Forum Activity for @Black Eagle Chocolates

Hi Clay

Thanks for the response. I have placed my order already. Sorry for the ignorance but what is the Jean-Marie Auboine school and where is it situated? Im based in South Africa but would consider travelling if its worth it. Thanka again

Yeah - those huge honking pieces they sell at various places are not my idea of a 'proper' truffle. Lazy man's truffle - got tired of scooping and rolling so made them bigger!

Ahh, so they are a sub-category of Bon Bons. That's a helpful way to think of it. Tho, the ones they are selling can be cut into quarters easily! They're cake pop sized. 

Thanks for the input.

I've never completely convinced myself that I clearly know what a truffle is vs a bonbon. I tend to think of the little (and I do mean little) one bite ganaches shaped like the thing that pigs dig up in France - to be a truffle. A cut piece made from ganache might also qualify. And when I pipe a ganache into a shell - I might call it a truffle filling. 

To me various chocolate items count as bonbons - truffles, molded chocolates, enrobed chocolates...

Hi! I have a tiny chocolate company in S.E. Wisconsin - something of a social venture project. Sweet Impact Chocolates is in it's 4th year, but I only started doing full-fledged chocolates in the summer of last year. I'm focused on all-natural products, using ethically-sourced chocolate and then 10% of my sales goes to NGO's that help trafficked kids and education for girls/young women. I could go on and on, but I'll leave it at that to spare you all 

Among many other things I'll be running to this forum for, I have a fundamental question for you all. Honestly, I hadn't needed to address it until a florist approached me about carrying my chocolates in her shop. 

What differentiates a "truffle" from a "bon bon?"  My understanding was that a shell, with truffle filling, no matter the shape, could be called a truffle. But, based on what lines they already carry, a truffle needs to be enormous and a ball, and dipped. They carry a product that, honestly, after taking the class I did from Ecole Chocolat, offends my food snob sensibilities. It's 1.5 ounces and has so much artificial junk in it, including the coating not actually being chocolate, that I was stunned. She wanted to know if I could do anything like it. Which I can, but if I'm going to put my name on it, it won't be that sort of product. Trouble is, she only pays 1.42 for each one, and has a 3-6 month shelf life. Color me gob-smacked!

So, are there any technical rules about what makes a truffle?

Thanks in advance and I'm so happy to have found this forum!

-Kristi

Clay, Thanks very much for the link to Compatible Technologies International. We live in northern Minnesota, and they are in Saint Paul, so we drove to their headquarters last Wednesday to test their Ewing Grinder with Don Jacobsen, one of the founders. We ground about a pound of Venezuela roasted nibs (had to go to Target to get a hair dryer to heat the burr grinders and shaft first, and heated the nibs in the microwave, and after that, the grinder turned the nibs into a powder (probably because it was not completely heated, but a very fine powder) that we later added to our Premier Grinder. It worked great! We will purchase the machine and adapt it with a motor, but we are confident it's going to do a great job and save us a lot of time and energy. Will post more, with photos, when we get the machine. You can find out more on their web site. CTI is a wonderful company! 

HAHA,

        Brad, I am with you on the eating chocolate for the health benefits a one part joke and one part a marketing ploy by the industry to sell more of it. Lol. I get people walking into my store and asking me for healthy chocolate all the time, I used waste my breath and try to explain the " fat and sugar" issue, but now I just tell them to go to their local supermarket and buy cocoa powder. I suppose that if the choice is between eating a supermarket pumpkin, pecan of apple pie, or a chocolate bar, the  chocolate bar is in theory a healthier alternative.

Haha!  Gretahass that was funny.  General statements about flavanols and UV protection...  Maybe I should just spread dark chocolate on my skin instead of SPF15.

How about we look at FACTS - such as the one that says dark chocolate (say 70%) is approximately 65% fat and sugar.  I challenge ANYONE to name one health food that is 65% fat and sugar and call it a health food with a straight face.

Chocolate is CANDY whether it's dark candy, milk candy, or white candy.

You want healthy food?  Eat a salad.

That is true. I'm not sure what I was talking about.    Maybe I just saw 50%, not 40-50%...

A 70% 2 ingredient bar would almost certainly be very close to 40% total fat, assuming well fermented beans were in play.

