Forum Activity for @Sebastian

Why not use finger magnets?

grinder SRILAKSHMI is arrived in Cr oatia

Thank you mr Luvin on information about low-coast Indian grinder.

Clay - Have you seen a good magnet solution for small producers? Most of the solutions I've seen are clearly for larger facilities. I've been thinking about getting a plate magnet and somehow attaching that to a small grain chute used by home brewers, but even that could cost up to $1,000. 

About ten years ago I was involved in a project to develop a software tool to help manage FDA 10k compliance for a Type 1 medical device (a device that comes in physical contact with a patient). It makes HACCP look like child's play. You have to have a written process in place that talks about how you document meetings where any product design decision even gets discussed incidentally. If you decide to change the company you source grub screws from you have to document that so that, if somehow the grub screw gets implicated in a patient safety report, you can figure out the who, why, where, how, and when the decision got made. FOR EVERYTHING.

While it's not necessary to go to these lengths, it makes a good deal of sense to have such a manual and to keep it up to date. It's exactly the sort of thing that inspectors - and insurance companies - love. A good plan could help you reduce insurance premiums.

First step: There is a manual. The first chapter (chapter zero, traditionally) in the manual talks about why there is a manual in the first palce, how to use it, who it covers, how training is done, how the efficacy of training is measured, and more.

In each chapter there is a revision history for the contents of the chapter. Everyone whose work is covered by that chapter has to sign off they they read the chapter, that they received the proper training, and that they understand what it means and how it has an impact on their work. Do not throw away pages that are outdated! There's a section in each chapter for deprecated pages, if there's an issue the inspector will want to see what changed.

One of the chapters covers cleaning procedures. Another avoiding cross-contamination. Another about the process of accepting beans and testing them when they come in. There's a separate chapter that is a compendium of test results (e.g., aW, cut tests on acceptance). Have everyone sign off on the fact that they received the proper training and know what to do. Of course, you need to actually do the training.

Keep the manuals in a prominent place and make sure the inspectors know where they are when they show up - and that they can see how serious you are about these issues.

Keep in mind also that if you are manufacturing chocolate from cocoa beans in the US that the FDA has some specific guidance for inspectors . Whatever you do (at least here in the US) this is basic stuff that you need to make sure you're paying attention to. One particular requirement is the use of magnets to remove metal in the pre-cleaning step, something that is often overlooked.

-- edited for typos and grammar --

Contact Lev at Recipal.com. He will develop 2 free nutritional labels for your products. If you have questions he can usually answer them. I was referred to him by another member of The Chocolate Life and was very pleased with the service. Let me know if it works well for you. Good Luck!

Another thing to know is that there is small business exemption to the nutrition labeling requirements. You have to be under $50 million in sales, under 500 employees, and sell fewer than 100,000 units per product annually to qualify. All you need to do is apply, I don't think there is a fee.

Hello Chocolate Lifers,

If anyone has a 10" Hilliard Enrober with Pre-bottomer and Cooling Tunnel (total length 22 ft) for sale, please contact me through here or directly at info@festivalofchocolate.com

Much appreciated!

Easiest thing to do is to use the nutritional information provided by your suppliers, and do the math for your formulation.  If, however, you don't have that, you can use the generic categories contained in the USDA food composition database.

Hope that helps!

http://fnic.nal.usda.gov/food-composition/usda-nutrient-data-laboratory

Hi there,

A grocery store is interested in carrying our chocolate bars. They require nutrional labels for our bars. How do I develop that? Is there a service that develops that? Thanks very much!

Daniel

Michael - we have to do a HACCP, accident and incident report diary, temperature charts etc. We get graded from 0-5 stars for health and hygiene and to get full 5 stars all paperwork need to be in order, such as this HACCP.

Thanks for the really helpful responses, i will now try finish my HACCP

Hi Michael,

I dont have the tilting one i have the other 2ltr tabletop one, i will try add a picture.

