asterix2k10:
If you are looking to source from South America (Ecuador particularly) you should be at least as interested in the level of cadmium as lead. Cadmium is often found in volcanic soils.
If you are interested in Lawrence's offer, please private message him.
Lawrence - commercial offers belong in the Classifieds section.
The grease trap may be a requirement of local code. A treatment like this will not be considered to be an acceptable substitute.
If you're looking for an inexpensive grease trap, try the ones from Canplas - http://www.canplasplumbing.com/plumbing.aspx?CategoryId=4
I specified one for a project that fit under a 3-compartment sink and the unit cost under $300 if I recall correctly, sourced through a local plumbing supply outfit.
Daniel -
The fat in the chocolate is going to be no harder on the pipes than other fats. What you may want to institute is some sort of regular pipe cleaning with an enzymatic or similar product. Once a week, say as part of closing down on Friday.
Something like the following - http://www.ecos.com/earthenzymes.html
I have never actually used them, but I have used stuff like them. You need something to break down grease, not hair, and want something reasonably eco-friendly. I'd do something like this if I was using a grease trap.
Donny -
Mycryo is comparatively expensive. Cheebs' suggestion is a way to produce essentially the same product for significantly less money.
Darri -
I have to ask the same question about the sea salt - crispy flake says a little about the texture but nothing about the saltiness and other flavors that might be in the salt.
There are hundreds of different kinds of dark chocolate and many, many different flavors and texture of salt to consider.
Your challenge, I think, is to balance the saltiness of the salt with the chocolates you are using. Some chocolates can "stand up" to more salt, some chocolates can't, and need less salt. I would first start experimenting with a very limited number of chocolates and then play with the amounts of salt being used and how the salt is used (sprinkled on the surface, mixed in).
One thing to consider is that salt can reduce the sensation of bitterness. You may find that more bitter chocolates can take more salt, and that when the bitterness is reduced, that other flavors will come out.
Anthony -
You are a new member here, and I just sent you a private message on this. Direct commercial solicitation for business is restricted to the Classifieds section of this site. For businesses providing products and services, there is a small fee to post Classifieds.
I rely on the support of businesses like yours to help cover the operating costs of the site.
:: Clay
Patricia:
Is the reason you are hesitant cost? Why wouldn't you want to use food-safe inks?
Emilio -
I have to agree that the first step is to let people know where your farm is located and some information about the beans (variety, fermentation, grade), and the quantities you have to ship. Without that information it's almost impossible to know where to start.
Daniel -
Funny, I was just thinking about this over the weekend.
There are some inexpensive (under$1k) glycol recirculating chillers used in the beer world to cool the lines that go from the kegs to the taps. If you built a chocolate cooling slab (like this one: http://www.dr.ca/chocolate-cooling-slab.html ) and filled that with glycol, and then pumped the glycol from the chiller through a pipe - like a radiant heated floor - then you would not have to freeze the slab, and the glycol chiller would take it down to 55 or whatever temp you set. Total cost could be under $2k depending on the size of the table. Size gets to be the real issue here, and that's dependent on batch size.
:: Clay
The chocolate world was stunned to learn that on Saturday, May 31st, 2013, Mott Green died in Grenada.
Apparently, he working outside in the rain on something electrical and the unexpected happened.
It is easy to underestimate what Mott did for the cocoa economy of Grenada and for chocolate-lovers worldwide.
I had the great good fortune to call Mott a friend and I was also fortunate to be able to partake of his hospitality during a visit to Grenada in early 2010. It was during that trip, which involved meeting with members of the Grenada Cocoa Association and members of the Grenadian Agriculture Ministry that I got a real understanding of the transformation Mott was able to achieve on the island, some of the hurdles he overcame to achieve, and the work still to be done.
When I think about putting your money where your mouth is, and walking the walk when it comes to ethical and sustainable sourcing of cacao, Mott is one of a few at the very top of my list.
Yes, he could be a little intense and focused, but that was a part of his charm because you knew it was real, not forced or made up. I remember his simple quarters within the Grenada Chocolate Company factory, but also the exquisite meal he cooked. Freshly-caught fish, perfectly grilled, with a salad of greens from the garden. Nothing forced or contrived, just simple and honest.
Just like Mott.
