Forum Activity for @Clay

Old Messages

No, none of the messages from the old site was transferred over, as I explained in at least one of my emails about the switch.

Howewer, they are still can be found on the old site, which is at discoverchocolate.ning.com. Log in with your old email address and password.

The site will up until at least the end of February so people can review their message box and take any necessary steps. Once I close that site down everything there will be lost forever.

Old Messages: It looks like none of my messages transfered over. Is that correct? I had a bunch of old messages for reference. Are they accessible somehow?

The best value of 90-100 rpm.

At high speeds the centrifugal force is too strong, and there is mass can be sprayed.

This is especially true for large-diameter pots.

The Classifieds group is closed...

Hi Bill, at Davis Chocolate we can fulfill your private label needs that are customized to your tastes, from roasting, cacao percentage, inclusions and more. Small to medium batch sizes are not a problem. We can even help you with label design, if needed.

www.davischocolate.com

Best wishes!

How to make Photoblog using Image Galleries

While it is possible to embed images into posts and comments, if you have a photo-intense travel story, think about creating a Gallery with the images from your trip. You can post  the setup and some short narrative in the Travels and Adventures Forum category, and then link to the Gallery. The effect is best when members look at the photos in the Lightbox in a slide show.

The key to making the slideshow work is to have a short, descriptive title, for each image. Then copy that title into the description field and keep the description fairly short. Under 200-300 words is ideal. The title will be visible when anyone mouses over an image in any view but Lightbox, and the description will be shown under the image in Lightbox mode.

eg:
Looking forward to exploring the new site. Just a quick FYI, the menus on mobile view are black on charcoal - almost impossible to read.

@eg - thanks for letting me know about the menu color selection on mobile devices. I will look into it ASAP. Bigger fish to fry first. Now that lots of people are hitting the site I need to figure out how to solve the poor database performance.

This is now fixed - it was a configuration option I overlooked, so my bad. You have the option to embed media - images and videos! - you have already uploaded or you can upload an image from your local computer. While it adds another step, uploading it to your image gallery and adding a title and description first means that members can see it in other contexts, which would be good, but is not necessary. Please note that you have to specify an image size ... and that is the image size in the post and it does not appear as if it can be edited after the fact. You'd have to delete and re-upload.

Thomas -

I doubt that it has anything to do with you. I have been in touch with the Jamroom dev team and we are working on a fix. I will let you know when this is done - obviously it's not workable in the long run (or even the short run).

How do you post an image? I can right-click and select insert image, but the image never displayed based on the source that I enter. It's not intutive on how to insert the image. I'm sure it is something I am doing wrong.

Looking forward to exploring the new site. Just a quick FYI, the menus on mobile view are black on charcoal - almost impossible to read.

I'm Colin Green (aka "Captain Chocolate") and I manufacture chocolate goodies by panning.

Located in Sydney, Australia and I market online and via farmers markets and the like, mostly around Sydney.

The web page is at www.captainchocolate.com.au

Very much looking forward to using Clay's new site to share and learn GREAT ideas!

 captain chocolate o6b.jpg - 188KB

It Occurred To Me Many Times, In 2014 ...

... that maybe we were having arguments about things that really weren't the argument we should be having, still. What is the definition of bean-to-bar? Really? What does it mean to be a Craft chocolate maker? While these definitions may be important to a very small percentage of chocolate enthusiasts, 90+ percent of people who eat chocolate don't care and get easily bored and, in the end, get pushed away from wanting to learn to appreciate fine flavor chocolate.

For that reason, I started using the following definitions over the course of 2014 when talking and writing about chocolate and intend to do so moving forward. Let me know what you think.

What It Means To Be Bean-To-Bar

I hate the phrase bean-to-bar because the discussion centers around what really constitutes working from the bean really means. For some people (most, I think), it means owning all the equipment and personally doing all the work on the equpiment you own. Many people have problems with the TCHO approach where they send their chocolate maker to origin to personally oversee the roasting and grinding and then finish the chocolate in their factory. How could that possibly be "bean-to-bar" when roasting is done thousands of miles away on someone else's equipment?

