How can I make airbrushing cocoa butter in molds more efficient and foolproof

I am a professional chocolatier; however, I really struggle with airbrushed molded bon bons. I do mostly enrobed confections, but I need a few really pretty molded pieces to balance things out. This morning I was fighting with our airbrush. It sprayed cocoa butter for the first mold or two and then it would not cooperate after that. I took it apart. I heat gunned it. I shook it. I prayed over it. I heat gunned it again.  It just would not spray!

I have a Paasche airbrush. It is a simple one. I have an Iwata compressor. It was saying 60 PSI . My compressor is from 2008 so maybe that is getting a bit old. 

Even though I make my living making chocolates, I am completely confused. Should I buy a new airbrush? Should I buy a new compressor? How can I make this process more efficient and fool proof?

I have seen a lot of members with beautiful molded pieces. I would love to hear from you!

Daniel

What size needle do you have on the Paasche?

Hi Kerry,

I think this may have been the source of my problem! What I was provided was .5mm . I now have a 1mm needle and it is working better.

I noticed some colored cocoa butters are more difficult to airbrush. For example the white cocoa butter is easy to pass through the airbrush and other colors are more challenging. The purple is a color I have to struggle with.

Have you used any other methods of spraying colored cocoa butter? Have you used any of the larger machines? My main concern is wasting expensive cocoa butter.

Thanks for all your contributions! I have learned so much from you!

Daniel

I'm a big fan of the Fuji - www.fujispray.com - they are putting together a chocolate system these days after I started referring a lot of chocolatiers there. They do go through the cocoa butter - but they are fast - and time is money.

I've been making some of my own coloured cocoa butters using the IBC Power Flowers - you can get consistent colours using their palette to mix.