Forum Activity for @Ash Maki

Hi there,

I couldnt claim to know much of anything really but as some smaller grinders dont heat up much, which helps burn off the acids a bit, you may need to run your grinder anywhere from 1-4 days to mellow the acids you have in there. You could also try adding some heat with a heat gun as well but would want to be sure you dont burn the chocolate. Above 140f for an hour or two would help. Beyond that you could try lifting your time and temp on the roast and see about burning out more of the acids in the begining.  

Hi everyone, been having some tempering issues with my chocolate. I melt using a mol d'art chocolate melter, temper everything by hand using a marble slab etc then put into another mol d'art melter at the tempered temperature to hold it while i use it. However i keep getting these odd light swirls just around the centre of my bars. The rest of the bar turns out nice with a decent gloss finish and good snap. I always check the chocolate temp before use, and always do a back of palette knife test, and that alwasy sets hard with no streaks. yet when i de-mould the bars they all have these swirls, any suggestions? really want an even gloss finish.

 P1040276.jpg - 595KB

I finally got round to ordering these powertwist belts, difficult to find here in the UK so unfortunately had to import them but hopefully will be worh the extra cost. The instructions are very over simplified, so will soon be creating a step by step photo guide to fitting the new belts which hopefully people will find useful. So far they are working great. they look like this when fitted:

Hi,

I am sorry if this is in the wrong category, but I am looking for some help on my roasting of an Organic Brazil bean. It is an organic Forastero Bean which has good flavor but I am still upable to kick this annoying astrigency. My most successful roast is 8 Mins 250F and then 8 Mins 200F. After a 24 hour grind in a small CocoaTown I am still finding it to contain some undesirable astringency at 50-70% Sugar. So I am looking for roasting suggestions or anything really. I feel I may have hit a wall with these beans and looking for a little guiding light. Any help? I can provide more information if that would help just let me know! Thank you in advance.   

You don't need to use the alcohol ones. The alcohol is added to make the essential oil water soluble when used in other cooking applications.

Chocolate is a fat mass which means the flavoring doesn't need to be soluble.

your alcohol based flavors will be fine.  use oil soluable if you can find them, but if not, alcohol based will work just fine.

if you use Organic essential oils you can be confident they will be food safe, with no traces of pesticides or chemicals. 

I use Immersion blender but have seem Thermomix work beautifully

Hi Neha dont know if you are still looking for course. There is an amazing one in Melbourne run by Kristen Tibballs. They do Chocolate Praline, Panning and lot of other stuff. Have done the Chocolate and Praline classes myself. Their website is http://www.savourschool.com.au/ you can look up the classes available and the class calender too.

My mixers (both the 8 quart and 20quart) with the whip attachment work great.  They add a bit of air to the ganache, but it seems that customers really like the light and fluffy texture, so what the heck!  Mix On!

Water ganache using the EZtemper silk - http://forums.egullet.org/topic/151287-eztemper-the-help-you-need-to-achieve-perfectly-tempered-chocolate-fast/?p=2022800

When People say raw chocolate. it would mean they are looking for the health benefits present in the cocoa beans before Roasting.

So in oder to classify it. one could call it raw if the nutritional value hadn't been cooked of in the processing of the chocolate.

A similar food market to compare it with would be nut butters. 

Roasted nuts taste so much better, but roasting changes the nut-butter fat.

I make nut butter in my chocolate melanger with a mix of roasted and unroasted nuts

Hi guys we are also interested in the mill would you please send us more information? is it a three phase? or single?  Where is the machine located?

Please send us more info to chaqchao@gmail.com

Now that is really challenging.  is the beet blend in the same oil? Could it be the particle size?

I googled annato coloring and found a website which mentions using norbixin to prevent annato bleeding , but the chemical is not mentioned on the   beet page.

I don't know much about norbixin yet. Have you bounced the question off the annato manufacturer?

here is the same item using just red beet blend, also suspended in oil. The item in this pic is about a year old there is no migration ( made thousands of them )

https://www.thechocolatelife.com/chocotoymaker/gallery/9867/img-6901#gallery_img

Could there be some form of osmosis (but in oil). i.e. the annato suspension migrates along with the oil from an area of high concentration to an area of low concentration. As the canola oil isn't crystalline at room temperature, it could flow.

Here is something to try. Add some of the same oil (canola) in the same proportion as the oil in your color to the white chocolate.

This would theoretically make the concentration of oil the same, thus mitigating the area of high oil concentration and the oil migration/color bleeding.

As far as why the annato is the only one to do it.... I'm not sure. Could it have something to do with particle size?

are other colors next to white chocolate?

 Link to your picture https://www.thechocolatelife.com/chocotoymaker/gallery/9866/img-6900#gallery_img

(Edited to add link)

I have no idea why the pics are not posting. I have added them to my gallery page under " Natural Colors" you should be able to see them there.

I understand what you are saying about liquid fat. My colors arrive to me already suspended in canola oil. I receive three; Red Beet, Tumeric, Annatto. For soem reason it is only the Annatto that migrates. The other two remain stable ( with the exception of tumeric fading ( another headache)

For some reason i'm not seeing the pictures....

Natural colors are almost always water soluable.  Are yours suspended in fat, and if so, is that fat a soybean, coconut, or some other fat that's liquid at room temperature?  If so, you've likely got an oil migration problem, which would be solved by dispersing those colorants in a solid fat - ideally cocoa butter.

I have been using different combinations of red beet, tumeric and annatto for a while now and have been getting some really great results. One problem I have is the visual shelf life. When ever annatto borders white chocolate ( see attached pics) it tends to migrate into the nearby area affecting my product's appearance enough to be a problem as far as longer shelf life is concerned. Any thoughs on the reasons for migration as well as ideas on how I can slow the migration down ?