I personally don't see any problems with a chocolate maker calling themselves "bean-to-bar" as long as they are transparent about what they are really doing and they personally oversee every step of the process from roasting to conching and don't just phone it in. I can also make the argument that it returns more to the local community because the cost of roasting and grinding is captured locally, and I can also make the argument that transportation costs are lowered because the weight of what's being shipped is reduced by around 20%. So, by this definition, TCHO is positively bean-to-bar.

But what does this mean for industrial companies. Is Cargill bean-to-bar? Callebaut?

Here's where I want to shift the debate a bit. In my opinion, in order to call a chocolate maker "bean-to-bar" they must produce a retail bar under their own brand. Can you go to a Whole Foods and get a Cargill or ICAM/Agostoni-branded chocolate bar? Kakao Berlin? No? Then they are not bean-to-bar. This makes it very simple to know who is bean-to-bar ~~ focus on the output, not the input. By this definition, TCHO is positively bean-to-bar, as are Cluizel, Valrhona, Bonnat, Guittard, and many others. But Felchlin is not.

On the input side, I now preferentially use the phrase from-the-bean. A company can make chocolate starting from beans, starting from nibs (from nibs), or starting from liquor (from liquor), etc.

If you combine these two concepts then the confusion goes away, there's nothing to argue about, and we can get past it and on to things that really matter, like what does it taste like?

What It Means To Be A Craft/Artisan Chocolate Maker

I think most people equate craft/artisan with batch size and hand-made. The question is, at what batch size are you no longer a craft chocolate maker? Again, I now think that this is the wrong place to focus attention.

For me, the dividing line between being a craft chocolate maker and an industrial chocolate maker is when consistency and repeatability become the primary concerns. This is because it's also important for their customers. If the rheology of a chocolate changes from one shipment to the next it creates a major problem in recipes and tempering parameters change. Flavor differences are also problematic.

For a company like Valrhona, it's important that Manjari tastes like Manjari, even when the beans taste different from harvest-to-harvest and year-over-year. For their customers who use it to enrobe, they trust it to behave the same way day in and day out. Thus Valrhona uses blending among other techniques and a lot of complicated science to hit a specific flavor profile, within a narrow margin, batch after batch, year after year. And yes, it's easier to do it when working tonnes at a time instead of tens of kilos at  time.

Craft chocolate makers, on the other hand, are less concerned (if they are concerned at all) about consistency from batch to batch and more concerned about bringing out the essence of the bean (as they interpret it). Because their chocolate is not being used for industrial-scale enrobing (it's probably not used to enrobe at all), there is no need for consistent rheology. (However, consistent rheology would make tempering and molding a lot easier.)

However, being a "craft" chocolate maker does not mean it's okay to hide behind the fact that the chocolate is being made in small batches (and the essential nature of small batch manufacturing means each batch is different), to keep from having to learn the craft - the art and the science - of chocolate making.

To me, while a craft chocolate may not be striving for consistency from batch to batch, they should be able to pull it off, if asked. I personally don't buy into the notion that chocolate made from beans from the same lot should has to taste different from batch to batch. If a chocolate maker buys five tonnes of the same beans at the same time from the same harvest, they should be able to make chocolate that is substantially the same from all five tonnes of beans. The wine analogy is if wine from the same vineyard and winemaker would taste different from barrel to barrel (which could mean from one bottle to another in different cases). 

From this perspective it's much easier to tell who's a true craft chocolate maker and who's not. I also think it's possible for a chocolate maker to exist in both camps at the same time. Guittard is mostly an industrial chocolate maker - that's where most of their products and sales fit. With the E Guittard line? Possible to argue that they fit into the craft category. With the E Guittard line they are not only from-the-bean but they are also bean-to-bar because you can purchase E Guittard-branded bars at retail. They are not bean-to-bar for their industrial products.

What It Means To Be A Single-Origin Chocolate

The phrase single-origin can be quite misleading. It can refer to a country, a growing region, or a single estate or farm. What does it mean to be single-origin Venezuela? All the beans come from somewhere in Venezuela (or maybe not, a lot of cross-border smuggling occurs), but where in Venezuela?  

