanks guys.
updated by @jeff goh: 04/11/25 09:27:36
Femag Roaster??
Posted in: Opinion
I looked them up and found their website but not much more: http://www.femagagro.com/
Femag Roaster??
Posted in: Opinion
I just bought a FemagTM250 Roaster.
Anybody know anything about them?
updated by @Brad Churchill: 04/10/15 02:53:56
Celebrating upcoming US Holidays: National Chocolate Chip Cookie Day and National Donut Day
Posted in: Opinion
May 15th, 2014 is National Chocolate Chip Cookie Day here in the US.
What are your favorite chocolate chip cookie recipes, pairings, and or experiences? Most unusual chocolate chip cookie or the most unusual place you've eaten a chocolate chip cookie?
On a related note, June 6th is National Donut Day. What's your favorite donut/chocolate pairing? Who makes the best chocolate donuts? What's the must unusual chocolate/donut mashup you've ever had?
updated by @Clay Gordon: 04/14/15 05:42:23
? I have a Hillard's Dipper
Posted in: Tech Help, Tips, Tricks, Techniques
Maggie -
We are going to need a little more detail than this to help you out. What kind of chocolate? What temperatures ... also in the room you're working in. How you're cooling, and more.
Have you been in touch with their technical support?