Melanie (and all ChocolateLife members):
Posts like these belong in the Classifieds.
Thanks,
:: Clay
I am looking for a Savage Bros FireMixer.
Would love to hear from you if you have one available or know of someone looking to sell one. Thanks!
Melanieparkcity@msn.com
To All ChocolateLife members:
Posts such as these belong in Classifieds.
Thanks,
:: Clay
Standard Grade A cocoa beans Description/ Specification of our COCOA BEANS 1. TECHNICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF OUR COCOA BEANS: Commodity Name: Mature Cocoa Beans Sierra Leone Origin. Presentation: Dried and Fermented. c.Quality classification: Standard Grade A d.Other technical specifications: - Bean counts: 95 100 per 100 grs - Moisture grade: 4 % - Acidity: 4% Max - Moulds: 2% Max - Defective matters: 2% Max - Strange matters: 0.5% Max - Breakage: 1% Max PACKAGE : Seaworthy Jute Bags of 65 Kg/Net LOADING: 1 x 20 Dry - FCL (25 MT of product loaded) QUANTITY AVAILABLE: 500 / 1.000 / 5.000 Metric Ton according Client demand and Purchase Contract closed
She succumbed to the BS in person....
Ok just watched it. Pure hype. He deferred to his website constantly. Its marketing garbage. Watch his eyes; even he doesn't believe the horse shit he is spewing.
Rave review of Toak from Los Angeles Times food critic S. Irene Virbila.
To'ak Chocolate founder Jerry Toth was on a news segment debuting his $260 bars. http://www.wciu.com/videos/youandme/-260-chocolate-bars
As is typical, the news hosts seemed to know very little about artisan chocolate. The host on the left took a small bite, then at 6:32 she dropped her piece out of the small wood tweezer onto the ground! Hilarious! (Her original piece was ~1/16th of the bar, so it was worth ~$16. After her little bite, the piece that dropped was probably priced ~$10.)
this is a travesty. It in no way defines the concept of a 100$ chocolate bar. This is pure unadulterated marketing. plain and simple. while they will certainly sell every bar they have, only a fool would believe they made 1 batch of 28 kilos. That is one tank in a cocoatown. This is not real. The website is beautiful, for sure, but the story of these beans and the process is a bit muddy. rare secret trees....yet they have 14 farmers?....which is it guys?
whatever....like NOKA this will disappear....
There's a sucker born every minute (525,600 every year), so it shouldn't be hard to unload 574 bars....
The front of the box says 50gr in one of the pictures on the site, which is beautiful and may be one of the best produced and illustrative sites of its kind I have seen.
I may have tasted this while I was in Per in July. I base this solely on the fact that one of the quotes about the chocolate was from Idaly Farfn - and she tasted me on some new project she was working on. I will have to email her and ask. If these are one and the same then this is a pretty special chocolate but I don't know that $5000/kg is where I would peg the starting price (which they say barely covers the cost of production).
My issues with the presentation are simple, yet deep:
1) The point of the $100 bar is that the chocolate itself has to be the reason for the price. The Spanish Elm box and the tweezers (has anybody else ever heard about fingerprint oils despoiling the aroma of chocolate?) are a bit too over the top for me.
2) When I read their stuff I get the impression these guys think they invented the analogy between chocolate and wine. But they do hit on a lot of important points that indicate they've been well schooled. 2014 Wet Harvest. The prose seems more than a little over the top. Which segues into the next point:
3) In an online article about this bar the makers are reported to have been talking about the evolution of chocolate tasting/pairing events and how in 5 years they will be all over the place. Hello? What's been going on for the past dozen years? This is something I saw coming 20 years ago and have been actively promoting since 2001 - along with hundreds of other people, many of whom I know. These days, the press just seems to run with any statement and does little or no fact checking or background research to verify statements that get made.
4) I've heard of artificial scarcity before, but 574, 50gr bars takes it to a new place entirely. In case no one else did the math, that is 28.7 kilos of chocolate. At 81% even using Nacional trees, that might be 100 trees? At $260/bar the maximum retail value of the project is about $150,000. That said, even at this price, with only 574 units to sell and they hype around it - they are likely to sell out.
