Forum Activity for @Sebastian

Daniel - i've never done the study, so no data - but i don't believe a RC would result in longer microbial shelf life as a result of not incorporating ambient air.  I know others believe otherwise.

Why do i think thusly?  Your chocolate already has a micro load on it (meaning your chocolate, while likely food safe, is not sterile - it has more micro organisms on/in it than you think) - so they're already there.  You can't load your RC in a vacuum, meaning that ambient micro organisma are going to be in your RC when you start it in addition to what went in with your ingredients.  When you pull a vacuum, it's not going to pull those organisms out, and while the ganache may be mixed under a vacuum, when you open the unit you break the vacuum, and ambient air will rush back into the lower pressure areas of the ganace to equalize pressure.

My opinion only, no data to support it 8)

Everything is OK. i will definitely buy another one. I plan to instal speed control (about 500$)

If you are going to be at the FCIA this weekend - drop by the booth (cocktail table), say hey to Rodney and Jess - get them to talk to you about the EZtemper and put your business card in the draw for a free unit.  

https://www.facebook.com/FineChocolateIndustryAssociation?fref=nf

Hi guys, can you give me an update on how your machines are holding up?  Thanks!

To add to Sebastian's point: we were always taught that you should use the RC when making a ganache that has a tendancy to split - the RC will make it less likely to split. Otherwise we just used a stick (immersion) blender.

Thank you Ruth and Sebastian,

I really appreciate your input. Do you think having a vacuum on a robot coupe is worth the investment? Does it improve shelf life significantly or could a long shelf life bon bon (3 month or so) be created with having a well balanced ganache alone. The vacuum on a stephan or robot coupe seems great, but they add a several thousand dollars to the cost of the machine. Thanks again!

Daniel

 Hola Sebastian from the coastal slopes of Caribbean Costa Rica. Thank you for your information. No, I currently not conducted my own scientific analysis of my soil over the past 20 plus years of farming cacao. Yes, I am in the process of conducting this analysis in soil, as well as genetic heritage of my trees. The prior owner of our farm, Mr. Rolegio Smith from Punta Uva, owned and worked the farm for 70 plus years before I bought it from him. And before that his family, The notable Downer family worked the larger farm (including what is now mine) for a 85 plus years before that. These peoole never lived on the land; they only lived out on the beach area, and worked the "farm" from dawn until afternoon. There were no roads, at all here until the 1980's as the Province of Limon was a restricted province to keep the Black people and Jungle at bay. It wasn't until 1950's that Black people could even leave the Province and go to the capital.
Before that (1700's) it was all Indigeneous land which the artifacts in the soil reveal as well. But really really, where we are here is "new land" so to speak, recently arisen from the sea. It is not uncommon to see coral deposits nearby and I have even seen this 1Km inland, on the top of a high hill with 400 year old Almond Trees growing out of them! So, all in all we can conclude that the land near at the home of Talamanca Organica is recently risen from the sea (within the last 1000 of years or so), quite far from the alluvial flow of the volcanic region of Costa Rica. Heck, we don't even have any native rock here....it is all clay rock. You have to travel way out to the River Sixaola or the River Chirripo to get any rock, hence why gravel costs a fortune here.
So, yes, I can understand where alluvial flow soils typical of Central and South America would contain Cadium, and other heavy metals. And yes, I see the practice here in the province of locals drying cacao on the roadside. WE, here at Talamanca Organica sun dry our cacao in our farm, and then our cacao is stored daily on clean organic cotton linen, untl it is complete dry; and then in airtight containers. Just yesturday I was sunnin up a ferment from Nov 2014, and I have to tell you that it is as beateous as ever, with amazing aroma and a lovely fruity taste, and only sundried.
If you are ever in my neck of the woods, and you would like to tour my sustainable, organic, regenerative cacao farm, I invite you. And if you have your handy soil testing kit, I would love to offer my soil for your review. You will see that the Superior taste in our beans in multi-fold. First off, it's organic, second, it's grown in harmony with the forest (and that is taste worthy), and it is fermented with prestige and sundried exclusively with our expertise. 
Thanks you very much for sharing your experience, and i hope one day you try our beans. 
And yes, I agree with you, people can ingest poison in they so choose. I do not. And I hold that principle in my agricultural practices. I am fascinated, though with the European love of the cacao shell, and the high demand amongst the European tourist. Yep, few Americans are even interested in it at all.... and it was an Isreali who discovered smoking it....I never thought of it before that. Pura vida, Christina.