So, about five years ago I started using just the word origin. The origin can be quite broad – Indonesia – or it can be quite narrow – Hacienda el Rosario (single-estate Venezuela) or Guasare (single varietal Venezuela). The specificity gets added on as a qualifier to the word origin. Let's drop the use of "single" because it can be used to confuse.

Also, for the record, an origin chocolate that uses cocoa butter in the recipe where the cocoa butter comes from a different origin may not be "single-origin." If I make chocolate from beans from around Lake Maracaibo and the cocoa butter is made from beans grown in Carenero, then the chocolate can be single-origin Venezuelan, but not single-origin Maracaibo (or Sur del Lago). If the beans are from Maracaibo and the butter from West Africa then it's not single-origin anything.

[ Edited on Dec 27, 2015 to fix typos and for clarity. ]

What do you do if you can't access your account?

One of the admin features of the Jamroom software is the ability to update email addresses and reset passwords. On Ning, your account on TheChocolateLife did not "belong" to me because you could use the same login information to join multiple Ning communities. With Jamroom, this is one community, not a community that shares its member database with thousands of other communities.

If you have trouble accessing your account, send email to accounthelp (at) thechocolatelife (dot) com. In order to be able to help you I need to know the email address of your existing account AND your membername. You should be able to get these from any old email sent to you from from the old Ning web site if you don't remember them. 

New Capability - Image Editing (not just Data editing) from within The Image Editor

Added Saturday, January 17th.

On the image editor page there is now an "Edit Image" button. Clicking on this button now loads the image inside a photo editor window. The editor used to be called Aviary (for those of you who might have it on your smartphone) but it's now a part of the Adobe Creative Suite. There are many things you can do to images so I encourge you to explore the possibilities.

One thing that still remains in place is an upper limit of the size of image that can be uploaded - 2MB (if you are still in the Unassigned member quota it's 1MB. If you have an image that is larger than 2MB you must resize it before uploading it to TheChocolateLife. Once it is uploaded you can edit the image online.

Your Profile is Now Your center of Activity

On the old site, most new content posting was either done from the Home page or from the content type page. That is, if you wanted to add a new Forum post there was a link under the displayed forum posts to add a new forum post.

On the new Home Page there are no direct links to add new content.

• If you want to add a new Forum Post you have to do it from within the Forum Category that you want the post to appear in.
• If you want to add a new Blog post, create a memo, add an Activity entry in your timeline, and more - you have to do it from within that area of your profile.
• If you want to add an entry to a Group you must do it within that Group.

Classifieds Will Move to a new Site -  TheChocolateLife.Info

Arguably the biggest content change is that I am moving the entire Classifieds section to a new site by the end of January.

The Ning platform did not support the Classifieds at all well and neither does Jamroom. I could write a module (or pay someone to write one for me), but I took this opportunity to think bigger than just move the classifieds to a new platform.

The larger context is that there is no Yellow Pages for the cocoa and chocolate industry. That's what TheChocolateLife.info will become - The Chocolate Pages! Businesses of all types and sizes can create (and manage) their own directory listings and make it easy for people to find them. I am starting out the directory by adding hundreds of companies that I've found over the course of the research I have done over the past dozen years or so.

Friending and Sending messages to Members

The concept of Friends here is different than on the old site.  Unfortunately, Friend relationships was not something that was included in the export archive so you'll have to manually go back and re-establish those connections.  Here it works more like Twitter following. You can follow a member but they don't have to Follow you back. Furthermore, you don't have to accept a Follow. There is an option on your profile page to approve Followers. When someone follows you you will get a notification and you can choose to accept or reject the Follow.

The Send a Message feature can now be found by hovering over your member name in the top nav and selecting Private Notes from the drop down menu. However, you can only send Private Notes to members that Follow you. If you want to get in touch with a member and ask them to follow you, you can leave a comment on their profile.

Merged Forum Categories

Discussions in the  Micro-Batch "Homebrew" Chocolate  and Tips, Tricks, and Techniques Forums have been merged with the Tech Help Forum, which has been renamed to Tech Help, Tips, Tricks, & Techniques . The empty Forum categories  have been deleted.

limits to the size of Image Uploads

One thing I noticed during the transfer is that some members had uploaded HUGE images for their profile photos - in some cases over 10MB! There is now a 2MB limit on all image posts (1MB for members still in the Unassigned member Quota).

