Forum Activity for @Brad Churchill

FOR SALE Mol d'Art 50 kg chocolate moulding machine

Posted in: Uncategorized

Price?

FOR SALE Mol d'Art 50 kg chocolate moulding machine

Posted in: Uncategorized

Selling our Mol d'Art machine- great for making truffles, or anything with inclusions! Easy to clean and reliable, handles our high viscosity chocolate beautifully. Tempers through ambient air temperature, easy to accelerate with a fan. Please contact with any questions! Located in Texas.

updated by @Helen Benton: 04/11/15 23:53:00

which is the best chocolate slab in india?

Posted in: Uncategorized

Which is the best chocolate slab in India?
updated by @Aarti: 04/12/15 09:07:29

Fudge recipes

Posted in: Tasting Notes

Hello All. I'm just getting into making fudge and with the exception of Greweling's commercial recipes, I'm having difficulty locating additional recipes. Any suggestions on good sites / books for commercial fudge recipes? Thanks, John

updated by @John Duxbury: 04/23/15 21:49:38

Streaked bars

Posted in: Tech Help, Tips, Tricks, Techniques

Just out of curiosity, do you know what the humidity % is in the room you're working out of? We had some issues with streakiness as well and we're able to solve it by bringing in a dehumidifier.

Streaked bars

Posted in: Tech Help, Tips, Tricks, Techniques

Thanks so much for this, I've bought an electric blanket and we will be experimenting with heating the moulds prior to pouring and will then sit in a wire rack to allow cooling underneath as well on in the surface via a fan. Really useful info, thanks so much for your advice.

Streaked bars

Posted in: Tech Help, Tips, Tricks, Techniques

Do you have airflow under the moulds? It is possible you could be trapping the heat given out as the chocolate sets. If not you could try putting them on wire racks whilst cooling and still use the fan, this applies if your fridge has glass or solid shelves rather than wire ones too.

Streaked bars

Posted in: Tech Help, Tips, Tricks, Techniques

12C? That is probably way too cold for your chocolate. Try getting them to within a few degrees of your chocolate temp. It might help to get an IR thermometer to check the mould temp just prior to moulding.

Streaked bars

Posted in: Tech Help, Tips, Tricks, Techniques

We are talking 12 degrees Centigrade?

This would be a problem.

On industrial moulding lines moulds (cavity side) are beingheated up to 26-29C prior to pouring in tempered chocolate.

Reason:

Tempered chocolate will contain a certain quantity of desired cocoa butter crystals. This quantity will be sufficient to act as seeds for the crystailsation of the rest of the chocolate when cooled at the correct speed. Rest of the cocoa butter is still liquid

If you pour tempered chocolate into mould that is too cold liquid cocoa butter forms unstable crystal forms on the mould surface resulting in white areas, streaks and othe bloom.

On a more technical level following happens: when chocolate (containing liquid cocoa butter) contacts cold mould surface heat (energy) flows from chocolate into the mould. This results in the formation of cocoa butter crystals that have a melting point close to the mould surface temperature. Crystals that are formed at teperatures below 28-29C are not stable. Because this process happens very fast there is no time for the correct seed crystals created during tempering to grow and correctly crystalise the whole chocolate bar.

I would suggest warming your moulds up to 26-28C and trying again.

Streaked bars

Posted in: Tech Help, Tips, Tricks, Techniques

I tested with parchment paper dipped into the chocolate, if it sets hard within three minutes I usually take take that as tempered. I use a chocovision rev v machine. The temper on the bars are fine, it's just the surface of the mould sued that is streaked.The moulds were at room temperature, which was about 12 degrees yesterday. Should the moulds be warmed or cooled prior to pouring? I've read different thinks. Any help appreciated.

Streaked bars

Posted in: Tech Help, Tips, Tricks, Techniques

How did you temper and how did you test the temper prior to pouring?

What was the the temperature of moulds before you poured your chocolate in?

Streaked bars

Posted in: Tech Help, Tips, Tricks, Techniques

They are good quality polycarbonate moulds which might make a difference?

