Forum Activity for @Clay

I don't know how adjustable the cracker on the Selmi machine is. 

The machine I am talking about works more like a scraper/peeler. There is a stainless steel plate with holes in it and a paddle-wheel-like device that scrapes the beans against the plate, breaking them. Larger beans and pieces stay in the chamber until the pieces are small enough to fall through the holes into the chamber where forced air separates the shell from the nib.

There are three fractions - and the speed of the cracker wheel and the fan can be adjusted to fine-tune the separation. One fraction is fines and shell, another is usable nib, and the third is a combination of nib and shell. You can wait until you get a lot of this combination fraction (i.e., at the end of the day) and run just this fraction back through the winnower to get as much usable nib as possible. The 100kg/hr figure for the small machine assumes two passes to get below 1.75% maximum shell in nib.

I will get up-to-date pricing over the weekend and get it to you.

Rochelle -

I have seen one. They are beautiful (which is to be expected for Selmi products) but the winnower is expensive for the throughput they offer. If aesthetics are really, really important to you then I don't know that there is a better option in this price range.

If aesthetics are not as important, but throughput and budget are, there is a company in Peru that offers one for about 60% of the cost that delivers about twice the throughput.

Ilya -

You mention small production above - how large?

Because, before we go anywhere talking about any specific machine or approach ... it is very helpful to have an estimate of your bar production needs? Hundreds per hour? Hundreds per day? There is a huge difference in how I would recommend approaching this depending on the production volume you are talking about.

That said, one of the nice things about flood/scrape mold loaders is that you can fill different mold configurations without having to adjust anything in the line (assuming all the molds are the same size). The downside is that the method can be very messy and it does not handle mixed-in inclusions very well.

Pneumatic depositing options fill each mold cavity separately. They are more expensive, but the process is much cleaner. That's an advantage when going directly to a cooling tunnel as excess chocolate on the outside of the molds can get caught up in the drive mechanism.

You can DIY a cooling tunnel using a series of chest freezers bolted together. Remove the door (lid) and build a wooden collar (8-12 inches high) on top of each unit (this is done all the time for jockey boxes for craft beer to hold the taps), then attach the door to the top of the wooden collar.

Create openings in the collar for the conveyer to fit through. Put a PID control unit in each freezer to control the temperature of each unit separately. Put a fan in each unit to move the air around inside (you can build internal baffles to direct/control the airflow). If humidity is a problem, put a dessicant inside each freezer.

3, 7-foot chest freezers give you the base for a ~21-foot tunnel for well under $5000. PID controllers are going to be less than $100 each. I don't have a price for a conveyor unit but you want a surface that will allow air flow underneath the mold and you want the speed to be adjustable. You want the conveyor to be at least 18" longer on each end (3 feet overall).

21 feet is approximately 7 meters. If the belt speed is .5 meters/minute then a mold will spend about 14 minutes in the tunnel. If you are using 275x175 molds then the max throughput is just 3 molds per .5 meter so you're talking about max throughput of less than 3 molds/minute. If you need to work faster you need a longer tunnel.

With separate PID controllers you can set the temperature of each freezer differently. If ambient is 68F you could make the outside units 62F and the center unit 55F (I recommend an odd number of units for this reason). Of course, you can make this any length you need by selecting different freezers - though they should all be the same dimensions for obvious mechanical reasons.

Keep in mind that a cooling tunnel that is designed for enrobed items is not optimal for molds as there is no airflow to the bottom of the mold. So - a purpose-built tunnel for molds is going to be better.

If you are doing batches of 450 bars at a time, the question I have is how many batches per day and week are you doing. If the answer is one then a fridge designed for holding and crystallizing chocolate is going to be a better idea. It will be much smaller and much less expensive.

Hi Albert , this side Balpreet singh from Chandigarh, India near New Delhi. Let me know if I can help you.

If you plan to only do chocolate bars then i can suggest a tempering unit and  vertical folded tunnel as Clay suggested. It saves space and is very efficient.

However, if you plan to do other items (enrobing) an horizontal tunnel will be a good compromise. You just need quite a long one tho...

What do you think about one of  prefamac's machines paired with a second hand cooling tunnel 

Automatic tempering machine with scraper - How to use

Hi Clay,

Yes I was just using the picture to demonstrative the basic principal.

yes please share your opinions on the cheaper options,  the pneumatic Mould loader seams an attractive option paired with a tempering machine

and DIY Cooling tunnels, or reconditioning a second hand cooling tunnel. 

