Forum Activity for @Clay

Jim:

A general discussion on ROI issues surrounding equipment - that all members can read - would be valuable to all members rather than taking every conversation private.

Daniel:

You're probably not going to be able to make batches of caramel that size on an induction burner efficiently and cost-effectively. Best to invest in a machine specifically designed to make caramel in those quantities. Consider electric models because, depending on where you are (and you have to check w/ local authorities) you may not need special venting and fire suppression. Gas units may require a hood at least.

Savage Bros also make water-jacketed cooling tables.

Kim: Many induction burners have cut-off switches that turn the burner off when a certain temperature is reached for a certain time. When you have to get huge masses of sugar hot for a long time, it's common for the burners to turn themselves off to keep them from overheating.

If I was going to be making a lot of caramel, I would purchase the highest wattage (2000 minimum)220V professional unit I could.

Daniel -

What kinds of production quantity are you talking about? Induction burners can be made to work (you should overbuy wattage), but if you're making a LOT you might want to look into something like aSavage Bros FireMixer 14 or 92 .

Eileen -

There is no "typical." You need to look at YOUR cost structure and what you hope to achieve.

When it comes to sales mix, you can model different percentages of revenue from different sources in order to be able to determine what mix brings you to profitability. In many respects, this sort of modeling becomes self-fulfilling prophecy. Figure out what mix works for you and then plan your marketing and sales efforts accordingly.

There are no hard and fast rules other than if you underprice (often mistakenly) you will go out of business. You need to look at what you want to achieve, not look to others for guidance. What works for someone else might not work for you.

Eileen -

You have to do some math to figure out what works. At $1.68 plus $0.12, your cost of goods is $1.80. Is you run that through a multi-tier pricing model (what's your gross margin, what's a broker markup, what's a distributor markup (this gets you to the wholesale price), what's the retailer markup, then you arrive at a suggested retail price. Once you can model this you can figure out if any quote is too expensive.

I just did this exercise for someone and put together a spreadsheet to work on multi-year sales forecasting and gross profit margin projections. I've taken out all the extra stuff and left just the COGS and markup lines so you can play with them yourself to see how they interact.

Note that Gross Margin is not the same as markup and I've done that calculation properly. Also, I've assumed a three-tier sales strategy just so all the costs of distribution are factored in. I've noticed that companies that assume they're always going to be able to sell direct to the retailer or customer get crushed when they have to use a distributor because they've never thought about what those layers would do to their cost structure. You can set the percentages to be whatever you want (including 0%) to see how changes affect costs.

For those who don't care to download the spreadsheet, a $1.80 cost of goods, 30% gross margin (you earn $0.77/unit), 10% broker markup (36 cents), 20% distributor markup (79 cents), and 100% retailer markup results in a suggested retail price of $6.79. Going from 30% gross margin to 50% gross margin jacks up the retail price to $9.50.

Of course you don't need all those tiers and your markup and percentages may be different. However, I'd work with this structure so you understand exactly what you're earning (or giving away). In the beginning, if you sell direct to the retailer you get to keep the broker and wholesaler markups, raising your revenue per unit to $1.82 (a 50% gross margin, which is pretty good).

Eileen -

There is not enough here to answer your question because we have no idea what chocolate you are using. The price above comes to about $9.60/lb for the chocolate. That probably means the company is paying no more than $3-4/lb which limits the range of suppliers. A 3x markup seems high but when you factor in losses due to chocolate being left in the machines and changeover, it really isn't. If you use this 3x rule of thumb and apply it to a variety of recipes, you'll see that changing the cost of the base chocolate (and ingredients) does to that side of the cost model.

What you REALLY want to know is the cost of taking a chocolate (ANY chocolate) and molding, wrapping, and packing it into boxes, ready to ship and sell.

I have heard prices ranging anywhere from 40 cents to $1.75/bar for labor associated with bar production, exclusive of the cost of ingredients and the packaging itself.

From there you can start playing with the chocolate being used (and any flavorings/inclusions/other ingredients) to get to the first rung for the pricing structure. You also have to ask questions about minimum runs. If you want only 100 bars to start, labor costs are going to be very high. Minimum runs are often in the 10,000+ range to start getting labor and related prices (including changeover costs) into the reasonable range. for the company doing the work.

