I tend to get the same problem with the delta but only after being in temper for too long. Four or five hours. Raising the temp to 89-90 f takes care of it pretty well. We have very low humidity here.
I was noticing the humidity level in my work room this afternoon and it's around 65% so maybe it is a moisture problem.
if it is moisture, add 0.05-0.1% fluid lecithin to help address it
Thanks Sebastian. I'm careful with moisture but I will up the temperature a few degrees. John
Could be. Is there any chance moisture is getting into it? if not, warm it up 1-2 degrees.
Hello All. I know this is something I should already know (probably have forgotten it a few times over!). When tempering chocolate using my Delta machine, occasionally it becomes very thick just as the machine says it's in temper. Whenever that happens I just start the process over again because I know it will just cause me blooming problems if I continue. Is the thickness being caused by over seeding, or something else. Thanks for the help, John
I believe the mistakes came from putting the casted shells overnight and the next day only I started to do the filling. the fridge temperature at min , i could easily obtain about 10-12 degree celcius fr the thermometer read out.
I shall try again , Stu Jordan. tq
Or 5. Your chocolate was not tempered correctly
And you need to tap the mold onto a surface, hitting it from above won't really work - what you describe in 3 could be part of the problem.
How long are you leaving your chocolate to retract after casting the shells? What are you doing with the fridge? Try putting shells in fridge after you have made them for 12 minutes, that may get your retraction process started, then fill them and leave them before sealing.
I have a question about the problem i've just encountered in dislodging those chocolate praline from the polycarbonate mould. First of all, let me explain the problem ..
I removed the praline mould from the refrigerators at the temp of about 10-13 degree celcius. The room temperature in my country was about 30 degree Celsius. I hit at the back of each single chocolate in the beginning and nothing came out of it. A couple of knocks before one of it dislodge by itself.
The overall process took sometimes and i knock on each of the praline to take it out . In you tube video, we saw how easy it was with one knocks and everything just came off like that.
Here I suspect some of my mistakes and i wonder if any of them were the problem.
1) during the sealing, i did not use heat gun to melt the top of the praline before sealing it with temper choc.
2) The chocolate shell could be too thin? could it be one of the cause?
3) Imnot knocking on harder surface and not enough of shock to dislodge all the chocolate. Im hitting with a steel spatula at the back of the polycarbonate to dislodge single piece instead of knocking it down on a hard surface with full force.
4) the chocolate is still too cold .
Thanks in advance .
those logistics aren't really all that different than most other regions, to be honest. the life cycle of the typical cocoa moth is about 25 days (mas o menos), and you hit on the main source early on - almost all of the infestation will occur in the warehouse and storage. if he's got beans that are 25% internally impacted, that's occurred over the course of many months (potentially even years) - OR someone's scalped off the 'worst of the worst' to clean up a lot of beans - assuming the beans are bagged and palletized, the majority of they impacted beans will be on the outside facing surfaces - to prepare a bulk shipment for someone else. There's a saying in the ivory coast that roughly translates to 'there's no graveyard for cocoa beans' meaning ALL beans find their way into sale-able streams - diseased, infested, moldy, or not.
Thanks for the reply! That puts it into perspective a bit. As someone who has made a few of them journeys, unrelated to cacao, I could understand completely how difficult it might be to get anything out of there at all... I have yet to try them as a finished product but do look forward to seeing what comes of them.
its nothing inherent in the beans, its a warehouse or transport issue. you're probably talking about polilla moths, they can have strong or weak years depending on weather and humidity patterns. polilla levels are also affected by the condition of the warehouse, whether they've fumigated recently, how long the beans are stored, and how and when they were transported. For Beni wild beans they have to go for days along river routes, then days in trucks up over the andes, then on a boat, the logistics are horrendous and polilla can multiply at various stages along the way. Its frankly a miracle that any of those beans make it to market without major damage, a true testament to Volker Lehman's prowess.