The theory behind the RC, so the story goes (at least that i've often heard suggested as it's major benefit) is that since it's a more sealed environment, it helps to increase shelf life by keeping microbes out.  While it may be true that because it has a lid less ambient microbes settle in the product, it doesn't really make a difference due to the amount of microbes already present.  So i'd say no advantage there.  To Ruth's point, the RC is a very powerful high efficiency blender.  A stick blender is fine, nothing wrong with it (it's what i have), but a RC will be better from the perspective of it will create a finer emulsion than the stick blender is capable of producing, which could result in an improved texture and reduced tendancy to separate.

I love my R-C. It does not add air. Builds a beautiful emulsion. It would take a pretty powerful stick blender to do what the R-C does.

Hi there,

I am wondering which tool you prefer for emulsifying ganache. Do you prefer working with an immersion blender or a robot coupe (food processor)? Does a robot coupe create too much air when emulsifying? I know some chocolatiers use a vaccuum feature on their robot coupe or stephan mixer. Is that really necessary? Thanks for your feedback. I look forward to hearing about your experience!

Daniel

Okay haha. Some of these box companies have horrible images of their products. 

You said custom...they can do custom. Whatever design you choose. Don't look at their online stuff. 

I haven't seen that company before. They look to be about the quality of some of our boxes that we have now. But we're looking for something more like this level of quality: http://www.recchiuti.com/100.html?area=01 (Click on the picture of the outside of the box.)

Most of the custom box companies we've found are overseas so the shipping doubles the already expensive boxes. We love BSD but, again, the shipping doubles the cost of the box.

Cheers

Thank you

I've used the Twirlo machine with Capol glaze (Capol 254) and lacquer (Capol 425). The glaze makes it shiny, the lacquer "locks it in" and seals it. I was working in 14C conditions though in the kitchen . . . so very different to yours. 

See if you can find your local Capol representative - they do a lot of different products to suit a lot of different conditions. They might have something better suited for where you live.

I live in Asia, where its like 29/32 degrees most of the time

I want to chcocolate cover coffee beans (I aleady sell coffee here, so the beans are no problem) I'm doing this in bulk and have the twirlo coating machine

The problem I DO have is the heat, with the cocolate melting when I transport from the unit to the shops, and with the melting when customers pick them up............ so I'm guessing a confectioners glaze should be applied?
I'm trying to locate that glaze here,

Can anyone give any tips/hints, advice so as I dont have to make the mistakes BEFORE hand

Thank you

Search does not work in mobile (iPhone). 

I am very happy with Duerr packaging in Pennsylvania. Their prices are very fair and good quality.

it's a very useful overview.  All i ask is for the opportunity to buy some caramels when you've reduced your learnings to practice 8-)

We're selling a Perfect Equipment Air 2.0 Wheel Tempering machine that we purchased less than a year ago.  It has a 20 kg capacity and comes with the cover, vibrating table and an extra pan.  It's had minimal use and works perfectly.  Paid $4,200.  Asking $2,750 USD + shipping costs.  We're located in Ottawa, Canada.  You can email me at erica@hummingbirdchocolate.com for more info.

See the link here for more info about the machine: http://www.perfectinc.com/en/tempering/mini-wheel-tempering-air-20

 photo 5.JPG.jpg - 87KB

We are a mid-sized company looking to upscale our brand boxes. Ideally, we'd like to order no more than a year's worth of boxes at a time. However, to get the price point down per box to fit into our pricing structure, we would need to order for 2-3 years. There are issues of storage space and product change that make this an unpleasant option. 

Does anyone have a recommendation for a custom box company that has a good balance of high quality and low price? I know you get what you pay for. I'm just looking for as many options as I can find right now.

Hello! I'm excited to join your community. I began working with a gourmet chocolatier about 7 months ago. The company is called Ghyslain Chocolatier. (g-SLEIGH) They have a production facility and boutique in Union City, IN and 2 quick casual French bistros in Louisville, KY. I handle all creative - photography, marketing, website, social media & graphic design. 