I only know how to make chocolate from scratch, the idea is that I want to set up a small production of chocolate bars.

Noel:

You can't take your experience with the various processes of batch tempering and apply them to continuous tempering.

The chocolate that comes out of the pipe - when it's in cooling mode - is the temperature set in the cooling cycle. 30.5C you say. That drops into a bowl of chocolate that is heated and whose sole purpose is to melt out all the crystals before it exits the drain at the bottom and runs through the tempering pipe.

When the chocolate is melted and before you turn the cooling cycle on, the temperature of the chocolate in the bowl should be fairly even. The longer you let it run, the more even it will be. There is a thermocouple on the outside of the bowl and that's there the temperature is measured.

When you turn the cooling cycle on, the temperature of the chocolate coming through the spout drops. (The thermocouple is right at the top of the tempering pipe.)

Eventually, you start pumping 30.5C chocolate into a bowl of warm chocolate whose max temp is 47C ... and you start mixing them together. If you put a probe thermometer in the bowl you will not get consistent temperature readings. This is to be expected. You don't really care what the temperature is anywhere in the bowl except at the very bottom by the drain. All you care about is what temperature ensures that crystals are melted out before the chocolate re-enters the tempering pipe. If there are still crystals there is the risk of a positive feedback cycle leading to over-crystallization.

From a consistency perspective you want to keep the working bowl at least two-thirds full while working. Don't empty the bowl. The emptier the bowl the harder the heating and cooling systems have to work. You'll quickly get into a rhythm where you fill some molds, then do some other work (moving molds to cooling, de-molding, etc). While you're doing this other work put chocolate into the bowl and allow the tempering cycle to re-establish itself. If you can put melted chocolate into the bowl and the chocolate is about the same temp as the cooling temp then you won't interrupt the tempering cycle and can resume work immediately.

But - the important take-away is that a probe thermometer inserted into the working bowl will not return any useful information. The temperatures will be different throughout the bowl. That's to be expected - it's the way it works. One thing to note about the geometry of the working bowls in FBM machines is that they are narrow and deep. This design reduces wasted heat - wide shallow bowls are less energy efficient. The design also provides more time for the chocolate in the bowl to melt out crystals.

The Selmi line you show is not for molds. That setup requires a TOP with mold loader accessory, Tank400, and cooling tunnel - plus room for the cooling tunnel. Last I checked it was in excess of US$70k.

You can get a new Unica from FBM with your choice of 50/100/200kg tanks, pneumatic depositor with mold loader, and CLIMA 50 folded/vertical cooling tunnel for less than the Selmi equivalent.

If you want to cool in a room or fridge instead of using a cooling tunnel I'd need to know how many molds/bars hour/day you want to produce and to think about the options. You can build a room (I know someone producing >10K bars/day that way) or get specialized humidity-controlled chocolate crystallization fridges.

I also know of a way to DIY a cooling tunnel using chest freezers and PID temperature controllers ... if you have the room.

Is this on the surface or all the way through? What's the texture of the bars that ar affected?

Do you have a recording thermometer/hygrometer? What's the temperature of the room ... and what's the temperature of the fridge?

Whats the most cost effective setup for the production of solid single origin Bars without hand moulding

and manually cooling them in racks in a chiller 

temper unit and a second hand cooling tunnel  and manually demould on the other end.

who has set up a basic straight through production line and for how much money

 tunnel_300_400.jpg - 39KB

Interested in some of your beans.  Send me an email to preston@hellococoachocolate.com for prices please.

Hi there,

We are in the process of consolidating our facility and have a bunch of great beans for sale. We are trying to focus on our main five or so chocolates and have a number of different beans that would love a new home. These are great beans we are just unable to use them at the moment.

Origins include -

Around 250 lbs of Dominican Republic, Del Eden Hispaniola

Around 150 lbs of Peru, Oro Verde

Around 50 lbs of Nicaragua, Momotombo

Around 400 lbs of Uganda 

Around 300 lbs of Guatemalan, Lachua 

Around 300 lbs of Hondorus, La Masica 

We can give a pretty good deal to anyone that wants some or all of these beans!

If interested please email us at - info@starchildchocolate.com

Hi there,

We are in the process of consolidating our facility and still have for sale a Rev Delta and brand new chocolate skimmer to go with it. This machine is in great working condition and has hardly been used.