Yea thats pretty much what I was thinking and fortunately didn't get the larger order I was going to place. Thanks
well, there's really no such thing as a domesticated bean.. so...all beans will have bugs. if you are finding them on the inside at 25% level, that's a sure sign that they weren't taken care of properly post harvest, and someone's just offloading them to get rid of them.
I just acquired a order of wild beans from Bolivia and was wondering, as I have never used wild beans before, if they tend to have more bugs or if its just a bad batch as there is at least 25% insect damage. Definitely smaller and not the best job of fermenting but a decent enough looking bean aside from the insect damage. Thanks
I only did this once, but actually had very good luck using a robocoupe with a shredding disc, the sort normally used for making things like shredded vegetables.
The shreds break up into a relatively fine (if irregular) powder.
I was planning to use this as seed for tempering, but then found out that I could use mycryo, so I did not develop the process past one attempt.
-Jon
you can try an urschel mill. note almost all mills generate heat when grinding. grind slowly to generate less heat. or add dry ice.
Many ways to do lot coding. Often times it's done julian style. an example (stolen from the net) could look like:
Sometimes, rather than a specific day of a month, the "Julian date" or day of the year is given --for example, January 1 would be "1" and February 1 would be "32." These two illustrations by the Canned Food Alliance show how this might work:
Can code:2061(February 6, 2001); 2=month, 06=date, 1=year
Can code: 0195(July 14, 2000); 0=year, 195=Julian date -- July 14th is the 195th day of the year
If you run multiple shifts, it's prudent to amend the julian code to include a shift designator (-1/2/3, -A/B/C, etc)
Hi Everyone,
Anyone care to share their process regarding batch no's displayed on packaging ?
A lot of retailers require.
Thanks in advance,
Louie
It really all depends. Once our dark chocolate comes to temperature(88.7f in our case) we wait 10 minutes, and then test by dipping a piece of parchment paper in the chocolate. If there are any issues with setting up (streaks, etc) we wait a little while longer and test again. Usually the chocolate is well tempered right off the bat. We use a fully automatic Savage Brothers machine,fyi
Thanks Louwegi! 
How long have you found it optimal to let it sit at 87? It is getting agitated the whole time.
Did you pour as soon as it got to 87degrees ? Ive had issues with pouring right away, not allowing enough time for the correct crystal formations to proliferate. There can be pockets of perfectly tempered chocolate and not-so-well tempered in the same batch. Agitation is key
Hope this helps
Hello,
My hubby and I have been making dairy, gluten and soy free 'milk" chocolate. We've just started trying out a melanger and can't figure out what is causing the swirls in the pictures. Here is how we made these bars:
Hi Melanie,
We've got one for sale! Shoot us an email at: elliegoldman730@gmail.com
I am desperately looking for an enrober, small, such as the Hilliard 6 inch. Please let me know if you are looking to sell one, or if you know where a used one might be for sale.
Hi thank you for taking the time to read this.
I'm look for non dairy dark chocolate truffle shells. If anyone knows where I can find it. I've been looking but cant find it anywhere. I heard about making it with a polycarbonate mold as a second option. Can someone please recommend a good place for me to buy it.
Thank you so much!
Nice, thanks Clay, was hoping you'd have some input. Seems like my options start at $618 (tcfsales.com) for the 6kg MdA and go up to around a grand for the Bakon that's twice that size. Usually I'm into DIY, but will probably save that for when I'm more familiar with these things
Both are very simple machines when you get right down to it. The major difference in price is that the outer shell of the Mol d'Arts are made from plastic and the Bakons are all stainless steel. There have been some reports that the thermostats of the Mol d'Arts are not as robust (or accurate) as they could be.
So, you are getting when you pay for when you get a Bakon. Another source for similar machines that could be slightly cheaper is Desin et Realization (DR.ca).
I know people who use standard buffet warmers and regular hotel pans (make sure to get one that does not require water). These have the advantage of being very cheap but the temperature controls are not all that precise. If you can get a two-input PID controller you can put one probe on the heating element to keep it from getting too hot and the other in the chocolate to control the temperature.