Ning (the old software) had the concept of Albums. Jamroom (the new software) uses Galleries and they are much more powerful and much easier to use at the same time.

When your images were uploaded, any album associations you made were lost, and the decision was made to upload all of the images into a single gallery that was named the same as your user name. This could cause some confusion, so I recommend changing the name of the gallery to something easy to remember. I used Loose Images.

To Rename a Gallery

1. Go to your Profile Page by clicking on your name in the top nav.
2. Click on Galleries in the menu to view all of the galleries. Immediately after import there is only one and it has the same name as your member name.
   (( If you can't see Galleries in the menu it means you are still in the Unassigned member quota. You will have to go to your profile (hover over your name in the top nav and select Account Settings, it's in the Profile tab) and change that first. ))
3. To the right of the bar with the Gallery name in it is an icon with a gear in it. Click it to bring up the Gallery edit page.
4. All of the images in the Gallery will be displayed and you have the ability to edit each image (detail) and delete images from this view.
5. On the page is a text box with the Gallery name in it.
6. Type in the new Gallery name you want to use (e.g., Loose Images).
7. Scroll down to the bottom.
8. Uncheck "Add to Timeline" (unless you want to tell everyone on TheChocolateLife that you renamed the Gallery).
9. Click Save Changes and you're done.
10. Other things you can do from this page include adding one or more images directiy into this library.

To Add a Gallery

1. Go to your Profile Page by clicking on your name in the top nav.
2. Click on Galleries in the menu to view all of the galleries.
3. In the bar that says Image Galleries, click on the plus sign icon.
4. Type in the name for the Gallery.
5. Upload images (if you want to - it's not necessary at this time).
6. Uncheck "Add to Timeline" (unless you want to tell everyone on TheChocolateLife that you renamed the Gallery).
7. Click Save Changes and you're done.

To Rearrange Images in a Gallery

1. Go to your Profile Page by clicking on your name in the top nav.
2. Click on Galleries in the menu to view all of the galleries.
3. Click on the name of the Gallery you want to rearrange to display it.
4. Drag and drop the pictures into the order you want.
5. That's it.

To Edit an Image

Editing an image (for now) means editing the data associated with the image. This includes the title and the description as well as the gallery the image is in.

1. Go to your Profile Page by clicking on your name in the top nav.
2. Click on Galleries in the menu to view all of the galleries.
3. Click on the name of the Gallery that contains the image(s) you want to edit.
   (( If you prefer, you can click on the Images:### button in the Stats area to see all of the images in one view. If you have a lot of images this could take a long time to download. ))
4. Click on the image you want to edit. If you've opted to view all of the images, you might want to right-click and open the image in a new tab so you don't have to keep re-loading the Images page.
5. To the right of bar above the image (it may contain the gallery name), click on the gear icon to edit the image details.
6. If you want, you can upload an image to replace the current image.
7. Add or edit the image title.
8. Add or edit the image description.
9. Add the image to an existing Gallery (select from the pop-up list) or enter a name for a new Gallery.
10. Click on Save Changes.
11. Repeat as necessary.

Helpful Hint ~~ While you can see the title of each image when you mouse over it, you can't see the image title when you are moving back and forth through the images in lightbox mode. For that reason, I copy the image title into the image description field - even if it's the only thing in the description field. What's in the description field is displayed below the image in lightbox mode. So - no matter what - your visitors will know what the image is about.

Other Things You Can Do When Looking at Images

• The numbers to the right (2,3,4,6,8) refer to the number of images shown in each row. Click on a number to resize the images ~~ without reloading the page!
• Below each image should be five stars. These are used to rate images. All of the ratings for each image gets averaged.
• When looking at an image on its page, scroll down below the image.
  • You can Like it (use the thumb). However, you cannot like images that you uploaded. You can only like other members' images.
  • You can also share the image on Facebook, Twitter, etc. The first time you decide to Share something you will be asked to give permission to link that service with TheChocolateLife using a service called ShareThis.
• When looking at an image you uploaded you can add a tag. Tags can be some descriptor that's not in the title or description already. Tags will be added to your Profile tag cloud and to the Community tag cloud on the home page.