I did also think about getting the tilting one for the same reason as you but i had a horrible thought that it may wobble a lot (as it looks quite top heavy), shift something loose that holds it upright, and suddenly tilt in the middle of the night whilst conching and pour my chocolate everywhere, i am sure that this wouldnt happen, but even so i thought best to stick with the machine that i have used and tested and know that it is capable of running for days without overheating.

James

I don't know if this is too generic for you: http://www.candyusa.com/files/ChocolateSafetyHACCP.pdf

I have issues with any group that promotes itself thusly:

As You Sow is a nonprofit organization that promotes environmental and social corporate responsibility through shareholder advocacy, coalition building,  and innovative legal strategies .

Here's more info on their web site and read the full release:

	AsYouSowRelease
	AsYouSow-release.pdf, 410KB ∞

-- edited to add link to web site --

I'm going to call BS.  They tested 3 batches (no details on the statistical rigor or methodology), and picked a small company that's owned by Warren Buffet.  I'm not sure i trust that their motives are pure as the winter snow.

And there's not that technology.  What will happen, if they persist with this line of consideration, is that major manufacturers will simply not ship to the state of California.  It's happened before.

Your roast step will be your micro kill step.  Validate it.  At the last step prior to depositing into moulds/enrobing, that will be your final opportunity to place a magnet / screen out foreign objects.  After packaging, you could metal detect.  Depends on how thorough you want/need to be.

Remember to pay close attention to the potential for re-contamination of micro clean areas via physically transport of microbes from dirty areas, or via air handling systems.  Also if your equipment is water jacketed or gets a water wash down, you'll want to consider the potential for leaks to emerge and/or incomplete drying leading to microbial growth areas.

You have to create a HACCP plan for a small chocolate business? Is that typical in the UK? Ouch.
Anyway…I was actually looking into this myself for another reason, and I found this info. It's from the Canadian government's food safety site. It might be overkill, but at least it's for chocolate:  Generic Choc HACCP Model

Thought i would check back into see if any conversation had started... however nothing!

There must be some Kinder Surprise Collectors out there?!

I got the Pawkit on Craigs list. Kerry Beal found it for me. Decagon also sells refurbished units. You want a State university for cheap testing. The .02 isn't much of an issue. I want my ganaches well below the .85. I like them in the low 70's. I get 2-3 months, no mold, but flavor fades.

The other day, I was opening a peer's chocolate bar to sample it, and as I unwrapped the foil I found myself looking at the back of the bar (which was full of bubbles and swirls).  I had an "AH HA!"  moment and went over to my secret chocolate stash of other bars, and pulled all of them out.

Every single bar (including my own) were wrapped wrong!  EVERY SINGLE BAR of the 75 I EXAMINEDWAS OPENED TO EXPOSE THE BACK OF THE BAR FIRST!

HOW SILLY!!!  

As chocolatiers, we go through all kinds of trouble molding our bars into pretty shapes and designs, only to have our customers inevitably open them up and look at the back - the one place where there is NO pretty shape or design!

EVERYBODY HAS BEEN WRAPPING THEIR BARS WRONG!!!

The only time I've ever seen someone open the entire bar (people usually only tear open the very end to break off a piece), is when the bar is being evaluated or photographed, and in those cases it doesn't matter which way they're wrapped because the whole wrapper is coming off anyway.

As of now, I've directed my team to start wrapping our bars so that when that little corner is torn open,they see the design first!

Opinions?

James - Do you have the 2ltr grinder that tilts? I've been wondering about this unit for a while now; for obvious reasons I really like the tilt feature, but I have been concerned that it might not hold up to long use like the 1.5ltr unit does. In the photos of it I've seen, I don't see any vent-holes for the motor like the 1.5ltr unit has. As I said above, I'm going to be gettin several more of these soon, so if you're using the 2ltr with tilt and they're working well for you I'd love to know. Thanks!

