Forum Activity for @Clay

The kind of film you use depends a lot on what you're wrapping. Chocolate bars require different barrier properties than baked goods to. If you are buying you flow wrapper from a reputable source then they should be able to advise - or put you in touch with a manufacturer who can discuss your needs and recommend options. 

Here is a link to a page discussing some common film types.

The issue is less about the chocolate and mostly about what you're enrobing, and specifically what is called water activity, or aW. The higher the water activity, the shorter the shelf life. This is because water is where the organisms that cause mold to grow and dairy to go off exist.

Refrigeration is the single best approach to extending shelf life but as Jim points out it can be an impediment to impulse purchases if the product has to reach room temp before opening and eating for best eating experience and so that condensation does not form.

If refrigeration is not really an option then your next best bet is to use techniques and ingredients that reduce aW. If you don't know what your water activity there are devices to measure it - one common one is called the Pawkit. If I recall correctly, there is a lot of information on controlling aW in Peter Greweling's book.

Interested in this discussion. I recently purchased a flow wrap packaging machine and am investigating my options with regard to film. 

You bring up some interesting points with shelf life. What I currently do for retail sales is to make an extra box that will be for display only. The owner of the shop puts it out with a sign about the chocolates (the fillings, the ingredients, etc.), and the sign directs potential customers to inquire at the counter to purchase a box. There is a cooler at the counter, and the chocolates are kept there. Your comment on the availability to the customer is very true--this method of storing the chocolates discourages any impulse sales. Worse for sales, I seal each box in its own clear plastic bag and include a note that the chocolates should be allowed to come to room temp before opening the bag; bitter experience tells me condensation will certainly form otherwise, but I have had no issues with humidity with my method. I know that experts recommend against refrigerating chocolates, but an owner of a shop will be determined to keep them as long as needed to sell them, and I am concerned about shelf life enough to insist on refrigerating. All it takes is one spoiled ganache to ruin a reputation, and maybe even somebody's health. People are used to drugstore boxes of chocolates that will last practically forever and don't tend to think of bonbons as "spoilable." I have found my system to work well in two different shops (one a florist, the other a lunch spot), and if the staff calls attention to the existence of the chocolates, they do sell. I think one key is having the box on display so customers can see what they are getting.

Sorry do not have that left.

Who do you use and why for your films?  I have zero experience in this area and am looking to start checking out options, thanks.

I have a product that is enrobed.  I use good quality chocolate.  I only know my experience with the product that it is fine at room temp in the 60's, low 70's but I start to worry after that.  Not a big deal at home but what about in a retail environment.  I don't need to refrigerate due to any ingredients but I find myself preferring it.  This may be an issue when it comes both to perception on the part of the retailer and availability to their customers if I present my product as being in need of babying.  Are there hard and fast rules, guidelines, what do you do when considering humidity in a retail environment.  I've seen competitors use lower quality chocolate and assume that is their approach from both a cost perspective and shelf life perspective but I don't want to give up quality.

I have been researching for tempering milk chocolate, and working with Callebaut 100% chocolate mass, Mascarpone powder, Cocoa butter and Erythritol.   I am an enthusiastic cook and baker but am such a newbie in making chocolate at home especially since this is not really the norm.    Sugar free milk chocolate is my main aim for someone who is medically on the Ketogenic Diet (epilepsy).

My first attempt was ok, it had snap and tasted alright but it was grainy from the Erythritol.   But as soon as I left the piece of chocolate on the kitchen counter in the early morning and it wasn't even hot, the chocolate started to melt, yes, I thought I had tempered it. 

Does anyone have a good tempered milk chocolate recipe with a smooth finish using a sweetener that will leave no aftertaste and grainy effect please ?    I'd really like to use up my invested ingredients (except for the sweetener) before switching if necessary.

Any help, info, tips especially a recipe would be deeply appreciated !  Thanks in advance. 

Hi there everyone,  I am a newbie in self made chocolate, driven by the need of making sugar free milk chocolate for someone who is on a medical ketogenic diet (epilepsy).

Will post my first question in the appropriate forum and hopefully get some help.

Best regards, 

Babe

I work with cocoa in Malaysia, and am looking to ship dried cocoa beans to the US.
What documents / certificates would the shipment require?
Much appreciated.

Photo not exactly related to the question, I apologize, but couldn't help sharing how my farm looks at dawn.

 Dawn at Culture Cacao Farm.jpg - 123KB

Like new...barely used. Meltinchoc Chocolate Melter enables you to melt chocolate (or other food items) and maintain chocolate in a tempered state with its accurate thermostat. The outer construction is thermo-resistant plastic, with a removable stainless steel pan. NSF.

• 110 volts. 200 W.
• 17" length x 15" width x 5.5" height.
• Temperature range is from 0 to 60 °C (0 to 140 °F).
• Capacity of 9 liters (9.5 quarts).

Retails new at over $800. Asking $400 + shipping from Marine on St. Croix, Minnesota USA (55047)

Feel free to email me directly at info@stcroixchocolateco.com if interested.

 meltnchoc.jpg - 13KB

Thanks very much, guys.