The topic of the $100 bar came up while I was in London at the Academy of Chocolate conference. One of the points I make - and this bar does not address that point at all - is that there needs to be money in the system to pay for critics and educators to tell people why it's okay to spend $50, $100, $260 on a no-compromise chocolate made without any gimmicks (and there are at least two elements of gimmickry here - the tweezers and the very limited availability). Unfortunately, the lack of availability does not address the much larger issues - at least as I see them.
:: Clay
PS.Iwouldlike to know if samples are available for bona fide members of the press to taste and write about.
Answered my own question. The photo on the Toak website at the bottom of this page says 50g
The (second) article you link to says a 50 ounce bar but it looks a little small for that in the photos. Undeniably expensive either way, but I was wondering if you had tracked down something else which indicated to you the bar was 50g?
Clay called for the $100 chocolate bar. The good folks behind Toak Chocolate answered the call with enthusiasm. Rare and secret Ecuadorian cacao, so delicately flavored that one must handle it with tweezers made of Spanish elm to avoid commingling its aroma with that of the oils from one's skin.
Scott
Does anyone know the difference it makes in a ganache when the butter is added melted, creamed or solid? Or when there is none? Is there a difference in shelf life?
I'm refering to a cream-based ganache, where there is an emulsion with milk fat particles present, do they remain as a separate droplet structure in the fat phase?
People have told me is a preference thing but I'm pretty sure there's some explainable science behind it.
Interesting. Just wondering what he was talking about. Much appreciated.
The extraction of flavor via hot or cold H2O, or with neutral spirit (via maceration) will not provide you with a good predictor of what the true flavor of the chocolate will be given a cocoa type. Perhaps, he found a way to make it work for him given the limitations. From experience, I've discovered these methods to render poor results for that purpose.
It's incredibly difficult to make a tea out of something that's encapsulated with a total fat content of over 50%, as it is to reach roasting temperatures in tea, as it is to simulate process (grinding, conching).
So searching around the internet and came across this interesting quote on Francois' website:
Franois Pralusgives away one of his little secrets to give us a more precise idea of how he obtains the right flavour before he starts to manufacture:
"I brew the cocoa in water, rather like making herbal tea and sweeten it slightly with sugar, then I leave it to settle. This gives me a precise idea of what the flavour will be like before I launch the manufacturing process."
Has anyone ever heard of this or tried this?
Where are you located, what's your usage, volume, and budget?
The two big couverture players in my area are Barry and Valrhona. Some use Belcolade because it's cheaper and "Belgian", but it's nowhere near as good.
Real chocolate that tastes great is expensive. A tastier but more expensive option is to contact a bean-to-bar manufacturer whose chocolate you like and inquire about bulk pricing.
Hello Everyone,
I have been in the chocolate business for about a year now and have been looking for appropriate as well as affordable vendors to work with. I don't know if this is my inability to find great vendors or they are really hard to find. Is anyone willing to share/suggest vendors for the items listed below?
1. Good quality chocolate
2. Packaging - looking for magnetic lock boxes
3. Natural/Organic/No GMO added products for fillings etc.
Any advice is going to be very appreciative.
THANK YOU ALL!
Keti
Melanie,
Would you by any chance be interested in selling your Hilliard little dipper machine?
Isaac
I have a commercial kitchen with space available for one interested in chocolate/candy making, and gluten-free baking in Salt Lake City, UT. The kitchen has a 240 lb Hilliard tempering machine with 6" enrober, a 10 lb Little Dipper tempering machine and cooling unit for setting the chocolate. Conveyor oven and double oven for baking. For anyone local looking for this please contact me and we can talk about days needed, etc.
Melanie 435-513-8808
We are going to take some old equipment out of storage to ramp up production. This is equipment that really hasn't been used since Dad died: Savage (?) mixer, additional stove and kettle, and deep fryer for nuts.
What is everyone's preferred method for cleaning such equipment? Simple Green and a scrub brush? Power washing?
Thanks!
Same.
We shelled out to figure things out with them only to be met with horrible service and lots of headache.
I will make a more prominent post about Cocoatown later to warn people of their fraudulence.
For now happy chocolate making!
I also had problems with cocoatown service, very poor customer care!
Any advice on machines Brad?
Thanks
Thanks for the reply Brad.
What are the machines you are using so we can think about making that move.
We are fine with replacing needed parts on machines destined for chocolate making, but at this point it looks like every part on the machine needs constant replacing.
Thanks for your insight!
Hi Everyone.