The factory itself is a gem, and the radical improvement in the chocolate being produced over the past five years is nothing short of astonishing. What the Grenada Chocolate Company has done - and will continue to do, no doubt encouraged and supported by me and hundreds and thousands of others around the world - is proof that it can be done. You can treat the land and the farmers well and have a good business that makes good honest chocolate.
As I learn more about what's going to happen down in Grenada I will let people know. In the meantime if you have a photo or anecdote or idea, this is one place to gather them and share them with his friends, his family, and the world.
Krista:
I have had great experience with Qualita Paper in California.
Here's the main catalog page . If you scroll down you can see that they offer the cups in a wide variety of sizes, shapes, colors, materials (including foil), and patterns.
Here's the link to the page with the plain brown cups .
Colin -
What you're experiencing is pretty common - the general guidelines only go so far. There's something about your process that's unique to your process and you need to tinker and tweak to get to the place that works for you, with your equipment, in your workshop, with your chocolate, with your ingredients.
I was doing an install of an FBM machine last week and it was taking longer than I had hoped. One of the people involved had experience installing production lines for industrial scale filling and boxing of tea bags. Even though the basic machine components were the same from installation to installation he said it took up to three weeks to get all the components installed and tweaked to the point they were working seamlessly together.
I didn't feel so bad that it took me six hours rather than four to get everything on the temperer/enrober running properly. With one exception: we weren't able to nail down the temperatures - quite. It was a custom chocolate blend and it required extra tweaking to get right.
What you do have is more information to work from and a better understanding of the process. You can use that to experiment from a place of knowledge rather than blindly. And that's a good thing.
Colin:
This is from the class notes for a class on panning given by the National Confectioners' Association:
COATING PREPARATION
A wide variety of coatings can be used in a chocolate panning operation but each has
their own special requirements. Milk and dark chocolate usually are used at
temperatures of 100 to 110 F. while compound and special coatings at 110 to 115 F. The
coating should be melted and held at the desired controlled temperature for panning
with a heat controlled recirculation to the pans. Untempered chocolate is used for
panning. A flavor and texture difference is observed between panned and enrobed
chocolate products. The lower the chocolate temperature, the faster the centers will
build up in the pans but may be uneven and non-uniform from piece to piece.
Additional time is required to smooth the surface for polishing and glazing. Higher
temperature chocolate will spread more evenly but requires additional time to set. The
blending of milk and dark chocolate can easily be done in a chocolate panning operation
to give the desired flavor and color variation.
Here's the link to the class notes in their entirety.
Also - from Minifie - untempered. (The link is to Google Books and I can't copy and paste from that document so the above is a paraphrase.)
Also from The Science of Chocolate (Beckett) - untempered. (Link is to Google Books.)
Also from Industrial Chocolate Manufacture and Use (Beckett)- untempered. (Link is to Google Books.)
Vladislav -
I will send you catalog sheets.
The cold room should work fine, it's not as productive as working with a cooling tunnel because you have to start and stop the enrober belt.
The machines will be shipped from Legagno, which is just outside of MIlan, Italy.
Vladislav --
There are many videos about FBM equipment on their YouTube channel - http://www.youtube.com/user/fbmboscolo
As to the question of what is the maximum capacity of the belt ?
Don't think about kilos of chocolate per hour as the measure of capacity when buying an enrobing system. It's all about the average number of piece per hour you can put through the machine.
Your throughput will depend on the size of the pieces you are enrobing, what's being done after the pieces come off the belt (how they are decorated), how many people are working the line (1 or 2 or more), how well the work is organized, how much experience the operators have working together, the width of the belt, and whether or not you have a cooling tunnel.
An average of 1000 pieces/hr over an 8 hour shift at 5gr of chocolate/piece is 5kg/hr, or 40kg/day or about 1MT/month of chocolate per month producing roughly 18,000 pieces.
Think about the number of pieces you need to produce, not how much chocolate you're using and work from there. FBM's Compatta, with a 12kg working bowl and an 18cm belt can handle the 5kg/hr required to produce 18,000 pieces/month. If you want to produce more than that, I would recommend moving up to a wider belt and seriously consider a cooling tunnel.
