Equipment
updated by @roy-mcclish: 04/10/15 02:38:35PM
John over at chocolate alchemy sells everything you need. www.ChocolateAlchemy.com
Have fun!
I have settled in buying nibs or liquor and doing my own conch/grind ($600 machine), then temper ($530 machine) and mold ($200 so far). If you roast in your oven, crack in a big mortar pesto, winnow with a blow dryer and do a first grind in a champion juicer (I think $150), I think that is about as basic as you can go.
I was in your shoes a few months ago so let me share some thoughts.You need to get a melanguer. I'm happy with the Santha 11 I got from chocolate alchemy. Get polycarbonate molds, the ones called "hobby molds" probably won't last a week and I can't see how you'd get air bubbles out with them. You probably want to get some cocoa butter. If you want to start very slowly, you can skip quite a few steps by buying some roasted nibs, put them in a Cuisinart and then into your melangeur without additional processing. My best batch so far was done this way (I got some Madagascar nibs from Amano so not very cost efficient). Beyond that you need a way to temper. You can learn to do it without special equipment or buy a tempering machine. This is the only mistake I feel I made. If you get a tempering machine, spend the extra money for the one that's 6 lbs or 6 kgs or whatever. The Revolation is just too small to handle a full load from the Santha, probably would take 10 cycles.
Good luck.
Hi Roy. To separate the cocoa butter from the liquor, you'll need to buy or build a press. You'll still need to create the liquor from nib first.
Which tempering machine did you get?
Thanks,
Ben
I haven't looked into presses too much, so I don't have any suggestions. I think there has been some discussion about them here on TCL, though.
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