 Weird, I just checked my link to the book preview and the recipe pages weren't available.  When I found the preview, I'd done a specific google search on this subject, including his name and possibly invert sugar.  I don't remember.  It gave me a different preview.  Blocked in different places.  I got perhaps a dozen recipes from it.  I don't know how Google preview works, but that link I gave is unlikely to be of use to others for finding recipes with aW.  If you try my approach I just mentioned here, it might work.  

Please note, I am in no way trying to help people get copyrighted material they shouldn't have.  Previews are given to entice people to buy the book.  I certainly hope Mr. Wybauw sells more books through this strategy.  He'll probably end up selling book 2 to me because of it.

Sorry Clay, of course.  I am involved in a fishing forum that prohibits linking to outside sites, and I guess it has become habit to avoid it.  I'm also glad you asked because I made a mistake in the holding temperature I mentioned.  It is around 70f not 72f.

I found it on Wikipedia.  I then managed to track it elsewhere but can't remember the link.  I think it was from a google books preview.  

Wikipedia Water Activity

You will find the formula in section 1 right after the introduction.  Abbreviated as MFSL = 

I will also share that I found the Wybauw recipes here:

Wybauw Fine Chocolates Preview

Although many pages are left out, there were enough samples to be helpful.  

There is no preview for his second book in the series that focuses on Ganache.  We'd buy it if it were similar to this.  We haven't bought book 3 on shelf life because it is so sorbitol dependent.  We received book 4 as a gift, and while it is interesting, it is also heavily reliant on ingredients we don't think we want on our labels.

If anybody has a copy of Wybauw 2 Ganache and wants to share how helpful the recipes are likely to be for us (water activity given, limited use of sugar alcohols) we'd love to hear your feedback.  We'd purchase it if it fit.

Thanks,

M

Care to share the link so that others can work with it as well?

Non-profit As You Sow notified the three firms after testing showed that traces of lead and cadmium in some of the companies' products, including ones from the Scharffen Berger (Hershey), Dove (Mars) and See's (Extra Dark Chocolate). 

Allegedly, the products identified contain lead or cadmium above the single-serving safe harbor level for reproductive harm (or maximum daily allowable dose, MADL) and must be labeled as according to guidelines set forth in California's Prop 65. The article goes on to state specifically that the lead and cadmium are naturally-occuring and are not added during manufacturing processes.

As You Sow also notified more than a dozen other companies for allegedly failing to label heavy metal content properly, including Godiva, Ghirardelli, Lindt, Lake Champlain, Moonstruck, Theo, Trader Joe's Whole Foods, and Vosges.

What the suit fails to recognize is that many of the companies they are do not actually manufacture chocolate.

As You Sow asks that "manufacturers remove the heavy metals from their chocolate products altogether." Is there even technology that can do that?

Read the full article in ConfectioneryNews.com.

Hershey follows suit with a "simple ingredients pledge" and raises the bar (pun intended) just days after Nestlé's announcement.

Pledges to stop using artificial vanilla flavoring (vanillin), emulsifier PGPR, and HFCS; go non-GMO, gluten-free, and source milk freem from rBST in their milk chocolate and Kisses - in the US - by the end of 2015. 

Source: ConfectioneryNews.com

Thanks Ruth and Clay!  The software looks interesting.  My fiancee used similar software at a wholesale gelato place she worked, and it was very helpful in recipe development.  Probably more than we need right now, but worth knowing about.  We've been looking at invert sugar (she is very familiar with it from her work) and I found some Wybauw recipes online that use it without sorbitol.  Those have aW values, and give us a starting point.  

We'd snap up a Pawkit at $500 in a second.  You got quite the deal Ruth!  Other than one seller in Indonesia we've not seen anything in that range.  A bit over $2k new and the few sales on the auction site have sold closer to $1000.  The .02 accuracy is also a bit of an issue.  I found the mold free shelf life estimator calculation online and a few percent in water activity can nearly double shelf life.  Even if there is variation batch to batch in that range, it adds to the uncertainty.