- Chocovision Revolation Delta tempering machine. 2 Years old but only ever used a handful of times. Comes with an extra    bowl and both solid and wholly baffles.  

- Never been used Chocovision S10 chocolate skimmer. 

$1500 for the Rev bought new for $2300

$500 for the skimmer bought new for $700

Will take $1900 for both

Please inquire via Email or Phone   -   info@starchildchocolate.com / 1-707-671-5778

We are experiencing unheard of levels of fat bloom in our finished product, which we believe to be environmental. The relative humidity of the cooling rooms are below 50%, but at time the temperature fluctuates, as it did this weekend, when a batch of 450 bars were setting.

Pics below.

 bloomedmocha0815.jpg - 47KB

When you say "This is proving to be unsatisfactory" can you provide some more information about what ways? Throughput? Quality?

We are a small scale confectionery, still fine tuning our processes, and I am in need of a cooling tunnel or chocolate fridge. Any leads on small-scale equipment would be appreciated!

We temper 25# batches (often with inclusions), hand-fill molds and then vibrate with a small dental vibrator. Our current method is putting bar molds in the fridg for 15-20 minutes and then transferring to a speed rack with cover/AC unit - this is proving to be unsatisfactory, so we're ready to move on to the next step. 

Thanks in advance!

I have the 30kg melangeur from Kudvic which is being shipped to me. Hopefully  I will receive it in less than a month's time. Will let you know how it works

I wouldn't get too hung up on the % of a certain crystal form - you have no way of measuring or controlling it that precisely, and in a batch system such as i assume you are working with, that % will continue to change over time anyway.  Focus on controlling the things you can - your temperatures, your quantities, your environment, your cooling, and your agitation - and i think you'll be far happier than trying to guess what the quantity of a crystalline structure is w/o having a x ray spectrometer on hand 8-)  If you would like to get more technical about measuring your degree of temper, i'd recommend investing in a tricor temper-meter, which works on the principle of measuring the heat of crystallization generated/released when matter converts from a liquid to a solid (or reverse).  Far less expensive than a spectrometer, much easier to use, and tells you what you need to know without requiring a PhD to interpret the results. 

interesting... of course that I can shave cocoa butter and not to buy, I can try soon.

But is there still one point I don't understand: how come that you have 1% V crystals in properly tempered chocolate on working temperature, what about the remaining 99% cacao butter crystals?

AMF = Anhydrous Milk Fat (aka butter oil)

Hi Lly - i'll admit up front i didn't read the links in detail, but rather scanned them.  To be honest, i'm not a huge fan of mycryo - sure it works, but it's an absurdly expensive way of tempering.  Shaving in tempered cocoa butter can work just fine (actually, it can be tempered chocolate, it'll do the same thing) - as long as your untempered base is of suitable temperature.  If it's too hot, you'll just melt the seed butter/chocolate and it wont' do anything but lower the temperature just a tad, perhaps.  If your base chocolate is too cool, you've already got some crystallization going on, and it'll be a hot mess.

When i'm tempering small quantities at home, i'll use the 'bring the untempered chocolate temperature to 32C and seed it with tempered chocolate' approach - but as with anything, there is more than one way to do things.  If you're working with milk chocolate, you may need a little more seed; dark chocolate (w/o AMF in it) will require a little less seed.

Edit:  The other thing to consider would be an EZ Temper unit, which is a small scale cocoa butter precrystallizer.  Works great, and uses standard cocoa butter. I'm a big fan of owning the capability.  Down side is that it's a little expensive for some.

Hi Sebastian,
You have very useful answers, so thank you.
There is another aspect that I don't fully understand, it is well known that in order to properly temper you need around 1% of V crystals in working temperature in order to cause an cascade reaction during crystallization. What inhibit for the rest of the cacoa butter to form V crystals (I assume that I'm close to equilibrium)?
If there are to many lumps in low temperture (~34C in dark chocolate) so overcrystallization is unavoidable?
recently I saw this method of tempring with cacao butter:
http://www.callebaut.com/usen/techniques/tempering/tempering-with-mycryo
or other source:
https://www.google.co.il/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwjFjKiX0L3OAhXHvBoKHcMQC3oQFggkMAE&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.chefeddy.com%2F2010%2F03%2Ftemper-or-pre-crystallize-chocolate-using-cocoa-butter%2F&usg=AFQjCNHaQzADb6p0Vcs8Fx1rgynkP2G7IA&sig2=at-gtBT1-QlqhmS8MhB9eQ&bvm=bv.129422649,d.d2s
What do you think about this method?

