Forum Activity for @Clay

Colin:

I represent FBM machines to ChocolateLife members , and the Prima is the smallest machine FBM makes that accepts an enrobing line. You don't mention what your budget is so I don't know if it will stretch that far.

In my reply to your other post related to this question, I wondered if the product would fall through the belt. One way to address that issue would be to send samples to FBM for them to look at. They'd be able to tell you in an instant if the machine could handle it. Are you interested in doing that? If so, contact me privately and I can help set this up for you.

:: Clay

Edward:

As long as you don't cut them, I would think that something like a large Silpat could be made to work - no molding required. Just slip it under the edges of the pans.

As for custom mold supplies and information, here are two great resources: Chicago School of Mold Making and Chef Rubber .

O.K., think a large box, pretty much like a restaurant soup warmer. I large (full size) hotel pan sits in the box with aout a 11/2" (35mm) border all around the pan. When I mold or even dip, I tend to get drips all down the sides, but worse is choc. build-up on the border--where the lip of the hotel pan sits on the warmer.

What I want is a covering that goes over the lip and continues a little into the pan.

Maybe it would work better if I posted a picture or two.

Ah yes, the negative mold, I don't know what kind of material I should make this out of.

I'll get some pics for tommorow

I guess I deserved that comment Omar.

I have used silicone from Silicone, Inc and from Make Your Own Molds. MYOM is easy to use.

I don't really get the "bib" that is being described. I'm going to assume there is a negative for the silicone. Silicone captures a lot of little bubbles that need to be removed. A vacuum is the best device for this but not practical. $$$. I use a two pour technique. Mix using a scale according to manufacturer directions. Then long pour that mix into a new clean bucket. Long pour that mix to make your mold. The long pour is a thin strand of liquid silcone that stretches and reduces the air bubbles. Then I use a vibrator. Yes, that kind of vibrator to agitate the mold for several minutes. Remove as many air bubbles. It's pretty good not perfect.

Wear gloves because it can get messy.

Tell me more about the mold negative. Do you want a thin sheet to cut a bib from for the machine?

Hello Paul,

It would be nice if you shared your experience. After all, this is a forum. I think communicating privately defeats its purpose. Just my humble opinion.

Thanks,

Omar

Hi Edward,

I have silicone mold experience. Send me a note. paul at elemental dash chocolate dot com.

Paul

My "chocoalte room" is visible to the public in our small store, and no matter how hard I try to keep clean, the melters are always a mess,

What I have now are two D+R melters on home made carts, the dark melter has a wheel. I've done the cling-film over the sides thing, and it is easy to pull off the dirty film, but it is a hassle. I do a lot of moulding, and no matter how hard I try, I still get drips down the sides of the melter and on the rim.

The melters are just big s/s boxes, each one holding a full size deep gastro-norm (hotel pan) pan.

What I had in mind was making a "Bib" out of silicone to fit on top of the melter and down the sides, with a collar on the top reaching down about 1" (2 cm) into the tub, and an other collar at the bottom catching drips. If made of food grade silicone, I can just yank off the thing, let the couverture harden, and shake the crumbs right back in.

However, I have no experience with moulding silicone. I will be putting an order in a Chefrubber for other things, and I know they have silicone mixes for sale, but have no idea how to use the stuff.

Any ideas?

Edward

you might have to get them customized and a good start would be clearbag.com

We are looking for shiny waxy paper like the one used for making the After Eight mints. Would any of you know a food paper supplier who would have a selection? We would need about 30kg (66 pounds) to start with. Please see the attached image for reference.

Thank you,

Vincent

Hello Andy

Thanks for your reply. I have already read that post and its a very useful one. Do you think if we are using a good packing with thermocols on the sides and top/bottom, we still have a requirement for aluminum bubble wrap?

We didn't used an aluminum bubble wrap insulator. That seems to be the only difference. Further how about Techni Ice from Australia. Any knowledge on that?

Did you read Clay's shipping Primer? It's really a good one: http://www.thechocolatelife.com/forum/topics/summer-shipping-tips-tricks

I'm lost on how a well sealed, bubbled, mylar'd bag/box, and iced package didn't make it. We ship delicate white chocolate truffles across the country in 3 days during the summer and it still manages to get where it's going without ending up a mess.

If you ever have a real packing question talk to those who make the ice packs. Local to us is Providence Packaging ( www.providencepackaging.com ) if you talk to David Vance he can easily tell you what requirements you need to make any type of shipment. These guys are in the business of staying cool and have studies to boot. You can take it as far as dry icing to as simple as what Clay (and we) do.

We want to sell chocolates online. However, not able to figure out if chocolates can survive for 48 hours even with gel ice.

I have tested this with Techni Ice gel ice, however chocolate melts in 48 Hours and remains good only for 24 hours.

Does any one has any other solution? We tested with good insulated packing box properly sealed. Ice was good enough as per box space.

Is it better to use compound chocolate for courier purpose?

One of the most difficult things to do when discussing flavors is develop a shared lexicon - ie, when you say something, have your readers understand what you mean. Astringency is the drying feeling you get on your tongue, not really a flavor. As it's a sensation more than a taste, you can't really have an astringent smell i'm afraid. Astringency is very, very different than acid.