In the sense that you would use it for pre-grinding, refining, and conching - yes. It's is very small, though, and I wonder if it would be able to be run for 24-72 hours at a stretch, which is what it can take to convert nib and sugar into finished chocolate.

Beth:

Taste the liquor. What's the texture? How much acidity is in it? That will tell you if the liquor has been conched at all - or just refined. There's no standard procedure for this, but I would guess that most liquors are not conched though they may be ground finely enough so that the texture is okay ... but not all are.

Both sugar and cocoa butter tend to grab on to aromas - good ones and bad ones - making it harder to drive them off. A general strategy would be to work with just the liquor for several hours before adding any other ingredients (e.g., sugar) and then grind/refine/conche until you get the flavor you want and then add the cocoa butter.

Question - commercial powdered sugar or sugar you are powdering yourself? Most commercial powdered sugar has cornstarch in it and you don't want that in your chocolate bar.

Michael -

Macintyre manufactures universals of many sizes with the smallest being about 45kg as I remember. There are many makers of this style of machine. They are not just conches - they are grinders, refiners, and conches and you can get them in sizes up to many tonnes.

And yes - they are fast, which is one reason chocolate manufacturers like them.

Challenge is, many people stretch to buy a single ECGC65 so even a small universal from Macintyre - starting prices well over $20k - is too much for most people. There are machines from China that are much less expensive but they have bad reputations for reliability. I am working with a company out of South America to bring a 40kg universal to the US for well under $10k - probably not until September at the earliest.

The conche I was referring to in the last paragraph is not a universal. It's a new machine I helped shepherd through the design and manufacturing process with FBM. It's a 50kg melting tank with integrated pump with a conche attachment that fits over the bowl of the melter. When conching it has a capacity of about 35kg (you need head space in the top of the machine for air flow). You can pump in a lot of heat and air and generate a lot of shear force (through counter-rotating stirrers not grinding) and the pump moves the chocolate from the bottom of the bowl to the top the entire time.

It's really quite effective and it gives small chocolate makers a lot of control they don't have now over the flavor development process. It's not a grinder or a melangeur - it's a small, fast, conche that is also a melting tank so it has a lot of applications in the craft chocolate workshop.

It's name is Kleego and I will be making a formal announcement to ChocolateLife members - and the world - in the next couple of weeks.

To really oversimplify things cocoa nib (what's left after roasting, cracking, and winnowing need to be:

a) Ground
b) Refined
c) Conched

on their way to becoming chocolate.

Nibs are ground into chocolate liquor and there are no other ingredients added. The result is a coarse, often gritty paste with a wide particle-size distribution with particles often in the 60-120 micron range, but this can vary widely.

The liquor then gets refined down to a point where the particle size distribution is in the 12-20 range. During refining other ingredients are added - sugar, milk, and vanilla. If you are using any form of crystalline sweetener you are going to need to refine it before conching.

Once the chocolate is refined, it is conched. Conching has both a physical component (improvement in texture) but also a flavor development component. There are two stages in conching. Dry (no added cocoa butter) and wet (after cocoa butter and/or lecithin are added).

A melanger (or melangeur) like a CocoaTown or Santha is technically being used as a "universal." Universals are called that because they handle all three stages - grinding, refining, and conching in a single device.

Devices like the CocoaTown were not developed for making chocolate originally. They were made for grinding soaked beans, such as lentils, into pastes. That's why they are called wet grinders. They look a lot like old-style melanguers and so they were adapted for that purpose.

You don't have to use the wet grinders as universals. You can pre-grind the nib and sugar to reduce the amount of time required to mix and refine them together in the wet grinder. Likewise, you can remove the chocolate from the wet grinder when it is refined and put it into a device that is designed specifically for conching.

The CocoaTowns and Santhas are used because they are relatively inexpensive (at least to get started) and relatively easier to understand and to use. They are not used because they are the best, or even good, ways to make chocolate. It is possible to get "real" universals of about the same capacity as a CocoaTown 65 for about the same price that will be able to go from nib to finished chocolate in under 24 hours.

It is (now) possible to buy a conche that will do in 2-4 hours what it takes a CocoaTown 65 48 hours or more to perform. The price is about 50% higher than a CocoaTown 65 for roughly the same capacity.