Streaked bars

Posted in: Tech Help, Tips, Tricks, Techniques

It's the mould side, the air side is absolutely fine. They are large bar moulds (95g) and I've been wondering if they aren't cooling quickly enough, hence blowing air across them and putting them on a cool surface. I've been through all possibilities and close to giving up! I have pictures but no idea how to post them on here. Any advice appreciated.

Streaked bars

Posted in: Tech Help, Tips, Tricks, Techniques

Can you clarify---is it the air side or the mold side that gets streaks? If its the air side it might be too much air flow/turbulence.

Streaked bars

Posted in: Tech Help, Tips, Tricks, Techniques

I'm so frustrated! The last four batches of chocolate I've made have been streaked, the temper is good but the face of the bars are streaked in yellow. I've tried everything. Initially I thought it was poorly tempered, but I've mixed the chocolate really well and tested for temper prior to pouring, I'm certain the temper is fine. I've scrupulously cleaned my chocolate moulds and polished with cotton wool so that isn't the problem. I've bought a fan to blow cool air across the moulds as they are cooling, and they are also cooled on a cool stainless steel surface, I previously used a fridge with the same streaked result. Can anyone shed any light on this, it's so frustrating!Katie
updated by @Katie Partington: 04/11/25 09:27:36

what did I do to my chocolate?

Posted in: Tech Help, Tips, Tricks, Techniques

Thank you Mark. Will try that out.

Cheers!

Alan

what did I do to my chocolate?

Posted in: Tech Help, Tips, Tricks, Techniques

At 50C your cocoa butter is melted, but you have small agglomerates formed when your "leftover" cooled uncontrolled. If you smear the warm chocolate between your fingers or on your tongue and feel nothing more than soft clotted texture this may be all it is. Try an immersion blender in the chocolate while hot and they should disappear as they're broken up by the high shear.

what did I do to my chocolate?

Posted in: Tech Help, Tips, Tricks, Techniques

Ive been dabbling a bit lately with making bonbons.

I have used a friends tempering machine to get the temper right. For the first batch of bonbons

Ive had a few bonbons stick, but thats a different post.

Ive gotten a bit of "leftover" choc. Its from when I empty the molds. Ive tried to reheat the choc to retemper it. I put the choc into a small plastic container, into the water bath of my thermocirculator. 48C till its all melted, and I checked the temp. It was kind of lumpy, small sand grain sized "lumps". They are barely perceptible on your palate, but you definitely see it.

I bumped the temp upto 50C, and let it sit for 45 min. No better. I have attached a pic of the choc, at 50C after I tried to blend out the lumps with a stick blender.

Whats going on?

-choc; is callebaut callet c811

Cheers

Alan

updated by @Alan Caldwell: 04/11/25 09:27:36

hot chocolate dispenser

Posted in: Tasting Notes

I don't own one myself, but I've talked with numerous people who do and the only real negative feedback I get is that the bowl is made from plastic. As such, over time it can get scratched and even "cloudy" looking. I would recommend that when you clean the bowl you do it by hand, avoid harsh detergents, and use a soft scrubber.

The other issue is that they only hold about 5 liters, so if you are serving 6-8 oz portions you're only going to get 20-25 servings before the unit is empty. Depending on the foot traffic in your shop you might go through that pretty quick. And that, as you might imagine, can create operational difficulties on a busy day. As long as you keep issues like this in mind, the feedback I have gotten is that they work as advertised.

hot chocolate dispenser

Posted in: Tasting Notes

Does anyone have thoughts on a hot chocolate dispenser? We are making our hot chocolate with ganache, and wonder if you can help us anticipate any problems. This machine

http://www.webstaurantstore.com/cecilware-choco-1-delice-countertop-hot-chocolate-dispenser-120v/385CHOCO1.html

is what we are thinking about getting.