I've only heard good things about the Diamond grinders, and raves about the customer service.

As with any stone-based grinder, my guess is that it will take a fair amount of time--possibly an unreasonable amount of time, as Brad mentions, depending on your process and other requirements--to refine to a smooth texture. It's definitely do-able--I haven't found that most craft chocolate I've tried to be particularly gritty--but it does take time.

I believe the machines Brad mentions are some form of a universal (please correct me if I'm mistaken). I've had some excellent chocolate out of universals, too, and they're definitely an option to look at, as well.

Thanks a lot, @kerry, that straightens it out.

The splitting happens when the wire cuts the plastic. Sometimes the wires get deflected in their decent and they can damage the plastic.

Thanks @jim-dutton and @kerry for the extensive help. I am really starting to get a good view on the pro's and con's of guitars and this small one in particular. I would like to enquire just a bit further about the splitting of the plastic. Can you tell me more about it? How does the splitting occur?

I would mainly use the guitar for softer fillings, like fruit jelly, marshmallow and soft ganache.

Mirzam – Chocolate Makers

Hi,

I want to buy some good chocolate from Dubai. Where can I find the best chocolate? I know Dubai is one of the biggest importers in the world. So, I hope to find many brands. Should I be heading to the shopping malls in Dubai for chocolate ? Or is there any other special place that you can recommend?

Hi,

I love chocolates. My favorites are dark chocolates. I prefer to try the home made stuffs rather than the wholesale products. happy to be on this forum.

we have one and it was barely in use so in perfect condition. pm for further discussion if still interested.

My opinion:  Almost all chocolate today is not made with stone wheel grinders because it is old, and inefficient technology.  You can't even buy new industrial equipment with stone wheels (even replacement parts are hard to get).

My experience:  Most craft chocolate is gritty (and unpleasant to me) because the granite wheels cannot get the chocolate down to the smallest particle size in a reasonable amount of time.

 Clay can put you in touch with a manufacturer that offers a much better solution - a solution that is specifically designed for refining chocolate - even on a small scale like 100lbs.

You can also get in touch with me at Brad@Choklat.com I am in the process of becoming a dealer of machines I've been using for 9 years now. You will be pleasantly surprised at the price of the machines, and, like I said, I have been using them for 9 years.  They are rock solid.

Brad

To get into the details of what's going on with your setup will take some time i'm afraid.  If you're able to post a series of pictures showing the empty boxes (internal and external), as well as a shot of the whole setup from 10-20 meters back at 10 am, noon, and 4pm on a sunny day that'd be helpful.  The details are important here - where are you, what is the starting brix, how are you measuring temperature, how are you turning the beans, what is the external temperature graphed over a 72 hour period, etc all are important places to help start looking at..

Hello @thesweetartco. The cooling tunnel is still available. Let me know if you have any questions. You can email at patrick@conillin.com

hello,

is this still available?

@sebastian - can you point to some of those manuals or give some quick word on how box design impacts fermentation? Deeper is more acidic?

I'm doing some experimenting at ~400kg batch level, changing every 2 days across 3-4 boxes (~ 32" wide x 35" long x 35" tall), drainage holes on the bottom, banana leaves and jute sack on top. We're finding some temperature/fermentation inconsistency within this set of boxes -- by 96hrs there was still some pockets of cool fresh cocoa on bottom and corners. Could this be because box is too deep or cocoa too wet at start?

Our cocoa is quite wet compared to other areas i've seen. My best guesses are (a) add more drainage holes in beginning boxes (b) make the first box change at 24hr instead of 48 (c) mix in between box changes (d) make a more shallow box with less cocoa touching the wood. Looking for any tips you can offer though..

Hello @chaqchao

Do you sell cacao beans? Can you send me the info and details to aselek777@gmail.com?

Thanks

Asel

Does anyone have any opinions about the Diamond Custom Machines melangers (70 lb or 100 lb)?  Many thanks.

David

The hotel pans give a clue to the dimensions.

In my experience, you will spend a lot of time working on duplicating the Kudvic rig. There is a lot going on here and the geometry and physics are complex. Also - a lot depends on the cracker you're using.

IMO - you'd be better off starting with the Real Seeds winnower and working to modify it. I would not use a single piece of plexi on the front. I'd have separate pieces for the zig zag chamber and the collection chambers. This will enable you to access the zig zag chamber easily and experiment with shapes and distances and more to improve and focus the turbulence which is what you need to separate things properly.

Thanks, Clay and Ben, for the responses. I'm feeling a couple of late nights down in the basement with some pvc and a drill are in my future. It's all quite achievable, though.

It's really like the "Wild West of the Winnowers" out there, isn't it?!

I'm also intrigued by the Kudvic design... and it seems rather possible to recreate from the video (though exact measurements would have to be figured out):

Cocoa bean cracker and winnower Cocoa breaker, Cocoa bean crusher and separator Kudvic

Any thoughts about (or experience with) this design?

