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
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
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".
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...
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 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.
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.
chocovision skimmer vs dispenser
skimmer is more expensive. But dispense just like the dispenser (cheaper). What are people paying more bucks for? I am debating on which one to get.
I will make molded chocolate bar.
Thanks
I'd like to hear about this too - specifically the bean-to-bar program
Make sure to attend the NW Chocolate Show this weekend - you should find what you are looking for there.
Hi y'all,
Freshly transplanted to Kirkland from North Carolina, I am looking to meet some local chocolate folk for talk, collaboration, or even for a job if there are any available. I have moved here so my wife can get her Doctorate. While I am here I would like to make the most of the amazing local chocolate scene and hope to work with dark chocolates, especially with added super foods such as blueberries, goji berries, blue green algae, etc. or perhaps even MMJ. If any of that sounds interesting to you, I would love to hear from you.
Thanks in advance!
Aloha,
I'm a beginner making chocolate in Hawaii with Hawaiian cacao. At first this was a challenge in my home 82 degree kitchen, but I am now getting a stable temper (does not melt in my hand), but a lot of my chocolates are getting white streaks and the outer layer of my last batch is completely white (see attached picture). With other batches, some have looked great. The only batch I have made that did not bloom at all had added cacao butter which I do not usually add and they are looking great a month later, so I am wondering if a factor is low fat content. In a previous batch of dark w/no butter, some had streaking and some did not. At the time I attributed that to the fact the streaked chocolates were the last to be molded and the melted chocolate was difficult to pour and had already cooled considerably and probably unevenly.
The batch pictured is 72% criollo with no added cacao butter. I've been letting my chocolate age in a bowl for about a week. By then it has tempered on it's own. It seems that doing this helps the stability of my end product but I don't know why. I realized I could probably do a seeding method with this, but I have been heating 4lb batches to 120 degrees, then cooling half on a slab of granite by hand with many fans, getting it down to 80-82 degrees, then back up to below 91. Then molding by pouring or syringes and using a heating pad for the melted chocolate. This white, problem batch I let harden at room temperature whereas I have hardened previous batches in the refrigerator. I decided to try room temp because the drastic temperature change and condensation upon removing my product seemed to affect its flavor over time.
Where am I going wrong? Any feedback on the art and science of tempering (Hawaiian) cacao much appreciated! Thank you!
I had this happen to me a few times in the past, but it was due to the humidity in the room. I haven't had it happen again since I got that under control.
I'm looking for help with an odd thing happening with Fumee De Sal smoked Sea Salt and our dark and milk chocolate. After we top the chocolate with the salt, hours later the salt begins to sweat; on some days, it went so far as to completely dissolve into salt water puddles on our chocolate bark. Temperature, humidity, and many other factors seemed to be the same or similar as many times when this did not happened. No other outside factors seem to play a part that we can deduce. Something was different! Any thoughts?
I don't understand what you mean about the percentage. Are you making a ganache? so with a compound you would use 3 parts chocolate to 1 part cream?
- If that is what you are asking, I'll defer to the more experience members of the chocolate life for that answer. We don't make any ganache center chocolates right now.
Searching this website will behelpful for that.
Thanks
Larry
Very simple to do: Get a 10cc syringe, weigh it and with the syringe on the scale set your scale to 0. Fill the syringe up to 10cc and weigh it. Divide by 10 and there's your density. In my experience it is around 1.27g/cc.
25% increments sound like too little control. I get very different roasts with each 10-20 degree difference, which is trivial to accomplish with the Gene Cafe. Are you supposed to cycle up and down between 50-75% to get a desired temp between those 2 points? How do you then map that to a convection oven?
Makes me want to shake the Behmor makers until they promise to learn about PID controls. No one really cares about *power in*, we only care about *temperature out*.
I was recently emailing with another small chocolate maker who told me about an upgrade to the Behmor that gives a lot more control (although not complete control). You can set the power to the heating elements from 0% to 100% in 25% increments as well as switch the drum speed between 8 and 16 rpm.
I believe that the new Behmor 1600 Plus is basically the old Behmor with this upgrade already installed. I think this would be good for doing tests on bean samples or small batches.
I've used a Behmor for a while - what's frustrating is the lack of control. I'd read about roast profiles in forums or books and be unable to apply it, so Iresold mine to a friend and got a Gene Cafe. It's a lower capacity but much higher control, ideal for nailing down roast profiles before going bigger.
Dedicated roasters resell well since there are a lot of coffee enthusiasts; you can try that option and resell if you don't like or outgrow it.
Hi there,
I am looking into some small scale home roasting roaster options. I've narrowed it down to about 3: Behemor 1600, CocoaT Junior Roaster from Cocoa Town, or a stainless steeldrum (RKdrums) hooked up to a rotisserie on my BBQ.
From what I've read, the Behemor is decent and not without its quirks, and only roasts about a lb max. $299 Reasonable price for the beginner.