Thanks

updated by @Nicole5: 04/10/15 08:31:12

Need a details of manufacturer of transfer sheet,edible confetti,wrapping foil in India

Posted in: Classifieds ARCHIVE

Hello friends,

Can anyone tell me the manufacturer of transfer sheet,edible confetti,wrapping foil in India?

I want to be a supplier of chocolate material.How is the scope?

updated by @Aarti: 04/07/25 13:00:14

Blooming and white spot on my Slabs!!

Posted in: Tech Help, Tips, Tricks, Techniques

If you are in Adelaide you are welcome to come and see how do we make our chocolate and the rest of processing.

Blooming and white spot on my Slabs!!

Posted in: Tech Help, Tips, Tricks, Techniques

I think next time I am in Australia I would love to pop over .. I'll call you before hand .. do you know any good place here in NZ that might be able to lend me a hand ??? I am eger to learn and vedios on the internet give a bot of help but does not really make you feel the exsperince and most are so diffrent than what I need to do .. I really really apprciate you taking the time to reply to me .. its indeed very kind of you.

Blooming and white spot on my Slabs!!

Posted in: Tech Help, Tips, Tricks, Techniques

A bit too far for a drive to Adelaide in South Australia to see how we are doing it.

Blooming and white spot on my Slabs!!

Posted in: Tech Help, Tips, Tricks, Techniques

i live in Hamilton, Waikato in New Zealand

Blooming and white spot on my Slabs!!

Posted in: Tech Help, Tips, Tricks, Techniques

I would suggest that you:

a. Do a lot more reading about chocolate tempering.

b. Find a method that would be suitable to your situation.

c. Practice with chocolate to learn how to achieve the correct temper (this you can do with normal chocolate from the supermarket). Remember that you canmelt and temper again and again so there is no waste. There are a few methods of tempering that work on the small scale beside seed tempering.

d.Once you have agood feel for this you can practice with your chocolate till you find the best way of doing it.

There are polish and varnish products that are used for panned goods (made with untempered chocolate) but this is a very complex application process.

If your chocolate will be well tempered it will be nice and shiny without any need for spraying.

Where abouts are you?

Blooming and white spot on my Slabs!!

Posted in: Tech Help, Tips, Tricks, Techniques

Thank you so much for that .. my next step now is that I need the choclate to be warm enough to cut !! that mean leaving it in a room of 16-18 dergee or sometime I put it in a cold low heat oven for few seconds just to give me enough time to make the product possible to cut in shapes with a cookie cutter tyep. is that again going to damage my Choclate!!

Also is there is any product out there that I can spray my choclate to make it more shiny ??

much apprciate your kind attention and time to reply. this is a very important subject for me and we dont have anyone near by that I can go for advice.

Thanks

Blooming and white spot on my Slabs!!

Posted in: Tech Help, Tips, Tricks, Techniques

I'm afraid that you may need to do a bit more reading on the subject of chocolate tempering.

Putting things in a really simplified way:

1. In hot (over 40-45C) chocolateall the cocoa butter present will bemelted, no crystals present.

2. Such chocolate needs to be cooled to around 25-28C so some of the cocoa butter present will crystalize. This crystalization will produce a variety of crystal forms (cocoa butter is polymorphic which means that it can crystalize in many different types of crystal forms).

3. Chocolate cooled in previous step with different forms of crystals is warmed up to 29-31C which melts the unstable crystals leaving only stable ones. This is tempered chocolate and can be used to form products that will not bloom and look good.

This is a very general process description and temperatures are just for indication.

In your case if you take the tempered chocolate and melt it at 40C you effectively melt all the cocoa butter crystals making chocolate untempered.

If you make product with such chocolate it will bloom.

If you have your bought chocolate already tempered you may try seed tempering where you add some solid tempered chocolate to liquid chocolate. Something along these lines:

http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/howto/guide/how-temper-chocolate

Blooming and white spot on my Slabs!!

Posted in: Tech Help, Tips, Tricks, Techniques

thanks for your kind attention .. the chocolatethat I buy is pre-tempered so i just melt theboth type of chocolate in around 40Cin my Choclate machine :

http://www.roband.com.au/roband/bainmain/Chocolate%20Tempering%20Bain%20Maries/Chocolate%20tempering%20bain%20marie.htm

Blooming and white spot on my Slabs!!