Beth:

You can certainly "reconstitute" cocoa powder and cocoa butter with sugar (and other ingredients) to make chocolate. You do not have to start from liquor or mass.

You will need something to mix the ingredients together, get the particle size down, make sure that any clumps of particles (called agglomerates) are broken up, and that the particles are completely covered in fat. Some flavor development may also be necessary.

I do know people who just melt the cocoa butter, mix in (by hand) the cocoa powder, and add a non-crystalline sweetener (e.g., agave syrup). In this case, they do not use a melangeur/conche.

However, if you are using a crystalline sugar (e.g., white, evaporated cane juice), then you will need a grinder to get the texture right.

Luvin:

Put a speed controller on your motor and tune it to the speed you need - based on the diameter of the drum you're using and how you're roasting (time/temp). Smaller drums can run faster as the beans are not subject to as much banging around as a larger drum.

Airflow control, conceptually, means having a fan that enables you to blow air through the drum. Ideally, you'd control the speed and temperature of the airflow.

Convection ovens are versatile beasts to be true and I recommend a lot of them into situations where there is no budget for a more conventional roaster.

I would like to add that cooking is also about CONTROLLING heat and airflow.One thing very few convection ovens have is any sort of even the most basic control over the airflow.

Also, not all convection ovens heat evenly from top to bottom, left to right, back to front. One very easy way to see how even your oven is is to put yellow or white cake batter into a sheet pan on every rack in the oven and bake it. Light areas in the top crust indicate places where the oven is cooler, dark brown areas indicate places where the oven is hotter.

Absolutely. - In fact, I prefer when people share this kind of stuff publicly on the site rather than privately via e-mail. That way, every member can benefit, including people who didn't know they wanted to know this stuff.

Beth:

There are a lot of resources here on TheChocolateLife to point you in the right direction. It helps to know what you're looking for. I'd point you in one direction if you were looking for machinery to produce 10MT of chocolate from the bean than I would for a tempering machine or similar.

Make sense?

:: Clay

Brad -

At this point I have to step in and point out that it is probably NOT Brian who is making the statements about Maraon being the world's rarest cacao or chocolate. It's the marketing people in the US who are doing it, not the guy who's working the beans in-country.

Brian may (or may not) have any input or comment on the language bring used on the website and in the marketing materials.

Brad and Brian - I think the discussion has been pretty interesting to this point and some valid points have been contributed by a number of ChocolateLife members - but I don't want the thread to devolve into a back and forth in the same tone and spirit as the last couple of posts. That won't do anything to move the discussion forward.

Not to pick nits, but this discussion also raises questions about the meaning of rare. What are we talking about? Rarest beans? Or rarest chocolate?

I can argue that a small batch chocolate maker like Dandelion that is making, maybe, a couple of hundred kilos of a particular chocolate - at most - is making chocolate that is far rarer than Fortunato #4, of which Felchlin makes many tonnes at a time. So we can argue that Dandelion's chocolate is far rarer than Fortunato.

Now Dandelion might be making their chocolate from an origin that produces far more beans than Brian does for Maraon. So we can argue that Maraon's beans are far rarer.

QED - rare beans and rare chocolate are not the same thing. My guess is that there are many chocolates that are far rarer than Maraon.

Also, lifting some more of the veil. One of the experts on post-harvest processing and fermentation that Brian mentions is Steve DeVries. Credit where credit is due.

Everyone - posts about equipment for sale or wanted go in CLASSIFIEDS.

Sebastian -

While I don't make the point in the presentation that some of the chemicals can't be directly experienced, I do make all of the rest of the points, using analogies I learned as an art student about color theory.

The concept is called the "theory of simultaneous contrast," which basically says that any colors next to each other are perceived a particular way. If you change any one of the colors, your perceptions of all of them is going to change. You can change the color itself (shade, tint, and/or hue) and/or you can change the area of color relative to the other colors.

Flavor perception works the same way. It's not just the presence of specific aroma and flavor chemicals, the total quantity and their relative proportion are also important. As you point out, the presence of one aroma chemical and alter the perception of another - the combination is different from each separately. Simultaneous contrast.

