Q: What's the diameter of the bowl?
A: Diameter of the bowl is 14 inches. You can easily dump your polycarbonate molds into it. The overall height of the machine is 15 inches, so it can easily sit on a chair and be perfectly flush with your kitchen table.
Q: How many kilos can it hold?
A: It will temper 1 kilo or up to 8 kilos. Each litre of volume is about 1kg.
Q: What about cooling? That is always the longest part of the tempering curve.
A: All table top tempering machines use ambient room air temp to cool, because adding a compressor and cooling device would not only make the machine much larger and heavier, but also significantly more expensive and complex. This machine is no different in that respect. HOWEVER.... Unlike any other tempering machine on the market, you can turn on and off the first two of the three tempering steps. This gives the operator ultimate flexibility with respect to how they handle their chocolate.
Each tempering cycle has three set points: 1. Heat 2. Cool 3. Reheat.
If your chocolate is already hot, and you start your tempering cycle, it will figure that out and move to the cool stage or you can just turn set point one off completely. The machine will then start at 2 and move to three automatically.
Maybe you want to melt it and cool it quicker - say in a water bath like I demonstrate on my website. No problem . Turn off set point one and two, and pour your cooled and crystalized chocolate into the bowl, push the cycle start button and walk away. It will bring the chocolate up to your working temperature and hold it for you all day.
Maybe you have tempered chocolate. Maybe you don't . It doesn't matter. You can dump any kind of chocolate into it, set your temperature points, push cycle start, motor start, and walk away. If the chocolate is cold, the motor will start automatically once the temperature sensor reads 80F/26.5C
Unlike other machines the motor operates independently of the tempering cycle. This allows you turn off the motor to dip, pour, mix or whatever. It will continue to try and regulate the temperature of the chocolate. That being said, the significantly enlarged workspace helps reduce the need to turn the motor off.
Also: If something happens and your chocolate gets too cool, the motor will automatically go into a "Hold" mode where it will shut off and wait until the chocolate is again at a safe temperature before restarting. The software in the control center figures that out for you so that you don't turn around and find chocolate crawling out of the bowl (we have had this happen WAAAAY too many times with Hilliards, ACMC, and Pavoni machines).
Baffle: unlike other machines where the baffle goes all the way across the bowl, essentially cutting your workspace in half, this machine's baffle is removed and replaced with a scraper that agitates the chocolate just enough to keep it from completely crystalizing. This gives the operator maximum workspace.
Let's say you're working and running low on chocolate. This is where this machine REALLY shines! Melt more chocolate very quickly on a double boiler and cool it to 95 degrees F in a water bath. While it's cooling, drop setpoint 3 (you can do that in real time with this machine WITHOUT having to reset the temper cycle) temperature to 83F/27C it will begin to overcrystalize the chocolate in the bowl. Once it's there, and you can see your chocolate getting thick, simply dump the new chocolate into the bowl and raise the working temperature again to your own working temperature. The new chocolate will help bring up the temperature of the chocolate in the bowl and vice versa - eventually equalling out. The machine will ensure that the temperature hits your target point. Wait a few minutes for the new and old chocolate to mix and the temperature to become consistent, and presto! a bowl full of perfectly tempered chocolate (provided of course that your existing chocolate was overcrystalized to begin with Haha!!) You can even have spare chocolate premelted and cooled on your stove to add to the machine throughout the day. (We do this all the time so we never have to go through the tempering process after the first cycle in the morning).
One other thing: because this machine is for the most part round, there is a HECK of a lot less cleanup at the end of the day. You don't have a machine with chocolate poured all over it, or a mess of chocolate in the bolt mounts for a baffle that isn't needed in the first place!
As someone who has worked with thousands and thousands of kgs of chocolate over the years, and broken or made a mess with every P.O.S. table top tempering machine out there. I can assure you that this machine eliminates ALL of the hassle of working with a table top machine.
...and it's not going to break the bank. After all the price is in Canadian funds. Our dollar isn't worth much outside of Canada! LOL
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Brad@Choklat.com