Have a Question? Is Something Not Clear? Have a Tip of Your Own?

Add it in the comments below.

Is something not working the way you think it should ...

or not working at all? This is the place to post them so they can be looked into and taken care of.

Usernames and Profile Photos

I want to encourage all members to take a look at their usernames to see if there is a way to make them more personal and more descriptive to other members.

I also want to encourage members to consider shortening their username if it is more than 16-20 characters. Longer names (and there are some much longer ones) interfere with the formatting and display of some content. When I see that this is the case I will send a message - but I appreciate your taking a look.

Profile Quota groups

One great new change is Profile Quotas. You can select these by editing your Profile. By default, members are put into the Unassigned quota. You can select from a number of different quotas based on your primary interest for being a member of TheChocolateLife. I can assign different functionality to each group. For example, members in the Unassigned have very restricted capabilities to add new content until they choose a quota to belong to.

Among other things, I will be able to send targeted member emails to profile groups so don't miss out and make sure to move out of the Unassigned quota ASAP.

1. Hover over your name in the top nav.
2. Select Account Settings from the drop-down menu.
3. Click on the Profile tab.
4. Scroll down and select the Quota group you want to belong to.
5. While you are on this page you can add a short bio, select a privacy option, and decide whether you want to approve followers or not. (These work more like Facebook. If you want to be able to exchange Private Notes you can only send notes to someone who follows you.)

Improved Search within Forums (and elsewhere)

There is now a search at the top of the Forums page. This will search for a word or phrase in every Forum category. Within a Forum, the search scope is limited to that Forum. If you click on Images and then search (try " pods "), you will see every image with the word pods in the title or description.

Tags

Tags can be added to any item. Tags are words or short phrases (1, 2, or 3 words) that do NOT appear in the title or description. Tags appear in your profile's tag cloud as well as in the Community tag cloud on the home page. If you see an image with pods in it (for example) and the word pod(s) does not appear in the title or description. Tag it " pods " so people can find them all with a single click!

Profile Shortcuts

Wherever you see a membername with an @ in front of it - @clay for example - it is a live link to that members profile page.

Multiple profiles per account

The most powerful use of this is when the account belongs to a company and the company would like to have a number of profiles be able to add and update the content. The feature arose because Jamroom was created to support bands. The band would be the main account and the profiles would be the band members, managers, and trusted others. I have this turned off by default, but if you want to set it up for you account please ask. If your company or group already has two or more members on TheChocolateLife and you'd like to link them to the same account, please let me know and I will link them.

Smileys 

It's a small thing, but the text editor now enables you to add Smileys. There's only a small set now, but I may be adding more over time.

Image Galleries with "Lightbox" viewing

The old Ning had the ability to put images into albums. This has been replaced with the Jamroom Image Gallery feature. Jamroom makes it much easier to create multi-image galleries and provides the ability to view galleries in a lightbox overlay without having to leave the page you're on. If you don't see the Lightbox icon it means that the image you are looking at is in a gallery all by itself.

I encourage members to edit their images and galleries and to spend a few moments editing the titles and descriptions of the images because there is now context-specific searching. To see how this works, click on Images in the top nav and then search for " pods " (without the quote marks). This will return all of the images that contain pods in the title or description.

For more information on Images and Galleries, visit the >> Images and Galleries FAQ  << .

Publishing Dates

You can schedule a post for a future date and time in the editor.

Why can't I ...

• Rate an image or post or other content?
• Like a piece of content?
• Upload a video?

Answer:

You are still a part of the " unassigned " member group. To change that:

1. Go to your profile by clicking your username on the top nav.
2. Click on the gear icon at the upper right of your profile.
3. Scroll down to the bottom of the page.
4. Select the member groups from the Profile Quota (member group) popup that best describes the personal or business reason for being a member of TheChocolateLife.
   1. All of the profile quotas shown have the same features and functionality.
5. Click the " Save Changes " button.
6. You should now see the missing features.

In general ...

Most content is added from the related content section on your profile so the first thing to do is click on your username in the top nav to go to your profile page.

The main exception to this rule is creating Forum discussions.