LIST prices for FBM tempering machines with enrober belts run from about 11,000 (7kg working bowl, 18cm belt) to 33,000 (60kg working bowl, 40cm wide belt). Cooling tunnels range from about 22,000 to 37,000 depending on width (30 or 40cm) and length (4-10 meters).
I can send you catalog pages via email if you want more information.
Vladislav:
I represent FBM equipment to ChocolateLife members around the world. FBM introduced continuous tempering technology to the artisan chocolatier market back in 1977 and has been a technology leader since then. FBM was also the first company to introduce all-digital controls on their machines back in 1997.
One thing to consider about enrobing belts is that the actual amount of chocolate you need is relatively small. If you are running 500 pieces per hour through the machine and putting 5 grams of chocolate on each piece, you only need 2.5kg of chocolate per hour. Getting a machine with a working bowl of 24kg that can temper >90kg/hr of chocolate is much more capacity that you can use and it costs a lot more than you should have to pay.
FBM makes machines with 7kg and 12kg working bowl capacities that accept an enrober belt and that cost thousands of Euros less than Selmi machines. All FBM machines are made to order, so you can get yours customized if you want. A common customization is a longer take-off belt. You can also get a device that will sprinkle chopped nuts and the like over the top of your enrobed items.FBM will build and deliver the machine you need.
In order to increase the capacity of your enrobing line you need to increase the width of the belt, not the size of the tank. The FBM Unica (which has a 25kg working bowl) can be equipped with a 25cm-wide enrober belt instead of the standard 18cm belt. This increases the capacity of the system by about 30%. FBM also makes tempering/enrobing units with 30cm (45kg working bowl) and 40cm (60kg working bowl) belts.
I can also offer ChocolateLife members a 10% discount off the list prices on all machines (not including shipping, etc.).
Fin:
There's no way we can even begin to start thinking about helping you unless you can tell us the brand and model of tempering machine you're talking about.
Ruth -
Thanks for the reference materials.
It is a little confusing because chocolate is not technically an emulsion but a suspension or dispersion so while lecithin in an emulsifier does it act as an emulsifier when it's not used in an emulsion?
Free water does play a role, and lecithin works, in part, by reducing the surface tension between any water in the suspension and the rest of the ingredients. The physics and chemistry is a lot more complicated than that, of course.
Evan - as for the question in the last paragraph you'll have to test it out for yourself. Using liquid sweeteners is not common in chocolate and most of the people I know who do use liquid sweeteners do not use lecithin.
While Brad is right that many if not all of your questions will be answered on Chocolate Alchemy as the owner of this site I like to think that members of TheChocolateLife so have something to add that could be unique.
Question Set 1)
If you don't want to go bean to bar yet, your only option is to work from paste and/or butter and/or powder. Many companies in the raw chocolate community got their start this way and continue to work this way. If you use a liquid sweetener or coconut palm nectar you do not need a melangeur to incorporate (grind) the sweetener into the other ingredients. Because of the water in honey, maple syrup, and agave syrup and they are the identical sweetness of cane sugar you will find that tempering is different from chocolate that uses a crystalline sugar and that recipes will differ.
Question Set 2)
The trend is definitely toward lighter-weight bars especially for bars made from expensive ingredients that would otherwise have a very high price point. I've seen them as low as 25gr (Domori) up to the 70-80gr range. What makes sense for your market depends on your cost structure. You can choose the price point - bar weight - based on your cost of goods and cost of manufacturing.
Question Set 3)
If you are looking for custom molds and don't want to spend US$5k or more, you are looking at thermoform molds. I don't who the manufacturers are in Canada. Tomric in Rochester, NY offers a good thermoform mold program and Micelli Brothers (also in New York) is offering a mold program for custom injection polycarbonate molds for small producers at $5000 for 100 molds that includes design, prototypes, and manufacturing, but not shipping.
Question Set 4)
Everyone I know who knows anything about sunflower lecithin says stay away from it in chocolate because it does not have a neutral taste and it will affect the taste of the chocolate negatively. You can get certified GMO-free soy lecithin (if GMO is the issue, not allergies. Lecithin will improve the workability and texture of conventional chocolate. As you are looking at sweeteners with a very high water content, I am not sure what the outcome will be.