I don't own any of these machines. However, with my knowledge of the origin of these machines and cocoa and grinding, maybe I can provide you some insight.
The grinders you are using were never originally designed for cocoa. They were designed to grind things like chickpeas and other soft seeds into meal. They were NOT designed to grind cocoa beans.
Cocoa beans are like little pieces of granite. Their shells are even worse. They are very abrasive - almost like a mild sand paper. Over time compounds like plastic will ALWAYS wear out if cocoa is applied to it with any type of pressure. In fact, as time passes so too will the shafts that hold your granite wheels.
I have machines in my shop that are specifically designed for chocolate making. They have sealed bearings, and even rubber seals in front of the bearings, but even those eventually fail and allow chocolate to pass through and destroy the bearings.
The question here will never be, "What can I do to prevent these parts from failing?" The question should be "If I'm serious about making chocolate, how often am I prepared to replace the parts that I know will fail?"
Fan belts as primary drivers, plastic bushings, plastic paddles..... These are all indicators that these machines were not designed for every day use to make chocolate.
I hope that brings some clarity to the reason you always will have trouble with these machines as long as "plastic" is used on any part.
Cheers
Brad
I have the 10-12 lbs. capacity Cocoatown and a Santha and have recently been using two Premier Wonder Grinders that hold up to 6 lbs. each. They were $200 a piece and are doing nicely after almost 10 batches. The temperatures when they run after 4 or 5 hours are about 10 degrees different at about 145 and 155F. I adjust the tension and they stay the same. The two larger machines above tended to run around 135-140F.
I had very similar problems with a ECGC-12SL, and had to replace the stones within one year of purchase because the plastic inserts were wearing down and cracking and then even the metal arm broke that holds the stones. After replacing it all at cost (no warranty) I tried using it again and this time the plastic/ metal shaft in the bottom of the drum broke off completely and I gave up. i am at a loss as to whether to fix these machines because the cost is almost as much as a new machine.
I have recent reinvested in a Santha Spectra 40 and I am happy with it except I am having similar plastic issues in the same place (inside the stone roller). And all these issues are with just grinding in sugar to melted liquor and butter. I am looking to find out if anyone else is having this issue with Santha's machines? I am at a loss as to what to do about this because I invested quite a bit and literally have only used it 10 times, and because I live in Canada they will not warranty it, which is very difficult because there is no other machines in my small capacity that are.
Basically I am very disappointed and not sure how to proceed.
I am wondering if the plastics they are using nowadays are just crap? I thought about looking for metal shafts to replace the plastic one thru the middle of the stone. Any ideas, solutions, DIY fixes?
Beth
Are you talking about the embedded washers (ie. they run through the stones). They can be seen here in the image I attached, its the best image I could find.
If so, they are not removable. Ours ground down into a batch and we ended having to get more stones shipped to us. I think the stones should have metal wahers and then it woukld be metal on metal to have the least wear.
Let me know if they are removable or not, id be sursprised if they were and that they would be sending beta material.
Anyway hope we figure these issues out fast 
I connected with Andal from Cocoatown today via Skype video. She was very friendly and helpful. The unit I am using has plastic washers between the bolt and the granite stone. Apparently they added these washers as a sort of a test at a recommendation from someone, but are not necessary for the functioning of the machine. It was the washers that were rubbing and creating friction. They simply suggested I remove the plastic washers and give the unit another try.
cheers,
mg
If it was your first batch it might just mean that your wiper (the white peice attached to the cetral axle is too close to the wall of the drum which is creating friction and it needs to be shortened (undo the nut holding the wiper arm and turn the wiper one twist tighter to make it shorter).
We ordered another axle to see if our problem resolves itself, we just received it yesterday so we are putting on another batch.
Good luck friend!
Hi Even and Brianna,
I am interested to hear if you have found a solution to the delrin insert problem? I have just encountered the same issue with a CT 12STLA. i was starting a batch and a high pitch squeak started to come from the machine. I first thought is was the motor or the belt, but then i realized it was coming from the stones. Then I noticed white particles (plastic) in the bottom of the melanger. i stopped the process immediately and have sent an email off to Cocoatown asking for their technical support to solve the issue. Considering that I live in South America, sending it back to the US for repair is not an option. Anyway, i hope you found a solution and that you are back to making chocolate. any advice you have would be welcome.
cheers,
mg