Images and Image Galleries

Images really want to sit within galleries. There are tools on each image page for moving images not associated with galleries into galleries. Click on the gear icon to get to the editing menu.

To view your image galleries, click on the Gallery link at the top of your profile.

To look at your images, click on the Images: ### link under the Stats header.

Forum Discussions

Click on the Forums link in the top nav or at the top of your profile to see the list of all Forum categories.

This step is different from the old ChocolateLife. You have to select the category you want to add the discussion to before you can add the discussion, rather than selecting a category field at the bottom of the page after you enter the text.

Select the Forum category.

Use the Search function to see if there are already discussions that might answer your question.

If not, click on the + icon to add a new discussion.

Extracted from 14 Dec 2014 Financial Times (Brazil)

The sector, which turns cocoa beans in butter, powder and cocoa liquor used to make chocolates and flavoring for desserts and sweets, has been undergoing a process of strong concentration of ownership in recent decades, due to the activity requires investment capital intensive.

Many of the transactions dating back to the merger between Callebaut, a Belgian manufacturer of industrial chocolate, and, Cacao Barry of France, in 1996 began the consolidation of the sector.

In the early 1990s, there were about 40 significant size cocoa processors. Just over a decade later, the number was 9, and ADM, Barry Callebaut and Cargill came to dominate the industry ever since. According to the United Nations Trade and Development Conference, the "ABC" [ADM, Barry Callebaut and Cargill] of cocoa accounted for 41% of world capacity fruit processing in 2006.

ADM and Cargill combined and changed the nature of trade and cocoa processing in the 1990s, when the industry took its expertise in the grain trade.Since then, the larger companies won more power to expand its processing capacity. In 2013, Barry Callebaut acquired the cocoa processing operations of the Asian group Petra Foods, cementing its top ranking position.

Gerry Manley, director of global cocoa operations Olam, made it clear that the company needs to be a leader in the processing segment to remain "strong" as a company, when the company announced the acquisition agreement with ADM. It would be possible to say that the trading companies and cocoa processors are simply trying to follow their customers -the chocolate manufacturers.

This sector also saw rapid consolidation, with the top five manufacturers, including Mars, Nestle and Mondelez, now accounts for over 65% of total sales of chocolate.

MARKETING

The importance of global brands and increasing marketing costs and research and development in an increasingly internationalized and competitive market helped to promote consolidation.

According to Ecobank, 70% of the value of a chocolate bar is with the cocoa and chocolate companies, reflecting investments in marketing and research and development; 17% of the value is with the retail and 7%, with intermediaries such as trading companies.But, as the great chocolate gain strength, cocoa farmers find themselves under increasing pressure.They get only 6% of the value of each chocolate bar today, compared to 16% in the 1980s, says Edward George, Ecobank. "Very small part of the value is related to the raw material," he says.

The great cocoa and chocolate companies are now coalesced around a plan of action to encourage the development of sources "sustainable" cocoa. But unless the proportion of the value that it is for growers change or the whole cake grows, farmers have little incentive to continue cultivating cocoa

Vera,

The recipes are staying the same. No worries.

Sincerely,

Rom

As long as you don't change the recipes, it's fine to me

At It's Chocolate we have been planning a name change for quite some time, but just couldn't find anything we really liked until now. Brasstown Chocolate. Brasstown is a NC community where the premier folk artisans school in the country is located. We feel that chocolate artisans are a part of the same community. In addition to a new name we are getting new packaging. It's Chocolate is now Brasstown Chocolate. Thank you to everybody that has supported our business.

Rom Still

Hi, I have started a blog all about chocolate & chocolate lovers. You are all welcome to my blog. And have a nice marry christmas.

http://www.chocolatelover.info/

Just started a blog about Chocolate. You are all welcome. Happy Christmas

http://www.chocolatelover.info/

In the next couple of years, there are a number of VERY large chocolate factories being built in India. It may not match your timeline, but the hiring need will be significant and you'll learn quite a bit.

I want to learn about chocolate making in practical (from been to bar) is it possible in India. Friends please help mein this connection. It will be great for me if i am allowed to work in a production line which belongs to any one of our members in India.