More generally to the ChocolateLife community -

All of this is moderated by the way in which aromas and flavors are released in the mouth over time by heat, a process which is in turn moderated by saliva and complicated by the fact that some compounds are water soluble and are encapsulated in fat. And, finally, there are some "tastes" that are actually sensations - astringency is one.

Another point I make in the words that accompany the slides is that each one of these areas is worthy of careers' worth of study. What I am doing is providing an overview that provides a peek at the level of complexity involved.

How does soil micronutrient chemistry affect flavor? We know it does, but I don't know of any credible research that definitively points to the presence (or lack) of a particular nutrient in the soil that leads to the presence of particular chemicals in beans (by what mechanism - uptake, metabolic?) that, when fermented (wild yeast? controlled?) in a particular way (time, temp)will lead to the presence of a particular set of flavor precursor compounds that, when roasted, will result in aroma and flavor compounds that when ground, refined, and conched will lead to a particular flavor being present in the final chocolate.

Sarah:

Thanks for the kind words. I will post the photos here w/ copyright notices embedded in them in the next couple of days.

You (offer open to all ChocolateLife members) are free to use them for classes, with attribution.

They should not be used on a web site, publication, printing for display, or other form of promotion, without seeking my permission first.

Jeff:

This discussion is here to help me decide how to flesh out the book. It takes a lot to go from a two-hour lecture to put something together that really meets the needs of the community. Questions like yours will help me do just that, so I really appreciate them.

One thing to note is that each of the areas covered in the presentation is a career's worth of research, and most of the areas may not actively have any formal research going on. So - I can't tell you what exactly in the soil affects flavor, all I can tell you is that the micronutrient chemistry of the soil, and its microbiology (e.g., rhizome population) can.

Chances are, all cacao that's grown contains some amounts of the two chemicals you mention - how do you change the balance of those, deliberately? I don't think anyone knows the answers to those questions.

I can work to be as specific as possible (which addresses the question of applicability of the information) within the limits of what's known.

:: Clay

Nat:

The picture at the end is me standing next to an "old man of the forest" a wild cacao tree estimated to be at least 300 years old - and still producing. All of those are trunks as the chupons are never cut.

I am not going to release the audio recording as there are audience interactions that are inaudible. However, I will be reviewing the tape and using it as source material for the eBook.

The Maillard reaction are not the same thing as caramelization and people get them confused. Both are non-enyzymatic browning reactions, with the Maillard reaction being between amino acids and reducing sugars, but do not need (high) heat to happen. Caramelization occurs under conditions of pyrolysis (lack of oxygen) at high temperatures.

Cautionary tales - The one about Hershey is about how his original condensing process soured the milk, but because chocolate was then an industrial product and the hallmark of industrial products is repeatability, the company is still reproducing the mistake, over 110 years later.

Why Belgium - asks why Belgium is known for "the best" chocolate. They didn't invent any machinery or process and there is no magical yeast in the air (as there is in SF for sourdough bread). The answer is (probably) ... Campbell Soup Company.

As for the last one - it'll be in the book. And all the rest will be covered in greater detail.

To All ChocolateLife members -

I gave a talk last night to the Experimental Cuisine Collective at NYU. Attached is a PDF of the slides I used for the talk, entitled, "How Chocolate Gets Its Taste."

The idea for the talk was to examine - in as much detail as possible given the time available - the various factors that contribute to flavor development and perception in cacao and chocolate, from the genetics of the bean through terroir, manufacturing, and finally sensory evaluation.

Of course, the slides cover only the high level concepts, there was a lot of additional material presented and a bunch of very interesting questions in follow up (my audio recording runs to about 1h45m).

I am interested in getting feedback and questions as I am considering gathering all the information and self-publishing in various eBook formats.

Interesting idea? Useful? Any topic area you think should be covered (or not)? I'd be happy to explore and answer questions and other areas of interest here in this discussion, though obviously the book will be more organized and focused.

Thanks,
:: Clay

Carlos -

Did you see these? Twine . it wouldn't take much to use the built-in temperature sensor to build an on-off switch to keep the temp regulated within very narrow limits, especially when the units are DC powered.

:: Clay

Roy -

Cheebs talks about cannibalizing a used portable thermoelectric cooler he found.