Thank's!

There are no books that cover the topics you ask about.

However, I can answer any questions you have about FBM continuous tempering machines. Do you have a 12kg Compatta or a 15kg Compatta?

About assessing temper. Learn to do it by hand. Even if you have a continuous machine - it will only do what you tell it to do. If you don't know what proper temper is you can't tell the tempering machine what to do.

De nada!

Sebastian - Thanks for sharing!

https://www.aucto.com/catalog/nriindustrial/auction-of-major-chocolate-making-facility-in-pennsylvania-day-2/5161

A Cargill plant has relocated, resulting in much of their equipment being auctioned off - including some lab equipment.  Some very good equipment here at firesale prices should you be interested.  Note, i have no interest in the sale - just ensuring awareness of it as some of you might find some of the goods useful, at prices you'd not otherwise be interested in 8-)

Does anybody have any experience with the Kudvic melangeurs?

Calum -

As a point of comparison:

2xMaestrias (45kg) with pneumatic depositors (maximum size of inclusion of about 3mm) will cost you under €50,000 total. 2x200kg melters cost under €20,000. Mold loaders add another €15,000 all in.

FBM is introducing a new one-shot in the Fall but I don't have pricing on it (won't until after they return from holidays) and I don't know what the max inclusion size is on the one-shot but I will ask.

A 50 mold vertical cooling tunnel is under €30k and the 100 mold tunnel is under €40k.

If you wanted to buy all this equipment, I quoted catalog list prices above - I am confident FBM could take care of you.

The customer doing so many bars a day has some products where the inclusions are mixed in (such as flaked coconut) and others where the inclusions are vibrated in.

Clay,

Thanks for this response!

To answer your questions:

- This line is 128k EUR

- Nuts are included through the OSD5 stage, I assume (I have asked for clarification)

- I have asked about max inclusion size.

I do like the quality of the FBM machines and if we could find a solution with FBM that is certainly what I would do.

The example of the company that makes 10k bars a day is interesting. At what stage do they add nuts and other inclusions?

Thanks

Calum

I'm needing 32 8 x 8 acrylic/plexiglass candy trays for a 6' display case.  Does anyone know where I can order some or does anyone have extra they are not using and would sell?

Calum -

When you say that the Pomati line you link to in the PDF is extremely expensive - what do you mean? And, when are are adding nut inclusions, what is the maximum size of the inclusion that the Pomati line can handle?

Personally, I would not invest everything in a single line. Single point of failure and the overhead involved in changeover is going to be significant. By having parallel lines - two or more - you reduce these risks and costs. If you are producing different kinds of work I would look to create solutions tailored to the work being done rather than one line that needs to be reconfigured for each different type of product.

I have one customer here in the US who is doing 10,000 bars per day each using FBM Maestrias, each backed by a 200kg melter. They build a custom cooling solution (room). All of the bars have some sort of addition (powders, inclusions) in them. 

Assuming 200 working days/year, 400,000 bars is about 2,000 bars per day. At five molds/minute and three cavities/mold, that's 900 bars/hour. If each bar is 50gr you need 45kg/hr of tempered chocolate. The T20 which is quoted in the line has a max throughput of 24kg/hr so right away I see a problem - you need a larger tempering machine.

The current Maestria has a 45kg working bowl and can temper up to 135kg/hr. FBM is introducing a new Maestria in the Fall with a 60kg working bowl and three-zone tempering. The Unica will be upgraded to a larger working bowl as well, at least 35kg if not 40kg, giving it a throughput of 70-80kg/hr. FBM offers a pneumatic depositing option for the Maestria and the Unica (and both offer three-zone tempering) or consider a one-shot machine that they plan to introduce in the Fall as well.

Of the companies in Italy offering this type of equipment, Pomati is the youngest. I can't speak to the large machines because I have not opened the backs and looked inside, but the smaller machines tend to have underpowered motors which can affect longevity when they're put into high-duty-cycle operation.