Lawrence -
You did not indicate that your purchase decision was imminent so I don't think anyone thought you needed to know right now.
You can get a decent capacity melter - 10-12kg - for well under $1000. As you are confident with your manual tempering skills this is the least expenisve way to expand capacity in the price range you mention.
The other option is a small-capacity Chocovision (the Rev 2 specifically) is about your only choice. Get the holey baffle to increase your capacity, but it will still be lower than the melter. The one advantage a Chocovision does have is that it will do a better job of keeping the chocolate in temper over the course of several hours of working time. With the melter you will have to watch it more closely and be responsible for keeping it in temper.
It's a toss-up. If you are really, really comfortable with your manual tempering skills then you will probably be able to do a better job of tempering by hand than the Chocovision can. The difference is manual versus semi-automatic.
:: Clay
Karen -
Jeffray makes a good point about refrigeration. In my experience, it's best to use the freshest berries you can get and then keep them at room temp if you can. I try never to buy further in advance than the day before (or Friday for weekend festivals). I rinse the berries in cool water and place them on a towel, then dry the berry usinglint-free microfiber cloths. I don't worry about getting the leaves/stems perfectly dry. If I have to worry about longevity, I use gel packs in rack a large cooler and don't put the berries in a refrigerator.
When it comes to the dipping in chocolate part the berries need to perfectly dry. I also use lint-free microfiber cloths here.
I have spent many weekends at various festivals with a pair of Chocovision Rev2s dipping hundreds and hundreds of strawberries and dried apricots garnished with slices of candied ginger (and don't forget pretzels sticks for the kids).
Mike:
One way to look at the question is to take a look at the price you're going to be able to charge for your finished product and then work backwards from there.
If your market will pay for a premium product at 60 or more per kilo then you've got a lot of freedom to choose the chocolate you want. If your market has trouble paying20/kg then you need to look a lot harder at your chocolate choices.
Keep in mind that there's nothing magical about the air or water in Belgium or Switzerland or France that makes their chocolate any better than chocolate manufactured elsewhere. They all use pretty much the same machinery, they all use pretty much the same beans (that is, until you get into the premium brands).After that it's just marketing.
I think it's a matter of taste. Buy the chocolate you like. That said, there are people who think that Belgian chocolate is best or Swiss chocolate is best and if your market has a lot of people who've bought into the marketing hype then it makes sense to pay attention to that fact and use it to your advantage. From personal experience {{{{ shudder, trying to forget bad tasting experiences }}}} I can tell you that there is a lot of crap chocolate made in Belgium and Switzerland.
One approach I recommend to all my consulting clients is to consider blending two or more couvertures to arrive at a distinctive taste profile. One of the challenges with using the same chocolate that everyone else does is that it's much harder to differentiate your product from others when the base ingredient tastes the same. Another thing to consider is always using the same chocolate for the enrobing and shells, and then to use different chocolates for the fillings.
So - I wouldn't go for a "safe" choice, I'd go for something that gives you a competitive edge over all of the other confectioners in your market.
Melanie -
Brian Donaghy is a member here and has worked with Tomric. He can probably tell you what they are if you send him a PM and ask.
Kevin -
As there is no water in chocolate, technically it does not dry. It crystallizes and hardens as it cools. Not a big deal but it is helpful to be technically accurate.
These mats are expensive,but, there may be a couple of ways to make one that's not too stupidly expensive.
What comes immediately to mind is to use a laser etcher on a sheet of thin stainless. There is certainly a laser etching service near you (search online) that can do this. You could also use a 3D printer to make a pattern and pull custom molds using food-grade silicon. In both cases, aCAD file of the logo would be the input and you'd create a step and repeat pattern before actually etching or printing the design.
Another thing to consider is custom transfer sheets. Not infinitely reusable as the mat is, but easy to source.
:: Clay
Karen -
There are so many ways to approach answering this question it's hard to begin.
Brad had some very good advice in the thread on coming up with a name for a new chocolate business and it call comes down to doing your homework, then doing some more. The main reason you're not finding the information you are looking for is that the information does not exist. There is no place to find numbers for how much revenue a small retail location "should" do. I am not surprised that the CoC and other local business resources can't help because they have no experience in this area.
Concept and execution are hugely important but not as important as understanding your market and giving them what they want.