Here's a new one on Amazon that could be sacrificed.

Brands to look for include Coleman, Engel, Koolatron - you can probably cannibalize any of those for the cooling electronics needed. Not all units are thermoelectric, however, and I can't vouch for any specific model or manufacturer. Just that there are ways to get the TE electronics pretty inexpensively.

Andy -

An interesting repurposing of equipment. One of the key points to consider is the cooling capacity, which can be expressed as the maximum difference between ambient temperature and the lowest the fridge can go.

If the temperature outside is 88F can the humidor take it down 20F? Especially when the door is going to keep on being opened and closed.

I think it's a great idea, just a technical parameter to ask about before purchasing.

Antonino -

I think the point is that Cheebs had this built custom. The general approach, which is to use thermolectric coolers, is a very viable approach for adapting something that could be simpler in construction (e.g., does not have a curved glass front).

I think what he did was to buy - and then cannibalize - a unit like this one , taking the cooling elements and electronics and building them into the case. The Mobicool unit linked to specifies cooling to 20 degrees (C!) below ambient on a DC power supply.

There are also companies that just sell the thermoelectric cooler units . One thing about units like these is that they are designed to work with active loads, e.g., machinery that is generating heat. That might make them more suitable for use in places where there is a direct or indirect solar load.

The nice thing about using the TE coolers is that they also dehumidify.

And, finally, it is left as an exercise for the reader to see how they might be used to create really quite inexpensive cooling tunnels.

Kat:

As Nat says, this is a topic that has been discussed - a lot - here on TheChocolateLife.

Sebastian also rightly points out some very important aspects of the debate, one of which is the question of what does "raw" mean (i.e., what is the max temp), and other is the question of safety.

Like many things, the answers to your questions are much more complicated than they appear to be on the surface.

What is Meant by Raw?

Raw means uncooked. The raw food "movement" has put a ceiling on the maximum temperature that food can be exposed to before being considered cooked. Unfortunately, there is no universal agreement on what that maximum temperature is. Some people say it's 40C (about 104-105F) others say 115F (about 46C) and others say 118F (47.7777C).

Whatever the temperature is, there is, in fact, no scientific proof to support the basic claim that food enzymes are denatured and are no longer effective above any of these temperatures. I quote from TheRawChocolateCompany.com (referenced in a comment on your other post), "All fresh vegetable/plant foods contain enzymes that aid digestion. Heating can degrade many of these enzymes, increasing the strain on the body's own enzyme production.Eating food with reduced enzymes makes digestion more difficult. This in turn can contribute to toxicity in the body, excess consumption of food, and ultimately obesity and chronic disease."

These ideas were first proposed by Ed Howell in his book, "The Theory of Enzyme Nutrition." To the best of my knowledge, there have been no credible, independent, scientific studies that validate these claims. (Gabriel Cousens is not independent, and in many quarters is not considered credible, so you can't cite his "research.")

In fact, there is a large body of evidence to suggest that many beneficial enzymes in food do, in fact, survive at much higher temperatures than 118F and do so for long periods of time, especially in aqueous environments.

The Burden of Proof

The raw food community has been making these claims for a long time. When pressed, the response is generally, "Prove us wrong." This is unscientific - the proper way to respond is to buck up and do (i.e., pay for) the independent research to prove what you are claiming.

Cooking is Inherently a Bad Thing

While it is true that prolonged exposure to heat can degrade some nutrients in food, it is also the case that cooking can make the nutrients in some food more bio-available (e.g., broccoli). It is also the case that cooking does, in many cases, create valuable nutrients that do not exist in a food in its raw state. For example, the antioxidants found in coffee are found only in roasted coffee; the process of roasting creates valuable nutrients in this case and, I suspect, in many others.

Know Your Physics

Cooking is about contact time and how heat is applied, not just about getting something to a particular temperature. It is preposterous to believe that all of the enzymes in a dried cocoa bean (assuming there were any in the first place, which there probably aren't) were denatured instantly the moment the exterior of the bean was exposed to a temperature above 118F. I can drop 35kg of beans into a half-bag coffee roaster set at 350F and the temperature will immediately drop to below 100F and take quite some time to recover to 250F. Does the fact that the beans are exposed to 350F for a fraction of a second as the temperature in the roaster is quenched by the mass of the beans mean the beans are cooked?