30 - 60 days later

I phoned the Coop that process Goats milk but they said it all gets exported as Goats milk Infant formula.

You should contact Fonterra Ingredients Devision instead they produce organic milk powders. and if they don’t sell goats milk as well, they could tell you who does.

The University of Wisconsin - Madison offers six different self-study food engineering courses. Four of the classes are for sugar confections and two for chocolates. The prices are reasonable and it appears anybody can enroll as they are for professional development. Just thought I would share. Here is the link:

http://epdweb.engr.wisc.edu/Courses/index.lasso?myRegion=Chemical%20and%20Biomedical&myRegionHead=R-03&#FoodEngineering

Hi there, We might be interested in the three roll... If you could message me at info@stachildchococlate.com that would be geat. Thanks

Roller diameter 120mm, roller length 280mm. Hardened and mirrorpolished SS316 steel. Motor 1,5Kw. Machine weighs 450kg. Safety grill built over the rollers. CE certified! Comes with 12 months guarantee. High quality product. 2000$ incl. shipping cost.

Three rolls mill.pdf - 39KB

Could you spill the beans.

what would one of these cost

Thanks, Please e-mail me details at: tony.najjar@xocolla.com 

I will find out now for you

The cocoa is mainly grown in the family village land. 

all members of the family have there own patch of land to build a house, while the family village Land will often extend right back into the mountain were they will have what they call a plantation. I cool it a food Forrest. it will often be mixed cropping with coconuts towering into the sky and cocoa tress growing under the canape along with Bananas. And endless other types of food.

You would get the best experience if you arranged to stay in one of the family Villages.

Are the Goat and Sheep milk powders Organic?

If you find it hard to get the Goats And Sheeps milk powders in the US.

There is another smaller dairy cop.  in New Zealand producing them.

It will absolutely work.  There are a range of ingredients that are used specifically to help control Aw.  The question often comes down to a philosophical one of do you want it in your ingredients list or not.  Does it work?  Absolutely.

I have been reading Jean Pierre Wybauw's 3rd book on extending shel life. I notice that many of his recipes in that book feature Glycerol as an ingredient. Does anyone have an opinion on this ingredient? Has anyone used it in a confection before? Thanks!

Daniel

Thanks iLya, I am looking to source locally (in the US) - I don't want to get in trouble with the kiwis!   

I'm afraid I may not be the best person to answer that. I'm not a freelance graphic designer. I sort of stumbled into this position when I moved from CT and left my photography business behind. I went into this gourmet chocolate company looking for work - any work. They saw my resume and decided to take all their photography and marketing in-house. So I work solely with them.

However, as a former small business owner, I understand budget is probably your biggest concern. (If it's not, you could easily just hire a photographer and graphic designer to create the materials you need.) One of the ways I worked with my small budget to market my business was by bartering. And you're in a great industry to barter since most people love chocolate! 

Think about how much the artwork is worth to you. That's hard to do. But think about the potential for growth your business has by being presented well.

I keep wanting to lay out numbers for you but I just don't know what graphic designers are charging right now. Just consider the fact that when you barter, you're bartering the value of your product, not the cost. To clarify, if you charge $10 (value) for a box of chocolates which only cost you $5 (cost), you're effectively getting the graphic design services at half price because you're bartering what they charge for their services with what you charge for your product. 

Not everyone will barter. But lots will. It can't hurt to ask. 

If you can't find anyone to barter, ask about payment options. I personally feel that the images of your chocolate and the design of your marketing pieces is second in priority just after the quality of the chocolate itself. If you have amazing chocolate and horrible images of it, it won't sell. If you have crappy chocolate and great images of it, it'll sell. 

Feel free to give me some more specific details about your situation and I'll see if I can give you any more guidance. For example, what kind of budget have you set aside for marketing? (What percent of your gross?) Who have you found that you would love to have photograph your chocolate? What do they charge? What do you get in return? How about graphic designers? Who have you found and what are they asking?

If you can't source it locally.

You will be able to purchase New Zealand Milk powder. (exported Globally) 

Fonterra has a range of organic milk powders.

Some of us kiwis would prefer you didn't support our dairy industry, but we will forgive you for buying organic milk.

Or you could source it from one of the smaller companies.

Tell us how a Chocolate maker would go about crating a new Product range. and getting the Artwork and branding done with a designer like your self.

Its always a stumbling block for my self. and I'm sure it would be helpfull for others.

I'v got one it works greate

If it was from the roasting stage,

You would likely have resolved it on subsequent batches.

As your roast profiles are likely to vary slightly each time if your just trying things out.

how long do you take to make a batch.

I take 3 days. the first two days the chocolate refines in the melanger. then the third day is left for conching this is where the final flavour develops and unwanted bitterness evaporates.

You can actually smell and taste the flavour changers and bitterness coming of the melanger. 

Thanks Mark, I'd love those recipes, I'm thinking york peppermint pattie and a coconut filling heavy on the shredded coconut.  I apparently can't figure out how to send you a private message, so if you like you can contact me at danikiser@gmail.com, that would be awesome.

There are several forms, mostly fondant cremes.  They can be made in a wide range of textures, and can be made in a form allowing further processing, like enrobing, but then soften.  Feel free to contact me for some basic recipes, targeting your textural objectives.

Hi, I'd like to create a couple filled bars and am searching for shelf stable recipes.  I'm thinking along the lines of a coconut cream or mint cream.  Thanks!

Agree Nicole and specially if it's a Dedy - It lasts forever! 

We can help if you are still looking. Info @ garzasgoodies .com is our email. Message me a time, contact name, and location/phone number to call and we will be in touch to see how we can best serve you and your clientele.  Hope your having a great day!  

Heather Garza
Garza's Goodies Chocolates Confections
816-569-0278