:: Clay

If the thickening is indeed due to overseeding (over crystallization, or over temper), simply take a hot air gun (hair dryer), and blow hot air into the mass while it's agitating to 'de-seed' it a bit until the rhehology is sufficient.    Note if you 'de-seed' it too much, you'll need to begin tempering again, and if the thickening isn't due to over temper, this method won't fix anything.

Hi all,

We are looking at a depositor for mainly our chocolate bars. I got talking to a reseller of Pomati in the UK and he has recommended the Pomati OSD 5 Depositors.

This can obviously do a lot more than just bars, which is great as this would be useful for doing our moulded chocolates too.

http://www.pomati.it/en-US/product/10/one-shot-depositor/one-shot-depositor-osd-5

At the moment we are doing 300 - 400k bars a year (30 tonnes), and sales are increasing quickly. At the moment our set up is wholly inadequate:

- 2 x Wheel 30Kg wheel temperers (just used to melt the couverture)

- 1 x FBM Prima (7kg working bowl)

- 1 x Chocolate fridge for cooling

- Moulded chocolate - All done by hand

All our oils, spices and nuts are then mixed, by hand, in a bowl and then poured, by hand, into moulds. One person can usually do between 600 - 800 days doing it this way.

Our main part of our business is bars but we are looking to develop the moulded praline side of the business so the one shot is interesting.

We are now in a position where we can spend some money of equipment better suited to our production, but its extremely confusing as to what would be best for us moving forward.

We have looked at a whole line for the one-shot, which is extremely expensive but I am looking in invest in a line that will future proof our production for a few years to come.

They recommended:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/an3psbwic6wxez5/OSD5%2BTank%2BT20%2BVERT175.pdf?dl=0

- Does anyone have any opinions on this?

- Is this the best way to go? How else would you do this volume if not?

- Is there a more economical way to achieve this?

- What are your thoughts on Pomati?

Many thanks!

C

I had two failures yesterday:

1. white chocolate that I finished grinding and add tempered solid cocoa butter and the chocolate cool to around 34C, then it keeps cooling but it became very very thick and in ~30C it was almost solid so I add untempered liquid cacao butter that should help to equalized the amount of V crystals, I add around 5-6% and it dosen't helped, the chocolate was thick and the temperature was just below 31C.

2. Two dark chocolate mixing in order to achieve different cacao percent, I used the seeding method, when the chocolate cools to 32C there were still lumps of solid inside, so I used stick blender - it eliminate the lumps, the temperature was more or less the same but it was very thick, after moulding grey sticks were forms (typical phenomena to overcrystallized chocolate).

It's important to mention that I used those formulas before and the viscosity was perfect.

I suspect that in both cases large amount of seeding and strong agitation (by hand or by the grinder) cause to over-crystallized chocolate that was impossible to work with and the liquid-solid transition was around the working temperature.

What was the temp of the chocolate?

Hello,
Today I had a problem that I couldn't understand, the recipe was the same as usual and the viscosity should be OK.
After finish grinding, I added the cacao butter the reduce the temperature, and I saw that the chocolate (white one) becoming very very thick and it was impossible to mould, so I add untempred cocao butter and it dosn't help at all, although I add around 5% and its a lot. The transition temperature to solid was high because it was thick.
One option is that the chocolate absorb water from the air, despite that it was in liquid state less time than usual (sometimes I leave him outside for 12 hours to cool down), second option in overcrystalization.
The phenomena of overcrystalization makes the chocolate very thick? why the problem dosen't solved when I add untempred cocao butter?
It's important to mention that the weather is very hot and humid.

The final result chocolate that is almost solid when moulding, bad apperance, no contraction but solid like temper chocolate.

Can someone help me what is the problem?

Thank you!

IS it still for sale?  I am in San Francisco CA

Do you have photos?  Why are you selling

Shawn

Both tanks are in excellent mechanical/electrical condition and temper perfectly. Meticulously cleaned and maintained will in use. Units are no longer needed and currently in storage, palletized for shipment. Located an hour north of Boston, MA.

Tank on the Left:

• 125lb/55kg Capacity with PLC Touch Screen Controls
• Like new condition.
• $7450 or BO plus freight.

[SOLD] Tank on the Right: [SOLD]

• 125lb/55kg Capacity with Fully Automated Analog Controls
• Excellent condition.
• Asking $5900 or BO plus freight.

Upgraded equipment and they are no longer needed

Can assist with freight arrangements. 

Location: Hour from Boston

 2tanks.jpg - 610KB