No, it doesn't. It will take many minutes for the roaster temp to rise above 118F and when it does, at least for a short while, evaporative cooling from moisture leaving the bean will keep the temperature of the surface of the bean well below 118F. How do I know this? I've actually measured it.

So - at what point are the beans considered "cooked?" The moment the outer surface is exposed to temps above 118F? When .02% of the mass of the bean reaches 118F? 0.2%? 2%?

Food Safety

There are several ways to do a "kill step" in chocolate that won't "violate" the chocolate by cooking it. One is to soak the cocoa beans in hydrogen peroxide. This is a common and accepted practice in the organic world and it has been used, to some extent, in the raw chocolate world.

Another way to perform the kill step is to expose the beans to very hot, very humid air for a short period of time. You have to remember that cocoa beans are covered with a paper-like shell. It actually takes a while for the heat of the roaster to completely penetrate the shell and start to raise the surface temperature of the bean inside past 118F. Long enough, in fact, to perform a kill step - if the humidity is high enough.

On the Farm

Have you ever been on a cacao farm where the farmer does his own fermentation and drying?

Fermentation of the pulp surrounding cacao seeds can easily reach temperatures of 122F to 125F. However, the beans are in an aqueous environment which has been shown to reduce the denaturing of enzymes due to heat. It is possible to do a full fermentation where the temp does not go above 118F, but the pile needs to be very closely monitored with thermometers. I don't know anyone who does this in practice.

Anyone who has been on a cacao farm also knows that the temperature of a drying pad can easily reach 140F during the heat of the day. Beans lying in the sun for hours at a time are heated through to temps that easily exceed 125F - for hours and days at a time. It is possible to dry the beans at much lower temperatures? Of course, but it requires more time and more energy to do so and there is always the risk of the beans molding, mildewing, or rotting - which is why high heat is used in the first place.

No raw foodist or raw chocolate company - that I am aware of - has ever done a comparative study of the nutritional profile of seeds straight from the pod, seeds after each stage of fermentation, beans after drying, and then the beans after roasting. There is no baseline research to prove the claims. It is all apocryphal. There is no hard data, only assumptions.

That Said ...

There is a lot to say for a raw-ish diet that consists of a high proportion of foods that are minimally processed. Many raw foodists are also vegetarian or vegan, and most prefer to purchase organic foods. All these things are hallmarks of a good diet - if not taken to extremes (e.g., fruitarian).

The point is, unless you can point to research to back up the claim of 118F or lower, and are willing to obsessively supervise all steps in the production chain from the farm to tempering (has anyone measured the instantaneous sheer temperature under the grinding stone of a CocoaTown ECGC65? It could easily be over 118F), then you have to give up the notion of a definition of raw that is tied to the maximum temperature of 118F. Believe it or not, setting the bar (for cocoa and chocolate) at 125F is a lot more sane. There are a number of techniques that can be used to develop Maillard reaction browning and flavor development at this low temperature; you just can't get caramelization flavors which are the result of pyrolysis at much higher temperatures.

In my opinion, a more process-oriented definition for "raw" chocolate needs to be developed, not adherence to a single temperature that has never been proven to apply.

Chris:

There is now a distributor for Pomati in the USA - Qzina. They're national but their HQ is in Southern California. I suggest you connect with them directly re: parts.

Howard -

Do you know what fine flavor varieties were planted on the island prior to their being replaced by the Amelonado strains you mention?

Kat -

Just to be clear. You are currently making chocolate from the bean and want to find a way to make cocoa butter and cocoa powder from it? Is that correct?

What kinds of quantities are you talking about? A couple of kilos at a time? A couple of hundred kilos at a time? Tons?

To all ChocolateLife members.

Posts about looking for equipment , or used equipment for sale, this one belong in CLASSIFIEDS .

Thanks,
:: Clay

Marcus:

When you say "small scale" enrobing, what kind of throughput are you talking about? Some of the systems that support enrobing lines have large (25kg) work bowls with a nominal throughput of up to 100kg an hour (if you have a supply of melted chocolate on hand to re-fill the work bowl).