$650 new, asking $400 + shipping. Stainless steel, includes stand. Located in New York. 

Another followup question, I'm guessing you can't conch like a melanger in a ball mill because it refines too quickly?

I've not got round to building a prototype yet, I'm still finishing my tempering machine

Hi Humboldt-chocolate,

No we haven't tried flooding and scraping because we purchased the moulding line that works with the dosing head, not with a scraper, I suppose we could hand scrape them, but it adds another person that we would need to mould them.  At the moment we are sprinkling the inclusions, which also means we need an extra person.  We are trying to work it out

I too have purchased the Unica...But have not tried to use it with inclusions yet. Have you tried to flood and scrape without the dosing head? I look forward to hearing more. Thanks

Research points to flavanols – substances that help lower blood pressure and improve vascular function ,  improve cognitive function , and even provides UV protection for our skin! Dark chocolate has a higher proportion of flavanols than milk chocolate.

Known as The Highland Chocolatier, Iain Burnett is an award winning chocolatier based in the heart of the Scottish mountains, His lovingly handmade chocolates are specially crafted  to give an authentic, world-renowned taste of the Highlands. International award-winning artisan chocolatier Iain Burnett and his highly skilled team bring you a taste of Scotland you will not forget.  

Hilliard's Cooling Cabinet, 2008 for sale. I bought this in 2012 from a small chocolate shop owner who bought it new in 2008. Excellent condition.  $2,200.00 (will ship--crating fee is $95.00, plus shipping cost to your destination )

Please email for details and my contact info if you are interested.  

Katherine M. 

 Hilliards Front.JPG.jpg - 108KB

You may be interested in Clay's post:

https://www.thechocolatelife.com/clay/group_discuss/662/20kg-diy-chocolate-melter-for-about-200

This is the model:

http://www.selmi-chocolate.it/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/EN-selmi_one.pdf

Bear in mind it is the single phase 220V version

Michael

Hi all is it possible to use an ordinary commercial "Dry Well Bain-Marie" for melting and holding chocolate to temperature. If NOT why not?

Many thanks in advance

Which model is it? can you link me to some specs please.

Hello,

We're looking to buy a small tempering machine (4-10kg).

We're located in Cornwall-England.

Many thanks

Thanks to my beautiful sister, D, I have two quality blocks of koko samoa standing on my kitchen table. I mean REAL Samoan koko! On my kitchen table. I feel like throwing a party because I haven't had Samoan koko since...I can't even remember the last time, and now it's right HERE.

Tempering is a heat treatment technique applied to ferrous alloys, such as steel or cast iron, to achieve greater toughness by decreasing the hardness of the alloy. ...Tempering is accomplished by controlled heating of the quenched work-piece to a temperature below its "lower critical temperature".

Thanks for your help.

Yes, it most likely is overkill for your uses. We regularly do 40-50 plaques at a time.

If you don't mind saying, how large a production are you speaking of? At this point, I am a small producer, so might be spraying 4 molds with a single color, then changing to a different color. My airbrush is OK for doing that (it is a siphon type, so tends to need frequent heating--I have always assumed the gravity-feed type is better when it comes to dealing with the thickening of chocolate). But the brush/compressor I have cannot do the speckling (to take one example) that I believe the Fuji is capable of. Leaving aside the issue of cost, do you think it would be overkill for what I do?

You require the complete system, including compressor. 

Unlike small airbrush systems, it has a large (and loud, comparatively) compressor, a much larger hose (think garden hose thickness), and costs more. However, it is a beast in production. 

Thanks for that information. I have heard of others who use that brand for spraying molds. I believe it requires it own compressed air supply, not just a regular compressor, correct? Is that what you mean by a "serious piece of equipment"?

I use a FujiSpray HVLP system. It works very well, but is a serious piece of equipment. It uses a gravity fed spray gun with a 3oz stainless cup, so you can heat periodically during application. They have interchangeable needle/nozzle sets of varying sizes, and different cup sizes too, although the 3oz is the only stainless cup option. I use the smallest one for spraying cocoa butter into plaques.

The sprayers being discussed (such as the Krea ones) appear to have containers holding a rather large amount of the material being sprayed. Many chocolatiers operate on a much smaller scale, particularly when spraying colored cocoa butter into molds. Does anyone know of an HVLP device with a smaller "tank"?