I spoke with someone at Rotronic before posting this thread and was under the impression that the .008% meter is around $1500 for the sensor chamber (required) and then you need either the hand held reader (also around that price) or the software as you mention Clay.  I didn't think to ask for the software price, but reading about it made it sound quite sophisticated (that's fine) but presumeably expensive.  Sensible for a large operation but not for the two of us just starting out.  If that meter is $1500 outright, plus the few additional expenses for cups and what have you, it seems like a great deal.  At $3000 it seems very fair, but not an easy purchase for us.

Our understanding is that U Mass doesn't do the cheap testing, so we need a commercial lab.  We'll need that anyhow with final recipes for the health dept.  Perhaps we will just start with one of the Wybauw ganache recipes we found and also one of my fiancee's favorites, pay for the tests, and develop from there.

The biggest discovery in this process so far is the very short estimated shelf life of ganache right at that .85 threshold.  Eleven days at 72 degrees. Not that we'd store that high.  And I know sanitation, technique, packagaing and storage play huge roles in shelf life.  When your business model is primarily wholesale, even if only local, a few points in aW really matter.  The "three weeks" you usually hear for cream based ganaches seems optimistic, unless the enrobing greatly slows mold growth.

Anyhow, thanks for all the help.

M

Hi,

So from initially experimenting, to it being a hobby and now amazingly to hopefully starting a small bean to bar chocolate business, i now need to be food hygiene certified in able to sell to the public. The last thing i need to do is a HACCP for it. The standard template ones are not really relevant to making chocolate from the bean, so am going to have to create my own. Does anyone have an example of a HACCP that they have used for their food safety paperwork, that i could perhaps see to help me create my own one? as i have not had to do a HACCP since food tech at school!

thanks,

James

Hi Dom,

recently had a similar dilemma and looked a lot into the santha and cocoatown products as they seem to be the only step up in volume from my 2ltr premier grinder without spending 1000's on a much larger machine. However I decided to buy 4x more 2ltr premier grinders for the same reasons as already mentioned, they work hard (i run mine for over 60hours at a time and is still going strong...touch wood), and cheap in comparison to other machines. So now can produce 10kg at any one time

a bit of a tip though is if you are buying from amazon, directly contact the company supplying the machines and mention you are planning on buying multiple machines and ask if they will supply you directly (as they normally have to pay high selling fees to amazon) would they consider offering each machine at a discounted price. I did this and they offered £25 off each machine i bought so saved total £100! then got a proper VAT invoice from them which i then claimed back and saved a further 20%, so the machines worked out very reasonable indeed.

also if you do run into problems with the machines, DMenkes who is a member here posted a really helpful servicing/repair guide online

http://www.instructables.com/id/Premier-Wonder-Grinder-Repair-Belts-and-Gears/

Hello Stephane,

I see you're packaging search is nearly one year old. I am looking for the same packaging for my bars. Have you found the right supplier? Thank you

Hi,

next week i am going to visit chocolate academy in zurich/swiss. I will have 2 days free to look around the city.
Does anybody know any good places about choclate. Are there even any Bean to Bar producders in Zürich?
I guess Lindt&Sprüngli and Läderach i will see anyway (airport?, trainstation?...), so i am more interested in the small chocolate boutiques or even bean to bar producers.
Any hints or tips?

regards, dd

Perhaps a more accurate headline would be: Nestle to remove artificial flavours in US chocolate candies . From the BBC News article:

Swiss food giant Nestle will be removing all artificial flavours and colours from its chocolate products in the US, the firm said on Tuesday.

Its US unit has promised to get rid of artificial flavours and government certified colours in more than 250 chocolates by the end of this year.

For example, the centre of its Butterfinger bars will now have annatto, which comes from the seeds found in the fruit from the achiote tree, instead of certified colours Red 40 and Yellow 5, it said in a statement on Tuesday.

"In CRUNCH, natural vanilla flavour will replace artificial vanillin."

There is no indication that they are going to do any work to improve the quality of the chocolate they use.

read the BBC article
read the Nestlé statement

How did your Kickstarter go?

