Time allotment

Kelly Sayers
@kelly-sayers
01/30/13 02:12:00PM
4 posts

I have been doing some preliminary research into home brewing chocolate set up. My question referes to time allotment for each step in the process using the following equipment,

Behmor Roaster

Crankanstein Cracker

Home Made Winnower

Pregrinder

Spectra 11 Melanger

Little dipper temper

If anyone has any suggestions or other forums to point me to please by all mean and any help is appreciated. Im costing and would like to know approximate times on say 20lbs of cocoa.


updated by @kelly-sayers: 04/09/15 11:07:13PM
Gap
@gap
01/30/13 04:36:53PM
182 posts

Kelly - this is a bit like asking how long a piece of string is but I'll try and give some guidance from my (limited) experience.

I seem to remember the Behomer Roaster has a 2lb - 2 1/2lbcapacity and the times seem to be roughly 16-20 mins per roast (I haven't used one before, so I'm just going from what I've read). So 20lb would be 2-3 hours of roasting time.

I haven't used a Crankenstein, but cracking doesn't take a long time - 20lb would take me approx 10-15 mins at home using a Champion, so I can't imagine it would take much longer than that . . . maybe half an hour??

Homemade winnower will depend entirely on your design and how efficient it is.

Pre-grinding I don't do but I have seen it done on Youtube videos and it seems fairly quick with a hand-crank device . . . maybe another 30 mins

Spectra . . . this is your swing variable. I've had my chocolate in the machine for as little as 8 hours and as long as 30 hours. Depends on the beans, sugar, milk powders etc you're using and flavour you're aiming for.

Tempering and moulding can be time consuming initially but is something you get quicker at and depends on your setup. I have not used a Little Dipper, but believe it is a melting tank rather than a tempering machine. I hand temper and mould my bars with a Mold Art 6kg melting tankand would take ~2 hours for 20lbs based on my setup. 20lbs is a lot though - if you wanted to do it all in one go you'd need quite a few bar moulds and a large capacity melting tank.

Cleanup also takes time and depends on your setup and how clean you work.

Kelly Sayers
@kelly-sayers
01/30/13 04:43:45PM
4 posts

Hi Gap,

I really appreciate your post! great stuff and from my limited experience and reading I have come up with similar times. Im glad you made a point on the little dipper machine because Im very close to purchasing an analog model. On the Hilliard website it says that it is a compact melting and tempering unit so I think it should be fine.

Again thanks for the reply

Kelly

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