Also - being precise: Is that $4k/month gross receipts or gross profits? On the one hand it would be tempting to conclude that you don't do anything and you can rake in $2k/month on incidental walk-in business in a hard-to-find location. Doubling that in a real retail location should be a no-brainer. But is it a brainer. In part because running a retail business is different from running a production business.
I do know that you can't take an "If I open it, they will come" attitude toward the shop. You need to think of the shop as one element of a campaign to grow your business and you need to decide what success means for you.
In my experience, business plans tend to be self-fulfilling prophecies. If you don't have high expectations going in, you won't achieve much. If the shop is going to be an engine of growth for you, think about what it might take to double sales and gross revenue. What does that mean? What will that take? Are you committed to doing it? Decide what the goal is then make the plan to reach the goal. You already have established a brand and a reputation so there's a solid foundation to build on.
But do your homework. What does the community want and need? Chances are it's not a place to buy obscure $10 chocolate bars - or at least not enough of them to keep the lights on and the doors open. Look around and see what's missing in the community that you can incorporate into your plan. The better prepared you are in this respect, the better your chances of achieving success - however you define it. But I would not go into this with low expectations - or that's all you may achieve.
Brad -
Are you sure there's NO benefit? I my experience, it's a lot easier and faster to fill a CocoaTown with liquor than it is using nib. Also, because of the pre-grind step, batches tend to need to spend less time in the CocoaTown to get to the desired PSD. For the same reasons, I find that pre-grinding the sugar also reduces the amount of time needed in the CocoaTown.
For very small batch production it's one of the things that a Champion is good for, and I also refine up the whole vanilla bean in the sugar in the food processor.
Now - it's important to note that these pre-grind steps, especially when it comes to sugar, can have an effect on the final taste of the chocolate. So it's important to pay attention so you know what's going on.
And I completely agree, Brad -- sieves are very cheap and I would recommend that they be used for all production, no matter what type of machinery is being used, and even if pre-grinding is used. YOU NEVER KNOW what might be in the chocolate. A piece of metal could flake off. A sieve will catch it (especially if it is magnetized).
Sara:
In the discussion Larry links to, I point out that the least expensive storage solution is a chest freezer with a thermostat override. You can set the temp of the freezer to be in the 55-65F range, which is perfect for storage. Because the top opens, less cold air leaks out than when using a front-opening fridge.
There are no formal industry standards as to what "single-origin" means. It's probably not a bad idea because of the widespread use of the term and the potential for misleading buyers.
I stopped using the phrase "single-origin" when talking about chocolate a long time ago because, for me, it's no longer either meaningful nor helpful. I now just use the single word "origin." An origin chocolate is one where the place where the beans come from is indicated on the label.
The origin may be big - an entire country: Venzuela. It could be a region: Carenero, Sur del Lago (by Lake Maracaibo), Ocumare. It could be small: a village/community (Chuao) or a farm (Hacienda Concepcion, Hacienda San Jose).
Is a chocolate a single-origin chocolate if it is a blend of beans from two different growing areas of the same country?It might be if your definition of the origin is an entire country. Otherwise not.
Another nuance to consider for companies adding cocoa butter to their chocolate: To be a "true" single origin the cocoa butter has to come from the same place that the beans come from. It's not single-origin if the beans are grown in Venezuela and the cocoa butter is Ghanaian deodorized.
If you really wanted to be picky about it, a "true" single origin would have ALL of the ingredients come from the same origin. Should a "single-origin" from the Dominican Republicbe made with Dominican sugar?
Finally,a varietal name is not an originand can be confusing. Ocumare is also a varietal - and they grow in other places besides Ocumare. (I've seen them in a gene bank in Bolivia - at least they were identified as Ocumare, but that's another story.)
In the end, you have to trust everyone in the supply chain to be telling the truth. Traceability is supposed to be part of agri- and social certifications. Does that mean that accidents and fraud don't happen? Of course not.
Sebastian is totally right about genetic variability within a pod. It depends, from what I have been told, on how many times the flower has been successfully fertilized. This more times, the greater the genetic diversity within the pod. From what I have been told, cacao is nearly unique, if not unique in this respect.