I like the design and direction of what they are making. Considering the price, this could be a very cool little induction plate. That having been said, I see several significant problems in regard to using this to temper chocolate:

1) I just don't think that the necessary temperature accuracy and control is going to be there. And yes I know that they put up a video about this, but all they showed was that in a large pot of water the temperature was eventually fairly stable. There's a reason real sous vide units use circulators. And sous vide cooking is significantly more forgiving in this regard than tempering chocolate. 
2) Even if the temperature control problem is solved, I still think that direct heat (even using induction heating) is likely to scorch the chocolate. I saw a little back and forth on the comments page about setting up multi-temp programs, but what I didn't see was any discussion about the ability to carefully control the output power. And this is going to be key, because if you're using one of these to temper chocolate the heat is going to need to be applied in a very gentle fashion, or your chocolate is going to be ruined before you even get to the tempering stage.
3) Finally, all batch tempering units include some method of circulating/stirring the chocolate, which allows for even distribution of temperature as well as proper crystal formation. There's nothing like that happening here, which means a LOT of manual stirring once you finish the first melt cycle. In order to make this unit functional in a production setting, you're going to need to rig up some type of continuous stirring mechanism.

Bottom line: for standard cooking, and especially for sous vide cooking, this looks like a great little induction plate. But for tempering chocolate? Probably not…

Even though your Premier just died, I still second Clay's thought on the Premier. I got one a while ago for test batches, and I am very happy with it. It runs for days without the slightest hint of overheating, hits particle size with no problem, and is fairly easy to clean. Also, I think that the 1.5kg volume probably refers to idli and dosa batters. In regard to chocolate, I don't think I've ever put less than 4-5 pounds in it, and I'm guessing you would have to get over 6 lbs before you had a problem.

And at $200 each, you really can't beat the price. Compare that to the Spectra 11 at $800 or the Cocoatown 12SL at $500. The latter two grinders can hold a few pounds more, but I think that this is more than mitigated by the fact that you can buy 3-4 Premiers for the cost of one of the others. Quite frankly, even if I had to replace the Premier every year or two, at $200 I'm good with that.

As far as getting something bigger, that just depends on your budget and your production needs. Three Premiers can produce 30-45 lbs of chocolate a week. Yes you use more electricity with three Premiers, and you probably also have a bit more waste. Then again, if you have one bigger grinder and it goes down (which is not uncommon believe me) your production comes to a halt. If you have 3 or 4 Premiers and one goes down, you only lose part of your production capacity. And you can get a new Premier from Amazon in a couple of days.

All that having been said, I believe Santha makes a 10kg grinder called the Spectra 20. If you're ready to move up to that level of production it might be worth looking into.

Paul -

I am going to be vendor-neutral here and give you some information you can use to evaluate systems from a general perspective. Because I represent a specific manufacturer, and I don't used an enrober in a production environment, I am not going to offer my opinions of whether a particular belt is "better" than another. My impression, from watching people work, is experienced belt operators can accommodate to the specifics of any belt pretty quickly.

There are some things that would be really helpful to know when trying to answer this question for you. Chief among them is how many (per hour or day) of what kinds of things do you want to enrobe?

One thing to consider is that the bowl size of the continuous temperer is not the determining factor of throughput. If you want to enrobe (say) 250 pieces per hour and each piece requires 10gr of chocolate, then you only need 2.5kg of chocolate per hour. You don't need a machine with a 25kg capacity working bowl that can temper 75+ kilos of chocolate per hour because you are never going to get close to needing (or being able to use) that much chocolate.

Belt width does affect throughput, but only to a certain extent. Very quickly how the work needs to be decorated becomes a more important factor to consider - and that will determine the number of people need to work the belt. For example, if you're doing 35x35x7mm piece and putting individual transfers on each one, you can get -- theoretical maximum -- 4 pieces per row and 20 rows per meter and if the belt is running at 2 meters per minute then you could (theoretically) be enrobing about 1000 pieces per hour. To reach that production you probably need three people working the belt. One person putting pieces on, another person taking pieces off, and a third person decorating the pieces. You'd be consuming about 10kg per hour of chocolate, so a machine with a 7-12kg working bowl capacity (20-45kg per hour of tempered chocolate) is going to be just fine.