Previously, I was self-employed as a fashion-styled photographer for 18 years in CT. (exclusiveimageonline.com)

Has anyone ever used an offsite fulfillment center to save on storage space and shipping costs? We have a small business with a pretty dismal rate contract with UPS, and are considering an offsite fulfillment center with temperature controlled storage, backup generators and quality guarantees with excellent shipping rates.

Open to any and all feedback on this idea,

Heather

Sebastian,

Thank you for the link you provided. It is a gold mine of very valuable information!

I'm about 250 ft above sea level, if my garmin bike computer is accurate! I have tried it with sugar syrup solutions and found the same fluctuation on induction cooktops. Since I really prefer induction, I'll do some futher experimenting and investigating. Thanks again for your suggestions.

chocolatealchemy.com has organic whole milk powder.

www.coldcoreinc.com

Gonna be tough to find at the moment i'm afraid - the organic dairy market is currently such that almost all of the producers are keeping the organic milk in a fluid form; very, very little is currently being converted to solids.  

I am looking for the following for my chocolate bars:

1- Organic Whole Milk Powder

2- Organic Skim Milk Powder

3- Organic Butter Fat Milk Powder

4 - Goat milk Powder

5- Sheep milk Powder

Willing to pay top dollars for quality ingredients

My induction is a portabe professional cooktop. Are you at sea level? Have you tried the test with a sugar solution? 

Further experiments with chocolate as seed in place of cocoa butter - using bean to bar chocolate.  http://forums.egullet.org/topic/151287-eztemper-the-help-you-need-to-achieve-perfectly-tempered-chocolate-fast/?p=2021063  - will just link rather than duplicating here.

Thanks for everyone's feedback. Ruth, I also called tech support at Thermoworks and they told me the few thermometers they checked were not affected by induction cooktops. However, they have received calls from some customers mentioning this issue. Ruth, are you using a portable induction cooktop or one that's part of a range? @Gap, I think you may be on to something. Because I have way too much time on my hands I tested 3 digital thermometers on a range induction cooktop and a hot cooktop. All three showed fluctuating readings by a several degrees (210-215) on the induction cooktop and did not read 212 F in boiling water. On the hot cooktop the readings were steady and 1 of the 3 read 212.1, one read 213. and one was way off (215). The accurate one is the Thermoworks Calibration Thermometer and worked as expected on the hot cooktop. Since the other two thermometers are only accurate to within about 2 degrees, I suppose they worked as expected on the hot cooktop too. So, it appears all of my digital thermometers are affected by my induction cooktop.

Hi!  I just published an article about the 'dark milk' chocolate trend on the Food Bloggers of Canada site , and in conjunction with that, I posted a list of dark-milk chocolate bars , with tasting notes for as many as possible, on my blog.  If you have any more dark milk chocolates that you think I - and all other chocolate lovers - should try, please let me know and I will add it to the list!

Hi,

I'm looking for a start up enrober.  I don't have funds for a new one, so I'm looking for a used one.

Thanks so much for your help!

Teresa

I wouldn't  be so concerned about that actually.  There will be some uptake of it by your plants to be sure, but most of it will simply wash away in the rain.  I'd think the actual plant uptake would be small (but i've nothing but my opinion to support that).

While we're on the subject of heavy metals, it was mentioned higher up about using the shells in your garden. Would you avoid using it around edible plants?

Talamanca - sorry for the late response.  I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest that you've never actually conducted an analytical study of heavy metals in cocoa shells, have you?  It's incredibly well understood in the chocolate world that heavy metals are concentrated in the shell of cocoa beans from two sources:

1) In C. (and in some places in S.) America, where the soils are volcanic - its very well established that volcanic soils are higher in heavy metals vs their non-volcanic counterparts.  Specifically cadmium.  Plants will incorporate the nutrients of the soils in which they grow into their biology - and for cocoa, cadmium becomes concentrated in the cocoa bean shell.

2) Many origins incorporate drying of the beans along the roadside.  In areas of the world where leaded gasoline is still used, that lead is deposited onto the road surface and subsequently transferred to whatever foodstuffs are dried on said road.