Posted in: Tech Help, Tips, Tricks, Techniques

You have not mentioned tempering your chocolate.

How do you temper?

Blooming and white spot on my Slabs!!

Posted in: Tech Help, Tips, Tricks, Techniques

Hi, I melt high quality belgium white chocolate then I mix peanut butter into it, I put it on a tray then I swirl pure 70% chocolate through it .. This has to set as after that i need to cut it in squares for serving!!

I do that at Home but I use a melting machine to melt my chocolate, then I put the tray in a chillier to cool down some time over night!! i take the tray out to warm the chocolate to a room tempture so I can cut the size i want.

some days the chocolate is looking super!! other time the chocolate get those little tiny white spots and blooming happen.

I am so disparate to know why some time its ok an other time its not .. some times even half the tray is good and the other is not. the ecstatic look of my chocolate as the taste is very important to me, so Please help with any advice out there.

also is there s anyting I can spray to make the chocolate look shiny without effecting the taste??

much apprciate any help.

updated by @OD: 04/11/25 09:27:36

Vanilla Bean

Posted in: Tasting Notes

For a patch of dark chocolate I'm working on and I want to add vanilla to it. What form of vanilla should I use while conching? ( whole vanilla pod/bean or vanilla powder) And at what stage is the proper stage should I add sugar, cocoa butter and vanilla into my chocolate?

Thank you

Terry

updated by @TerryHo: 04/09/15 09:20:17

Need to buy injection PC molds for bars, where to buy?

Posted in: Tech Help, Tips, Tricks, Techniques

Hi Corinne, thank you for your suggestions, I will try them out.

I also want to put in a kudos for Renee at Chocolat Chocolat, she read my query here on TCL and contacted me with their 4 closest matches, and two of them might work for me.

I was very impressed, she went to a lot of work.

In gratitude,

Mack

Need to buy injection PC molds for bars, where to buy?

Posted in: Tech Help, Tips, Tricks, Techniques

i would suggest martellato and cambrellon 2 italian brands. their molds are very goid

Need to buy injection PC molds for bars, where to buy?

Posted in: Tech Help, Tips, Tricks, Techniques

Hi TCL friends,

I have Tomric bar molds, and get release marks. From research on this forum I get the impression this is due to the molds not being made by injection mold process. I emailed Tomric who said "Our molds are made out of sheets of polycarbonate, the sheets of polycarbonate are heated up and vacuum formed over the tooling". My guess is the injection molds are thicker and thus hold temperature more evenly?

So, I now am on a quest to buy injection PC molds. Chocolat-Chocolat does not have the size I want. I am looking for suggestions of which companies to contact. I looked at Pavoni, their website is not very user friendly, and I could not locate bar their molds. Micelli if I understand is set up to make custom molds. I just want to buy stock molds.

Specifically I am looking for bar molds, 4 cavities, each bar being approx 5.5" x 2.25" x .375, and the molds would have break apart lines. The Tomric molds I have feature all the above, but sadly leave the release marks.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

In thanking you in advance,

Mack

updated by @Mack Ransom: 04/11/25 09:27:36

Introducing ChocoSombra!

Posted in: Allow Me to Introduce Myself

ChocoSombra is dedicated to bringing you the highest quality cacao and coffee directly from single estate farms in Peru. These farms were selected for their excellence in products, biodynamic farming practices, and cultural preservation. Combining state of the art technology in their plant in Frederick, MD with the highest quality raw beans, ChocoSombra brings you the best that this Amazon region offers. Experience quality taste in good conscience.Biodynamic Farming Direct Trade Native Shade Grown Single Estate Premium QualityLearn more at www.chocosombra.net https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAfLkriZn0c http://youtu.be/OR8-FgSYq4o Introductory offer formembers of The Chocolate Life:Raw cacao beans - $16.90/2 pound bagRoasted cacao beans - $18.90/2 pound bagNibs: 1LB - $17.25, 6 ounce - $9.3540 gram 80% dark chocolate bar - $2.75 eachPlease use the "Contact Us" link on the website with "The Chocolate Life" in the subject line to coordinate ordering or negotiate pricing for greater quantities.
updated by @Wayback When: 04/11/15 22:06:01