I don't know the science of it all, but mine stuck in my teeth until I was told to add lecithin. My formula does have a small amount of corn syrup.

I am a purist. I only want butter, sugar and water in my toffee. Final temp depends on your altitude. I am at 5000 feet and I go to 300.

I have been making quite a bit of toffee this holiday season and I certainly don't know everything when it comes to making this treat. I have been trying to achieve a tender texture that does not stick to one's teeth. I'm still on that searchThere is limited information in books on creating excellent toffee. I'm sure there are plenty of people on this site who are much more experienced than me at making toffee and so I would love to hear your input. Here are some questions I have...

1. What is the best temperature to cook toffee to in order to achieve a tender texture? I have seen a range of recipes ranging from 285 degrees Farenhite to 310 Farenhite. I'm confused.

2. Should I add corn syrup to toffee? I am wondering if adding corn syrup creates a stickier texture? Does it inhibit a tender texture? I see some recipes include corn syrup and others that don't.

3. Does seeding toffee with a small amount of granulated sugar at the end of cooking really help? Does anyone do this? I've tried it and I did not notice much of a difference.

4. Does adding baking soda at the end help in creating a nice texture.

Any other tips or observations by others is greatly appreciated!

Thanks!

Daniel

You have to reduce the bacon to 70%. I bake it on cookie sheets at 350 untill it is crisp. Works great. I use my confection over but have done it in a regular oven as well. I don't candy it at all.

Thanks Lana!

Would I be correct to assume if that I simply cook it until it is crisp and then folded it into the chocolate it is safe for several months?

I know we have all seen a lot of bacon and chocolate together in the past few years. Does anyone know how to make the bacon shelf stable when combined in a chocolate confection? Does the bacon need to be candied first? I greatly look forward to hearing your responses. Thanks!

Daniel

Take a look at the Sylph Winnower plans from Chocolate Alchemy. It's pretty simple to build and only need a vacuum cleaner as a power source. I have one and use it for small batches. Pura vida from Flamingo Beach!

Thank you, Ruth.

The last time I wrote to Thalia, Micki Weinberg (Regulatory & Culinary Specialist) answered. I wrote to her email address a couple of weeks ago and haven't had a reply.

The pastilles are not shiny, but they do break with a snap If I have time tomorrow, I will try the approach suggested on the website of warming slowly in a microwave to 95F so that 2/3 of the solids melt and stirring down to 90F.

It is good to hear that you can freeze chocolate and get good results.

thanks

baumgrenze

I haven't had that problem and I freeze chocolate on occasion. Call Thalia in the lab at Guittard. She can answer any question you have.

Does anyone know if storing dark chocolate at temperatures near freezing (35-45 F) can damage it so that it becomes very difficult to retemper?

I can see this happening when chocolate is shipped by truck (perhaps even colder this time of year) or by air (again I can think of sub-freezing temperatures.) My vendor of Guittard L Etoile Du Premiere-58% has no provision for holding chocolate in the manufacturer preferred range of 60-70F. The market is 'open-air' and on the San Francisco Penisula (would that Guittard allow ordering for will-call in Burlingame.)

I doubt that it is a moisture problem. No matter what I do the best I can achieve is a dull finish that is on the borderline of breaking with a snap. It does not bloom, but it does not shine.

I've taken 2# batches to 120F, hand tempered by generating a <80F mush on a slab (clean Caesarstone) and back blending to 90-92F. I'm frustrated and disappointed.

thanks,

baumgrenze

I've been experimenting with making my own bean-to-bar chocolate at home over the last few weeks and I've been lucky enough to have some pretty good results. Today I wrote an in-depth post on my blog explaining my process:

http://www.chocablog.com/features/making-bean-to-bar-chocolate/

I'd love to hear feedback on this - both to hear if it helps inspire anyone, but also to help improve my own technique. At this point I have a budget of basically zero, and everything I've done so far has cost less than 300 / $500.

I'm ready to be told I'm doing it all wrong, so feel free to criticise. My goal though is simply to open normal people up to the idea that they can make chocolate themselves. My readers are chocolate & confectionery consumers who know little about the industry, and if I can make home chocolate makers out of a few of them, I think I will have done a good job.