I'm looking at buying my first melter, simply to melt and not temper, likely the Bakon 123 Mini or Mol d'Art 6kg, and I'm curious if anyone has had experience with both. Pros & cons...
Also, if you've got something to sell, feel free to message me.
Thank you!!
Necessary? No. Beneficial? Yes. The purpose of the cap is to prevent the filling from either leaking out and fouling your tempered chocolate, or to slow down the rate of migration of the (normally) softer/incompatible fat with that of the fat in the chocolate. Skip the capping, and you increase your risk of issues maintaining your temper or product quality (bloom, softening) on the finished product later.
Hi there,
I'm going to make some truffles for a special project and thought I would try out some truffle shells. I plan on filling themand then sending them through our enrober. I am wondering if it is necessary to cap them prior to enrobing? Thanks for your input!
Hi Sebastian,
Well, a couple weeks ago I gave up on my neighbor and combed the web for two days straight, looking for a better source of cacao in Honduras. Honduras does not have much of an online representation. Finally, I found a couple good sources of cacao and immediately ordered a 100 lbs sack from one source. The name of the farm is Finca Patricia, which also sells cacao to the Askinoosie chocolate factory. I am buying the same beans as Askinoosie uses. Askinoosie sells 3 ounce Honduran bars for $8.50 (~$45/lb.). Now, if anyone reading this, try not to go ballistic. I can buy the beans here for $1.15/lb. I dissected a sampling of the beans and they were all perfectly fermented, at least compared to the online guides.
I did get the beans properly roasted yesterday, but got impatient over the weekend and roasted some in the oven. Even oven roasted, what this cacao made was far superior to the beans I was buying before. Now I can sell a bar without any shame. :-)
So now I am happily buying new equipment and looking to hire some part time salesmen.
those sound good also,hope you come to NYC one day
Look at the ecole school website for they have chocolate making classes which teach b2b making now
I don't want to make bars but to keep on tasting and discovering new bars
If you also look on Patric chocolate site he does consulting in this area
If I ever churn out something I would eat in a bar, I would not be opposed to it. Until then, I'm too ashamed. I make confections with it right now, and it's good enough for that, but not a bar.
how about in the fall when the weather is cooler
If only I could. By the time they got to you, they would have melted and solidified several times...without a proper temper. I am in Honduras.
I am on the other end of chocolate the consumer end but if you ever wish to send test bars this way i would be interested in trying with my chocolate colleague
OK, unroasted cacao was cut and inspected. I would say 70% of them are purely purple, another 15% have at least a purple hue. The rest are brown and seem OK. So, it seems the initial theory, that the beans are under-fermented, was spot on. I would send a photo, but I don't have a camera capable of taking a quality photo.
These beans seem to be the bulk, I would say "Folgers" quality, in a coffee comparison. What I mean by that is, here in Honduras, you have specialty growers who cultivate export quality coffee, but they are the exception. The rest grow as many beans as they can, dry them and sell them in bulk to buyers. The buyers lump them all together and sell them all together to the highest bidder. From the taste of it, I would say Folgers is one of those bidders.
That appears to be what I'm buying in the way of cacao. The beans might have had potential at one time or another, but the fermenting was cut short.
So now I am waiting for my neighbor to finish his harvest, ferment and dry. The harvest started this week. He said that he ferments four days, but I had told him that a friend recommended six days. We will see what he produces. I am going to take the purple beans to him and show him what I don't want to buy.
no, you want to cut your unroasted ones. what your description tells me is that it's a mixture of what is likely many 'lots' of beans from various sources, or perhaps made over various times with multiple qualities blended into it. photos of course are helpful too.
Just a little update on this. I do not have any unroasted beans at the house, so I asked someone to buy a pound from the market. Meanwhile I cut open about 20 roasted beans. The colors vary. None are very dark, most are dark gray, some are brown, some are yellow and brown. I know I need pre-roasted beans, but I think I'm seeing a problem already.