Iencountered with something very weird during conching (Is it?). I roast this set of beans, and it smells so nice, during the first 3 hours I was able to pull off all of the acids, and I added in refined sugar, at that time I really love the taste, but everything is coarse, so I let it conch over night, the next morning the chocolate was smooth but with astringent taste and smell. Where does it came from? But during my first 3 hours of conching there was no sign of acid or astringent taste or smell at all. How can I fix this problem?

Thank you for all of your replies

Hi Omar,

you are welcome! We haven't tried any one else, so it is difficult to say if they are better or worst than others.

It just Takes soo long to get some information, price list and everything organized.

MAKE SURE that before importing you have all the documentation required by your country to import goods.

They will not help yo with it. If you order a product that needs special permit (eg: milk powder, sugar) they will not tell you that and you will be stuck at custom with no way to recover your goods. Choose a very good shipping company (if you like i can give you my contact, they are based world wide) otherwise you will end up spending a fortune and not see the stock!!

Importing, shipping is a b.... i actually went for a course to understand it!

Best of luck and you know you can contact me if you need some advice..

Keep posting your results with the search!!!

Cheers

Antonino

Hey Antonio,

Thank you very much for your input. I as well have contacted Goin Organic, Pronatec and Mapryser last week. Goin Organic were the first to reply actually. It's good to know you are happy with their products especially that they provide all necessary ingredients for chocolate(i.e organic milk,sugar...) so i'm guessing it is easier to deal with one supplier hence one shipment/one person to harrass or to be harrassed...

Are you happy with Tradin Organic? Anything to look out for?

Thanks again,

Omar

Hi Omar,

I'm a chocolate Maker from italy living in South Africa. We have started a year ago an organic Chocolate Factory bean to bar.

We haven't look at difference between organic and non organic beans and product but we believe that at the high end of the quality (A+ and so ) the price differences is minimal.

We buy from TradingOrganic all our ingredients, but we are looking at Pronatec as well.

If someone knows other trading company that deal with Organic (any part of the world) we would like to know them.

Trading organic has a good range of products and quality, it is however very hard to get detailed info from them like:

origin -(farms, area etc)

Variety- criollo etc)

Quality etc..

They are very slow on answering your request BUT if by mistake you own them 1 dollar they will harass you with a million of emails. It happen to us, they told us to pay a certain amount and then once they found out that THEY did a mistake, i received a gazillion of emails from 3 or 4 different people.

Unfortunately there is not many trading company dealing with Organic, so they abuse their power....

We still deal with them, but i would be very happy to find another supplier...

anyone?

Good Day,

I've been doing some research on organicsemi finished products. Organic cocoa liquor, butter,sugar and milk.Because I am located in the middle east, I have contacted European suppliers: Pronatec and tradin organic. Still waiting for their answer to provide mewith the cost of each ingredient. What I'd love to know from the experts in this field is, what is on average the cost of organic cocoa butter/liquor and what/who do you prefer working with? I'd love to hear your opinionabout this and perhaps anyone can recommend a different supplier I do not know about.

Thank you,

O

Come and see us in upstate NY! Uncle Sam's Candy!

www.unclesamscandy.com

Ultramarinos in Hoboken, NJ

Chocolate Lover's club in Princeton, NJ

Cocova in DC

PotomacChocolate in DC

Esaczu in NC?

SecretChocolatier

2935 Providence Rd
Suite 104
Charlotte NC 28211

for a start. Doyou need suggestionsin NYC as well or doyou know those well already?

I make 8lb batches, toffee itself approximately 4lb into a sheet pan and allow to cool to room temp (68*F) then wipe off butter sheen with damp paper towel then dry towel. Coat with tempered chocolate using spatula, allow to set, then turn and repeat on opposite side, when chocolate is still tacky (nearly set) score with point of knife into squares, then allow to finish setting before breaking into individual pieces. This method produces very little shearing rarely any, maybe 1 in 20 batches will be problematic but not usually more than 1/8 of the batch. I make toffee with Milk choc + almonds (in this case the choc doesn't have to have perfect temper), Milk choc, White compound coating, or Dark choc + white drizzle and all sell very well. It is very dry climate here 30-35% humidity but even on days that exceed 40% I can make toffee without the chocolate from shearing off. I believe the key is in scoring the chocolate before breaking the piece, if the chocolate fully sets before scoring then it is more likely to separate from the toffee.

Start with about 2%, temper like you would milk, and compare the snap of a tabletwith the original dark or see if it's close to a milk sample. You can use other oils like coconut oil, but then it would fall out of the standards of identity for chocolate in the U.S.

Would tasteless coconut oil do the same thing?

This product just wasn't born with a nutty idea (grin.) I'd like to do some classic toffee's that use pecans or almonds, but with this product nuts would get in the way with the real simplicity of the concept.

Mark, would you hazard a guess at the percentage use for this application?

Called butter oil, clarified butter, or AMF (anhydrous milk fat). Should be clear yellow when melted. Note that the more you add, the lower your temperature for tempering. Same reason why milk is lower than dark, and white lower still.