Chocolate bloom questions

Posted in: Tech Help, Tips, Tricks, Techniques

I am use Belcolade and Callebaut. I make mostly hollow, decorated articles. I like to work a little on the hot side in a cool room and let molds finish the tempering for me. The molded items are then packed in a plastic box ( that is not air tight) and there after placed in a cardboard box ( which is airtight). When I taste freshly molded items they taste fantastic with strong chocolate flavor and great melting. As the pieces get older 1/2/3/4 months the flavor becomes weaker and they no longer " instamelt".

Chocolate bloom questions

Posted in: Tech Help, Tips, Tricks, Techniques

When does it begin? immediately. it's a process who's rate depends on many things - total fat content, if you have milk fat present, and if so how much, are there nuts present, how 'good' was your temper to begin with, what are the storage conditions, etc.

Generally speaking, a good rule of thumb is that most of the changes are going to work their way out after a month. the chocolates certainly not done changing by that point, however the average person's not going to notice significant changes after that time.

Should you switch? that's a big question - that's entirely up to you. i don't know enough about what you're using, how you're using it, or what your customer want to answer that!

Undertempering a bit and sealing in air tight plastic wrappers could extend the peaks and valleys a bit, but undertempering's a very trickily proposition if you don't have a way of accurately measuring it, and many people don't have hot/cold sealers to seal their bars in airtight plastic overwrap film...

Chocolate bloom questions

Posted in: Tech Help, Tips, Tricks, Techniques

Sebastian,

When you say " over time". How long before the still liquid cocoa butter begins to solidify and at what rate?

I currently use fairly expensive chocolate that happens to agree well with my pallet and the pallets people that I have surveyed. Most of my products have at a minimum 3 months from being made to being eaten by the customer and in many cases customers hold on to our products for 6 months or longer (as they do not change much visually). When comparing my day old products to my month old products to my 3/6/9/12 month old products I have noticed " huge peaks and valleys" turning into foothills, which makes me ask two questions;

Since 6 months to a year later the difference in flavor is not as easily noticeable, should I keep using such expensive Belgian chocolate or switch to something domestic.

Is there a way that I could maintain the "peaks and valleys" for a longer period of time?

I appreciate your thoughts

Best

Victor

Chocolate bloom questions

Posted in: Tech Help, Tips, Tricks, Techniques

Chocolate flavor does indeed change over time in tempered chocolate - the main driver of this has to do with how tempering works. When you have a 'solid' tempered bar - there's still actually quite a bit of liquid cocoa butter present in it. Over time, much of that liquid cocoa butter will begin to crystallize and solidify (this is also why your chocolates get harder over time). The dynamics of flavor release with solid fat are quite different with the dynamics of flavor release with liquid fat. Generally what you'll see is a 'rounding out' of the flavors - where you might one have had huge peaks and valleys of flavor, you'll now have foothills. This isn't true for all flavor categories, and the ability of acids mitigation depends heavily on the type of acids you have present.

Chocolate bloom questions

Posted in: Tech Help, Tips, Tricks, Techniques

I will not comment on aging chocolate as a method of flavour development.

Yes you can take chocolate from the conche without tempering and mould it into big block using plastic trays(smaller 3-5kg blocks work better, easier to use later). After it sets take it out of the trays and keep for later use.

This chocolate will bloom very fast but this is not a problem.

You will need to melt it down again when you want to use it and in this proces you will melt all the unstable cocoa butter crystals that create bloom.

Chocolate bloom questions

Posted in: Tech Help, Tips, Tricks, Techniques


updated by @TerryHo: 04/11/25 09:27:36