The CocoaT Junior Roaster seems like a great option. 4-6 lbs at a time, beans rotate slowly in a stainless steel drum under convection heat. $450 Reasonably priced as well.
BBQ drum (depending on size) holds the largest capacity of beans for a home roaster. Depending on where you purchase, it can be quite expensive...upwards of $1000 for asmall size drum, including motor and rotisserie rod. You also need to modify your BBQ somewhat to ensure even heat distribution.
Has anyone used any of these 3methods? Is there another option im not exploring? Any insight would be valuable. Im especially interested if anyone has used the CocoaTown roaster. Thank you.
Donny
Crystals won't form at 118. They'll just melt. However you may get some benefit from holding it there for a bit to ensure complete melting of the crystals. - Think ice cube in boiling water. Even though the water is boiling, there can still be ice. But with a little bit of time the ice will melt.
Taking the chocolate to 118 will help ensure you have melted all the pre-existing crystals.
The crystals will form at lower temperatures. The link I posted above really helped me to understand tempering. Take a look.
I do believe that my room temp is the major issue here. But I also have a feeling I need to play with my temperatures a little bit more. For example leaving it at 118 for maybe 10-20 mins to make sure the maximum amount of type V crystals form? And then bringing up the temperature to 88 or 89 degrees.
I'll be making a batch in the next day or so, I'll keep everyone posted on my results.
Thanks again.
Matt,
Thanks for the additional information. What is the temperature of your room?
One of thethings that will take your chocolate out of temper can include the temperature of the room/environment the chocolate is in. If it is too hot, the chocolate will not set quickly enough and lower forms of cocoa butter crystals will form before it sets.
The x3210 puts out a lot of heat. That could bring the temp of your room up.
Do you have any air movement over the cooling chocolate? - This will help pull heat out of the chocolate and preserve your temper. Not too much movement though. A small fan on low should suffice. - Play with it.
Is the thermometer on your machine accurate?
Also you could try raising the temperature of your chocolate on the last step a few degrees. Say to 88 or 89. The chocolate we use does best at that higher temp even tough it is a milk chocolate.
Is the chocolate melting immediately upon touching it or after several seconds of holding it?
I'm a novice too, but have learned a great deal from the generous members of The Chocolate Life.
Hey Larry,
Right now it goes to 118 for a few mins, then it cools to 90 degrees then the machine beeps till I take out the seed chocolate (usually its all melted) then drops again to 83.4 then goes up to 86.6 and says its ready.
Thanks for all your help I really appreciate it!! And I apologize if these questions are novice.
Interesting...
Right now I am tempering using my Chocovision X3210 that I bought, I have been using about 8% seed chocolate and on temper 1 phase. I figured that it would temper it for me (I have set to 118.5 melting temp which was recommended on the cocoa butter bag I purchased from DeZaan).. Where could I be going wrong?
Without knowing all the details, i'd agree lack of proper temper is the likely culprit.
No, the meltage is probably due to the temper (or lack therof) of the chocolate.
There are 6 types of crystal structures cocoa butter can form.
Type V is the 'desired' crystal that results in shiny, snappy chocolate that won't melt immediately.
The crystaltypes I-IVmelt at lower temperatures, and thus if your chocolate has lots of those crystals, it will melt very quickly.
Please check out this tempering explanation on the chocolate alchemist website. http://chocolatealchemy.com/illustrated-tempering/
Thanks Sebestian..
That leads to another question.. Before, when I was not calculating my percentage of fat in my chocolate, it would melt once I picked it up. Now was this a result of having a fat content greater than 35%?
You'll never achieve 25% fat in a spectra - so plan on a recipe of 35% total fat. Assume your liquor is 50% fat. For ease of sourcing, just use whole milk powder and assume it's fat content is 26%.
Part of learning how to make great chocolate is learning how to do the formulation math 8-) Homework assignment #1 - using the above formulation %'s and ingredient fat levels - calculate your formulation requirements for a milk chocolate that has approximately 35% total fat. You should also include 0.3% fluid lecithin if this is your first time. You may even wish to leave it in there forever.
Hello All,
This is my first blog post so I figured I would give you all a little introduction. I am 27 years old living in the greater Los Angeles area and recently taken on the challenge of learning how to make great chocolate.
Currently I am reading, "The Science of Chocolate" by: Stephen T Beckett. And although it has been very informative and I have no complaints about it, its been difficult not to have someone to bounce off questions I have. So, with all that being said, I'll start to get into what I'm doing and where I'm running into difficulties.
I have a Spectra 11 melanger that I am using and my problem is I don't know how much cocoa butter I should have in my recipe? I have read that my total fat content should be in-between 25-35% but what does that mean with my cocoa butter. Right now my recipe is 25% butter, 19% cocoa mass, 19% milk powder (I'm using a combo of non-fat and whole milk to keep my fat content down), and 37% sugar.
Does anything stand out thats wrong with that? Is my butter content too high?
Thank you!