Sebastian -
I was talking through this with a ChocolateLife member who makes a bacon bar and his understanding - as it was explained to heim by federal inspectors - was that as long as the percentage of bacon was below a certain level then getting a USDA meat license is not a requirement.
He is on his way to becoming what he says is the first small-scale chocolate and confectionery producer to be USDA licensed.
Shannon:
This is a case of the food inspectors not knowing much (or anything) about chocolate (or compound).
There is no water in chocolate so there is nothing for bacteria/yeast/molds/spores to grow in.
You can leave a bar of chocolate out "in the danger zone" for months or years and nothing will grow on it (or in it), unless it gets wet.Cross contamination is really only an issue if you introduce something with water in it - dairy ingredients for example. You always want to make sure to keep things clean, including your hands, but most importantly you want to keep everything that comes in contact with the chocolate/compound dry.
That said, you are right. There is no easily accessible documentation from a source that a health inspector would believe was an authority. (However, this discussion is up in Google search results in about 3 hours.)
However, keeping chocolate and compound in melters all day long is standard for the business. It's done everywhere, all day long.
Maybe Sebastian has some documentation that would address this issue?
Rosanne:
I just want to make sure that I understand that you're looking for this ganache to be the filling between layers of the cake.
And - how cool is cool?
The observation about glucose is interesting ... but did you know that honey is also an invert sugar and that it can be used the same way that glucose/trimoline are used? Try Brad's recipe with a neutral-flavored honey (or replace some of the sugar with honey) and use as little extra water as possible when heating the fruit to incorporate the sugar/honey.
Also, once you open your containers of dairy, technically they are no longer pasteurized. So while heavy cream has a lot more water than butter does, you can put it on a stove and re-pasteurize it (bring it to a boil, take it off the heat for 1 minute, return it to a boil a second time, take it off the heat for one minute, re-boil, take off the heat and let cool to 160F (70C) then use the heat of the cream to melt the chocolate.
When you mix the ingredients together - cream, chocolate, sweetened fruit puree - take care to mix in as little air as possible. Use a wooden spoon or spatula and not a balloon whisk. There are spores in the air that will grow in the water in recipe. The more air you mix into the recipe the more spores there will be.
Brad:
From personal experience dealing with many, many people in the chocolate world at all levels of experience and understanding from all over the world for more than a decade, I can tell with certainty that it is possible for someone to hold two contradictory opinions in their heads at the same time. Usually it is out of ignorance (often only partial knowledge as we all know a little knowledge is a dangerous thing) and not out of any deliberate attempt to misrepresent.
What I do like about the above reply is that you spent some time to find and present information about HAACP and present it in this discussion.
What I don't like about the above is that you presume malice on the part of the OP. I am a voracious reader and one quote I like is(I am paraphrasing here): "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by ignorance." I also like this one from Goethe: "...misunderstandings and neglect create more confusion in this world than trickery and malice. At any rate, the last two are certainly much less frequent."
The root of my approach to moderating TheChocolateLife is to assume that people have incomplete knowledge and incomplete understanding. It is rare, I have found for people to deliberately misrepresent themselves here.
That's where I start from. I've been working in chocolate for over a decade and I freely admit that there is stuff I don't know. And there is stuff I will never know. But it's one of the reasons I started TheChocolateLife - so I could learn from thousands of others around the world who love chocolate. I did not create TheChocolateLife as a forum for members to publicly shame and ridicule other members because they did not have perfect knowledge.
There's a line in my book about the most important thing to take to a chocolate tasting - and that's a sense of humor. I go on to say that it's okay to take the chocolate seriously but we should be wary about taking our selves too seriously. Having humility and empathy is important, in my opinion.
And that's the tone I am striving for here, and it has certainly informed my approach to my chocolate career, moving away from calling myself a critic and focusing on mentoring and educating.
I try to lead by example - and sometimes I fail. And the community has lost some very strong, technically, members. And the community is the less for that. However, it's important for me to keep in mind at all times that this is just chocolate.
Brad - You have a lot of useful and valuable information to impart to the community. What you don't recognize (or if you do you simply don't care) is that you undermine yourself and your knowledge when you choose to be confrontational.
All I am asking is that you respect my wishes about how I want members address and speak to other members. I am very clear about that in the member guidelines and in the way I moderate discussions. You can make all the points you make - and people will actually want to listen to you - by being less confrontational.