If you are going to be having more than one person working the enrober, then the overall size and arrangment of the enrober belt and temperer need to be considered. It's probably better to have something that is larger in footprint than the smallest machine that will meet your needs.

In reality, there's no significant difference between the throughput of a 180mm belt and a 250mm belt unless the size of the pieces you are making demand that you do wider. Also, most cooling tunnels (should you need one) are sized for belts that are 300mm and wider. As I hinted at above, once you get past a certain throughput, getting product on and off the belt becomes more and more of a challenge. Again, if you have a 300mm wide belt then you can roughly double the throughput of the 180mm belt: at 8 pieces per row, 20 rows per meter, and 2 meters per minute belt speed it means that the person (or people) loading the belt are putting down 320 pieces per minute. It takes skilled and dedicated people to work at this pace and the work itself needs to be extremely well organized.

Other things to look for:

If the pre-bottomer is a standard part of the enrober belt, not an option.
If there is a fan built in to blow off excess chocolate.
If there is a net beater to help remove excess chocolate.
If there is a de-tailer to remove chocolate that would form a foot.
If the chocolate veil is "double curtain" which means that there are two streams.
If the height of the curtain veil is adjustable.
If the speed of the belt is fixed or adjustable as a standard feature

HTH,
:: Clay

The proofing box is a great recommendation. I mentioned the tabletop warmers because of the quantity of chocolate involved. These can be used to keep a lot more melted chocolate on hand and I know that some people use them to warm molds as well.

If you have a used restaurant equipment store nearby you can sometimes find these for significantly less than new. Keep in mind that they also make half-size cabinets.

But, and FWIW, the customer service agent at WebRestaurantStore was wrong when s/he said that all of the warmers they sell require water. Here is one that doesn't. Oh, and a 6x18x26in pan (full-size) should hold ~40 liters. That's way more than 30kg given the density of chocolate is greater than water.

Pantoufle -

I would suggest that you look into the idea of doing your own custom blend of commercial couvertures. If you like the basic taste profile of (say) a 70% but you'd like it a little darker and the 85% is too much, then why not add some 85% (or 90% or 100%) to the 70% to get exactly you want? There's no need to accept just what the chocolate companies make and have to sell.

I know several people who take this approach for both dark and milk chocolate and it gets them exactly what they want, rather than relying on finding an exact match in an existing product. I know some people who even mix brands to get to a flavor profile and price point that they like.

You are not likely to get free samples from online shops. Go direct to company and get a sales rep to call on you. They will have samples. Go to trade shows and visit the booths and get samples.

Three other brands to look into that are not mentioned above are: DeZaan, Agostoni, and Kakao Berlin.

--- edited to fix typos ---

Dom -

There are only the ones from CocoaTown and Santha in this size range. From what people tell me, even though the Premier is small, it's better built than the larger ones. If all you are looking for is a test grinder, the Premier may be the way to go. When you're ready for production, save up your money for a grinder with a larger batch capacity.

My father-in-law recently started using ChocXO and has been really happy with it. They have a US location and Canadian location.

http://www.chocxo.com/view-our-catalog/

Also, our website isn't live yet but we will be reviewing couverture (as well as bars). We will be assigning the couverture reviews to my father-in-law because he's been working with chocolate for 30+ years.

Cheers from another Ecole grad! 

On a side note, I may be interested in your business, or at least your equipment of you can't find a buyer.

I'm interested in the equipment. Would be able to buy it all in one lot.

I tried this before, but all I got was offers to sell me equipment. It must have been how I worded it.

I would like to know what, in your oppinion, is a good continous temper enrobing line for a small chocolate shop. What about the machine do you like. What don't you like.

I'm hoping to buy a machine in the fall so I'm doing a little research now.

Thanks in advance for your input.

Paul