It's hard if your not using any nuts. Is your store nut free or do you just have a lot of people that can't eat nuts but want toffee?

Ah thanks Kerry. We thought it might be as simple as that but web searches started confusing me. Someone called it a more refined canola oil. Clarified I can understand.

Still not quite sure a percentage to use when dealing with slabbing toffee but I'll go ahead and make some and see if Mark returns with thoughts.

Andy,

Clarified butter - ie the fat part of butter when you melt it. I use this when I want to make dark chocolate 'melt in your mouth' when dipping things. 2-4% is what I use.

Thanks Mark, that makes a lot of sense and after another half dozen trials I've really come to the conclusion that whatever tricks are working for people is location based. I can't repeatedly replicate anyones suggestion. What works great one time has near failure on second attempt. The most frustrating thing I have ever encountered.

Can you elaborate on Butter oil? We've never heard of it here so I don't have much of a reference. A brand, a rule of thumb perhaps?

Regarding the difference in success between white or milk vs dark. The toffee is an aqueous system and so does not want to adhere to chocolate. If you were panning chocolate on a water based center, or sugar on chocolate,you would put on an emulsifier coat, such as gum arabic, to get the two to adhere. But not easy to do on a slab of toffee as you would want to dry it. Caution adding moisture to the surface for itseffect on level of sugar crystallizing out, adding a stale note, and possibly more tooth packing.

But the main difference in this application between white/milk and dark chocolate is the amount of butter oil (AMF) in the continuous fat phase, resulting in a higher percentage of the lipids remaining an oil, less crystallized fat, this is why dark has a harder snap than milk, than white. This more liquid coating will adhere better, and it is more flexible so it won't "peel" off as easily. You can try to add a little butter oil to your current dark chocolate. A side advantage is that a little butter oil will help with fat bloom.

Andy, Anything new to report?

Ruth, white just isn't chocolate haha. I mean it's cocoa butter with <1% solids. I expect it to behave differently. I could try some other chocolates but if I vary that's going to mess with the backbone of our operation or if I use the higher end that we use in our truffles it's liable to make my costs bend a bit out of proportion. I'll keep down this line a few more iterations before I'm done.

Anne, I score mine and to some degree that's helped as if it does break off oddly its just around the scored edges I've made. I have threatened that if I continue to fail at this that I'll end up scoring/cutting and then having the kitchen finish them on enrober days. I handle all of our costs based off a COG+L (cost of goods + labor & overhead) spreadsheet I've made and if I hand dipped each unit then broke it, the labor value exceeds percentages I like to keep on most of our products.

If only I could have made this like Robyn with a nut in it, then I could have handled this a few ways hehe. The fact that it's such a simple product (deceptively) creates more problems.

I've got a number of batches I have to crank out this week. Once I take into account some of the addendum's made with Tims observations I'd like a few more cracks at it before I throw in the towel. In the end this can be a large multivariate problem and it only takes a few variables I feel to create issues. Here I thought 6 months ago I was doing something that'd be easy. Haha!

I think you should try scoring while the toffee is still hot. This should help. If you find any pooling of the butter you can always wipe it off with a paper towel. I agree with Ruth that you might need to try a different chocolate.

Am I the only one out there that dips actual pieces and not the whole sheet? It is more time consuming but when I break these pieces into smaller pieces for bags or boxes I don't get any shearing.

Andy, have you tried different chocolates? If white works, maybe try a different chocolate, either brand or type?

Tim, yea I have a few more thoughts to work through. I employed multiple new ideas in one go and that's never a great idea. You should only change one thing per round so you can keep better control.

Robyn, your first method works fine with me. But since we have a naked product. All I use is sea salt, I can't cover the streaking bloom that happens from an untempered product. If I use nuts then my nut allergy crowd would go nuts, hehe!That lead me to wanting to have a tempered solution. I'm amazed you've never had a separation problem with tempered chocolate. You've got a low porosity buttered surface with a slathering of a tempered chocolate which by nature releases.

Searching online nearly everyone who uses tempered chocolate has a chocolate/toffee separation issue that drives them back to an untempered idea.

It could also be the chocolate that's being used. White chocolate doesn't give me this problem at all. Tempered or not.

It's a strange and fickle beast. If anyone does not have this problem, feel very very lucky that your environment, recipe, and/or product choices have coincided to not create a problem. :D

You know, with all the problems you guys are having, I hate to say this. But, I've never had this issue. I've made toffee two ways. One, I scatter half the amount of chopped chocolate and nuts on a silpat. Pour the toffee over as evenly as I can without spreading. Then scatter the other half over that. Let set and break into pieces.

The second way: Pour the toffee in a thin layer on a silpat and let harden. I usually have my tempering machine working while making the toffee. I spread a thin layer of chocolate on one side, then top immediately with chopped nuts. After setting up, I flip it over and repeat. I then break into pieces. I don't usually have a lot of oil form on the top. I have occasionally brush with cocoa powder, but have found it's not necessary.
None of this helps I'm sure, I just can't think of anything that is causing such problems.