It's like Gordon Ramsey is your role model here.
TheChocolateLife is not your community. You may feel, as a member, that you are entitled to unbridled expression: That is not the case.If you want a place where you are free to say whatever you want, however you want, then by all means start your own blog or community and open it up forunmoderated(prior to posting) comments from readers/members. It is in this last aspect that I lost any remaining shred of respect for Sam. She makes untrue allegations about me - publicly - but is unwilling to allow any form of feedback or rebuttal.
And at this point, I am closing this discussion for at least 48 hours to let the flames die down.
Brad:
The language and attitude is totally uncalled for. We've had these discussions privately. You can make the points you want to make without being either overbearing or condescending.
Please.
Russ:
Without actually trying it, I can't see why there would be any particular benefit to using a grinder like the ECGC12SL as a mixer, which is what you're really looking to do - mix all the ingredients together and create a more stable suspension.
How long were you thinking you'd need to leave everything in to mix? I am thinking 10-15 minutes tops, which would mean that there would be little chance for any evaporation to happen - which you do want, actually, water in the suspension increases viscosity significantly.
Most dried honey powder is a little honey and a lot of filler - usually maltodextrin. Good luck in finding something that is pure honey. I and others have been looking and we haven't found anything yet.
Russ:
Colin Green in Australia started a related discussion on honey and chocolatea couple of months ago - you might want to check to see if some of the answers you seek are there.
Lieven:
Your production target very wide - 45-90kg chocolate per day (assuming 220 working days/year) soSebastian is right in asking what your budget is. There are several different ways to get there, and many more ways NOT to get there.
Gustaf:
On this last question: it depends on the recipe. What is the percentage of cocoa? Dark chocolate could be in the range 35% cocoa to 100% cocoa.
Also, if cocoa butter is added to the recipe you need to know the extraction ratio of non-fat cocoa solids to fat in order to know how many beans were used to generate a specific amount of cocoa butter.
And then - you need to know the fat ratio of the beans themselves. 47% fat? 53% fat?
And then - what variety of beans are you talking about? Industry is more or less standardized around 100 beans == 100 grams. However, some varieties, like the wild beans from Bolivia, are upwards of 140-160 beans per 100 grams. It takes many more Bolivian wild beans to make a kilo of chocolate than CCN51, which are much larger.
Not sure why you want to know the answer, but the question is only answerable within a narrow range, and only after you have values for the variables involved.
One of the reasons small bean-to-bar chocolate makers don't use added cocoa butter in their recipes is because, in order to be truly single-origin, the cocoa butter should come from the same beans used to make the chocolate.
Another reason often cited is that adding deodorized cocoa butter "dilutes" the flavor of the chocolate. Undeodorized cocoa butter has a flavor so it doesn't have the problem of diluting the flavor it has the problem of altering the flavor of the chocolate. Adding undeodorized Ghana butter to a chocolate made from Madagascar beans and what's the result?
Which way to go? It's up to you as the chocolate maker to decide. If you are going to be marketing single-origin chocolates then I think you've got a problem using cocoa butter that's not from the same origin, irrespective of whether it's deodorized or un-. If you don't have that issue, then un- is the way to go.
And - BTW - here in the US, white chocolate is legally chocolate, as long as the recipe conforms to the Standard of Identity (if it doesn't you can't call it white chocolate). FYI, perhaps the best white chocolate in the world is made with undeodorized cocoa butter: El Rey's Icoa. I tad heavily roasted for taste, but it does taste like cocoa and not sweet dairy.
Kerry -
My thoughts exactly with Qzina and D+R - I was going to suggest them. Didn't know about France Decor.
Mark -
Having used it, I can say that Blommer's undeodorized cocoa butter is quite good. You have to order 1 tonne if you go through them, but if you call them you can find out the name of your local distributor. That's what I did when I needed some here in NYC - it was a restaurant/bakery ingredient company.
The price was quite good for what we got - only challenge for you going this route is that I believe the smallest size if a 35lb tub. That said, it will probably be one of the less expensive alternatives on a per-pound basis so it might not end up costing that much more than a more expensive cocoa butter in small quantities.
:: Clay