I'd suggest that the arguement of 'i've made cocoa tea personally and i loved it!' and 'i've fed it to tourists and they said it was quite nice' and 'many people do it' is not a solid scientific proof that heavy metals are absent from the shells.  By those arguements cigarette smoking would be classifed as a healthy practice.  If you have the ability to control the growing conditions as well as the drying conditions (ala mycotoxins - i'll not repost info relative to that as it's already on the boards somewhere), then by all means consume the shells.  However, after spending a couple of decades leading cocoa research around the world at arguably the highest level possible, i've yet to see any cocoa grower/fermenter that has the capability to sufficiently control this to guarantee a food safe practice.  You can reference all the above studies that you wish (i've written many of them) - I guarantee you will not find anyone who is actually in the industry that has published a scientific, peer reviewed journal that suggests the practice is food safe.

If you choose to ingest poisions, that is your personal choice.  For you to suggest that it is safe for others to do so and offer it for sale to them while simultanesouly assuring them it's safe and yet not having conducted any studies (worse yet, actively ignoring all the studies that indicate otherwise) to validate that it is indeed so is highly, highly irresponsible and immoral.  

After putting the chocolate in my molds I put it in the refrigerator to set for about 10 minutes, if it doesn't come out of the molds easily then return to refrigerator. I only heat it up to about 110. I find if I don't put it in the refrigerator right away I do get bloom. Since I started that I've never had a problem.

Hi there,

my production of chocolate bon bons is increasing. I have been using my robot coupe R2 to emulsify ganache. These days my 3 liter machine is too small to emulsify my batches. I would love to have a bigger robot coupe or a stephane mixer; however, that is not currently in my budget. Would an immersion blender work? If so, does any one have any good reccomendations? Here is what a recipe size looks like...

5,450 grams dark chocolate

1,000 grams milk chocolate

3750 grams heavy cream

600 grams invert sugar

1,000 grams butter (i prefer to mix ganache with melted butter)

I greatly appreciate any insight you may have. Thanks!

Daniel

One of the first processing steps involves   roasting of cocoa that consists in a heat treatment of the beans at 110–140 °C for about 30 min for beans and 12 min for nibs, depending on the equipment. The primary goal of roasting is to complete the development of the chemical reactions responsible for the formation of sensory characteristics of flavour and colour of ‘chocolate’ (Kamphuis, 2009 and Ziegleder, 2009). In addition, there is an important decrease in the water content, volatile acidity (Minifie, 1999) and microbial contamination of cocoa beans (ICMSF, 2005). After roasting the separation of the shell is facilitated, being removed by winnowing. The cotyledon is now breakable, which produces the nibs. The nibs are ground to form a fluid mass of a dark brown colour called liquor (also called cocoa mass when solidified by cooling). The temperature used in this process is 50–70 °C, during a variable time of 2–72 h, depending on the equipment and cocoa quality and the required chocolate quality (Beckett, 2008). The homogeneous combination of cocoa materials (liquor and butter) with milk products, sugars and/or sweeteners, and other additives, produces the chocolate (Codex Alimentarius., 2003). The process occurs at temperatures between 45 and 100 °C (Minifie, 1999) and at this stage a reduction in acidity and moisture content is observed, and the Maillard reaction is enhanced. Some steps of cocoa processing involve heat treatment or segregation of fractions, which can play an important role in the reduction of contamination of cocoa by ochratoxin A. The purpose of this study is to determine the natural contamination present in cocoa by-products and to evaluate the effect of the chocolate manufacturing process on the reduction of ochratoxin, a contamination in chocolate.

I have 4 Thermoworks thermometers and have been very happy with them. I wondered if they were calibrated the same, so I drove them down to their headquarters. (It is nice that they are about 45 minutes away:). They check them all and they were right on. I know I could do it myself, but I had another issue I needed looked at.

Just throwing it out there - could it be to do with the induction cooktop as well as the thermometer? I use a cheap probe thermometer and have never had any problems with it. My induction cooktop is professional quality - not one of the cheaper portable units.

Nothing to back this up, just a thought that maybe all induction cooktops are not the same.