Yiep, I use this sprayer to achieve a nice velvet covering. Easy to handle. Make sure it's cleaned properly after usage. Chocolate might get stuck in the atomizer piece; spray hot water through and you're fine

 hotCHOC velvet chocolate 1.jpg - 43KB

Hi Jay,

Sorry for my late reply. I haven't been actively checking the forum post but now I am back! 

I would love to receive some bean samples for running trial. May I know how it works?

Best regards,

Katie  

Thanks for the recommendation!

Dear chocolate lovers, I would like to know if someone ever bought a Sowbaghya wet grinder as there is on the website 

Hi there!

Can anyone reccomend a recipe for Peppermint Patties? Is there one anyone has had good success with? Has anyone tried making it with Invertase?

Thanks very much!

Daniel

Very nice!!  I originally thought that I would need to do vacuum molding to do any custom work. 3d printers, at the time, only had ABS or PLA as printable filaments.  In the last 2 years though, that's dramatically changed; PETG, Polycarbonate, Nylon, as well different alloys of PLA and ABS.  As soon as I saw PETG and Polycarbonate available, I thought I'd look into skipping the intermediary step of printing the positives and doing the forming.

BTW: The primary reason I thought it would be more expensive is that the vacuum is limited by strength; you can diy almost all of it. But to get good plastics and reusable molds out of the deal, you end up going super thin or different materials that are more brittle. Polycarbonate, as an example, has an extremely high melting temperature.

I'll keep posting here. As of right now I'm fairly confident in my printing skills, however, I'm building up a higher quality printer. I still need a few pieces before I can appropriately test a good PC or PETG mold.

As for resolution; nozzles are available as small as 0.15mm  Resolution for movement is usually in the 0.05mm range.  Frankly, much smaller than that and you start having surface tension and viscosity issues with chocolate. Between a dremel engraving kit to polish up the surface and different vapor polishes i'm fairly confident that I'll have something quite usable.

I'm also expecting to go full custom, but still have to learn the software so I can start charging for that setup. 

My husband made a vacuum mold machine. What we do is customize candy bars. We have the customer send us what they want to put on the candy bar in an AI format we then send the graphic to our engraver, he then lasers us 16 molds of the candy bar. We then put those on a large board (we have the  board and plastic pre cut to fit the molds) and then we are able to vacuum the candy bar molds. We make 4 molds with 4 candy bars on each mold at one time. It took some practice but the molds are coming out nice!! and the candy bars look great. We charge a one time set up fee for the candy bar molds and request a 2 week lead time to get the molds made once the graphics have been sent to us. The molds end up costing a few dollars each. 

Nice. My son and I are creating a Makers room in the home and we'll be tinkering with a bunch of things we haven't before. Looking at building a printer kit or maybe picking one up used. Keep us posted on your trials or experimentations. We'll certainly do the same but its a bit farther out at the moment.

Finishing can by done a number of ways. Most basic is just using sand paper and sanding the part smooth. Vapor polishing works by using a solvent that works on the specific material and works by allowing the vapor to melt the surface of the plastic. As to the foodsafe qualities after vapor polishing, it should go back to being safe once the solvent has fully evaporated out of the part and the part has been washed.

The solvent does evaporate fully, if it did not, then the plastic would never harden back up.   Again, those chemicals are different for the different plastics.

Really, it just depends on the quality of the part you're trying to achieve and what amount of time you're willing to spend on finishing the part. Usually there's some combination of finishing techniques that are used to finish printed parts.

What I'm curious of is how to 'finish' the mold. I haven't seen many 3d printers give a RTG mold that is smooth--like butter, perfect smooth--the smooth that will shine a temper right. Most people have to do some sort of acid bath and finishing agents to get that final look and that's for models. I have no idea what the process would be and if at the end of it is it still food-touch-safe?

Also Vacuum isn't expensive to get a setup to do warm/oven-plates. Just need the objects you want to thermoform. You can even DIY build a setup. Not the same, but it's fun to tinker with.

We are selling our demonstration SELMI ONE single phase (220v) - never used in production - 2 years old - perfect condition.

Price: £5,750 + tax if applicable (Price new: £7,150 + tax if applicable)