David

Hilliards Little Dipper

$850 + $50 ground shipping in continental US.

This machine is an excellent upgrade if you’ve been using smaller tempering machines or are planning to temper between 1.5 lbs and 25lbs of chocolate a day. Plugs into a standard 120 volt outlet.

The machine uses two 100-watt light bulbs as a heating mechanism, and they’re easy to change.  It’s also relatively easy to unscrew the baffle and the bowl for cleaning or changing chocolate, as necessary. Temperature is controlled by a digital control panel  and the tempering bowl motor is controlled by an off-on switch.

Email ayala@shayschocolate.com if interested.

 Hillard Little Dipper 1.jpg - 665KB

There are several plans out there online, including the realseeds one Clay linked. If you search/dig on this site, I'm sure you'll find some of them. If you like John Nanci's winnower, he has plans on his site if you want to build it yourself:

http://chocolatealchemy.com/blog/2011/07/11/chocolate-alchemys-diy-winnower 

Clay,

As update on my experiments and thinking on the humidity issue and cooling chocolate:  Today I put 2 Moso bags in my regular fridge and added a small fan. I won't know until I get to the unmolding stage whether everything worked OK (it is very humid here right now, but I have the kitchen RH down to around 45%). Of course, it won't be possible, with so many variables, to know for sure whether the two measures I took made any difference or not. The Moso bags last only two years, but I contacted the company and was assured that if I take the bags out of the fridge when I am not making chocolates and seal them in a plastic bag, they should last a longer time. The fan was quite gentle (I could barely hear that it was running), so I don't expect much help from it.

My goal is to purchase the Everlasting mini. There was a 220V outlet in the house previously for a big window AC unit, so I'm hoping it would not be a huge deal to restore it--but I know almost nothing about electricity. I will spend some time investigating the various issues, including with an electrician, and then hope to proceed.

Dave -

One of the most-liked small winnowers is the one from RealSeeds in the UK:

http://www.realseeds.co.uk/seedcleaner.html

One trick to throughput on this is to be able to feed it continuously with some sort of feeder. I might also look to consider multiple passes or perhaps pre-classify.

You should also consider making this with food-safe material such as HDPE - at least for the food contact parts.

I would be careful with making too extensive modifications to the dimensions.

All of the winnowers out there seem to be either very expensive (for a relatively small producer) or a homemade series of tubes and a shop-vac. Even John Nancy's Aether (and I am a fan of his) is a bit costly for a series of pvc pipes, poly-carbonate, and aluminum. I'm wondering if anyone might have drawn out plans for a winnower that they have created that I can use to build my own? I would, of course, be willing to pay for these plans (providing they are a proven design, are written clearly and can winnow, EFFECTIVELY, 50-75 lbs an hour).

Thanks!

David

Hey Sebastian;

I can build one in.  See attached photo.

Oh... Wait... I just put on my glasses.  Never mind....

 download.jpg - 4KB

I think they were solid. I asked him to send me pictures from the last time. They were not well done I can tell you that. Thanks for your advice. Greatly appreciate it.

Did the last owner make them solid or partially hollow or hollow?  

For hollow--You could fill one side, clip the other side on and shake bubbles out and rotate to evenly coat the mold (much harder way to do this as you could get air bubbles that won't come out).

For partial air pockets in the piece--You could fill both sides with chocolate, shake the bubbles out, them put them together with clips.  You will still have a few air pockets but they should not surface to the top to been seen.  This is simpler than above but can be kind of messy if the chocolate starts to pour out when putting together.

Or to make them solid--you can fill both sides, let harden, take them out of the mold and "glue" them with chocolate to create the finished piece.  I use an angled icing knife from cake decorating to glue chocolate pieces together with tempered chocolates.

Thank you Lynda. I know the clips of which you speak. So, in your opinion, I should just fill it enough for both sides and then clip the sides, as opposed to filling each side and then sticking it together? 

Don't use duct tape.  There are clips that are a "O" shape that will hold them that are open and clip to the edges of the mold (I think all the chocolate mold companies sell these like chocolate world or tomric) or you can use the big black binder clips.  They can be washed and sanitized easily. 

Hello. I am looking for a Savage Brothers Fire Mixer 14, in excellent condition. I am located in Calgary, Canada. Please drop me a line if you have one you're looking to sell.

Thanks.

I have a small Dedy - it's a beautiful thing! The large Dedy was as well - it's in use elsewhere these days. I know that one of the eGullet Matt's has a small Martellato and he has found it works well for what he does. The Martellato actually has a slightly larger bed than the Dedy so cuts more pieces for the size which is an advantage I'd say. It's not a double though.

The objection I have to the Martellato's is the plastic - I've seen some where the raised plastic edge gets splits in it - then it is the thing that catches then breaks the wires as they come down.

Changing a wire is tedious initially - you get better at it. But I have not broken a lot of them over time, by watching what I'm cutting as Jim mentions above.