If you're only going through 50-60kg a day, 100kg per hr might be way more than you need to invest in right now.

So - knowing what "small scale" means (and what your budget is) will help us understand how to answer this question.

:: Clay

Geetha:

Hundreds and hundreds of hobbyists and working professionals get Chocovision Rev1, Rev2, X3210, and Rev Deltas to work reliably, day in and day out. I am not sure why you're not getting it to work properly and it seems as if you've taken the steps of getting them on the phone. I wonder, reading what you wrote, if it has to do with the blending. You might not be getting the chocolate warm enough (some Valrhonas really want to melt out at 60C not 45C) and whether or not there is enough mixing in the bowl. Try melting the chocolate in a bowl and then pouring it into another container and giving it a really, really, good stir then put it back into the bowl and restart the tempering cycle.

The discussion about moving up to a continuous temperer depends (in part) on the quantity of work you plan to do. Continuous temperers are more expensive, but one upside is that there is no real wait cycle between batches as you have with batch tempering machines. This can translate into huge productivity gains when you factor in the measured depositor which enables you to put a measured amount of chocolate into mold cavities by pressing a switch.

If "lots and lots" means hundreds and hundreds, then the difference in productivity is going to be worth the higher price of the continuous temperer.

The easy answer is yes. But it's a lot more complicated than that, and FBM does make a machine, the Unica, which has 3-zone tempering.

From looking (and working with) the control panels of various FBM machines I can tell you that the temperature range is far wider than 30-45C. I know that the upper end of the range is closer to 60 and that can be modified. One customer here in the US is working with a chocolate that wants to be at 70C! FBM provided a way to override the default programming to accommodate the higher melt point as well as provide additional heating elements to the working bowl to reach and maintain that temperature. If you are working with a chocolate made with no extra cocoa butter, then the working temperatures are going to be on the low side. Perhaps surprisingly low.

It also makes a huge difference where the final temperature sensor is, and how heat is applied to raise the temperature of the chocolate coming out of the tempering (cooling) pipe. It does no good to have it right at the top of the pipe, you need it as far along the output path as possible and you need a method of warming that is highly responsive and very precise.

It turns out that the geometry of the 2-stage systems is such that the third temperature zone happens automatically. Interestingly, the FBM Aura with its extra-long spout does a really, really good job in this respect.

What most people don't realize about continuous tempering machines is that there is a delicate balance that needs to be created to effect the continuous tempering cycle. More reactive and more precise control over temperature is most important. Also, the geometry of the auger in the tempering pipe is important because that determines the ability of the crystals that are formed along the pipe walls to spread to more chocolate. You can make the core diameter smaller to increase the amount of chocolat being pumped, but that means fewer crystals in the chocolate when it leaves the pipe. Making the core diameter of the auger greater reduces the amount of chocolate being pumped in any given time, but the quality of crystallization is better. If you have the ability to control the rotation speed of the auger, even better.

So - you can't just look at one specification and say that machine A is better than machine B. Tempering is a dynamic system and all of the elements play a role. Keeping the temperatures balanced precisely within a narrow range over the course of the day could be more important than the issue of 3 zones over 2.

Joseph: The $5400 is for the PLC model?

For comparison.

An FBM Prima continuous tempering machine with a ~15lb capacity working bowl (~50lb/hr throughput) costsabout US$8000 (before shipping and with ChocolateLife member discount). Delivery time is 60 days from order.

Two advantages of the Prima:

1) you can easily attach an enrobing belt after the fact and
2) the vibrating table is built in

Rob:

Ben is right in pointing out that the Chocovisions are not continuous tempering machines - they are batch tempering machines.

Okay - tempering basics. First. Tempering is the chocolate equivalent of annealing in metallurgy.

There are six different crystal structures that cocoa butter can assemble into when it cools down. Forms I-IV (one through four) result in a substance that melts very easy and is soft, even when at the correct temperature. Form VI (six) crystals don't melt easily and are what give chocolate a hard brittle crunch texture and sandy/pebbly texture in the mouth when melting (not very well as the melt point is at or just above body temperature). What we want is for Form V (Form Five) crystal to predominate in the mix. (Technically, there are usually always some lower form crystals floating around and like entropy, everything tends towards Form VI in the long run.)

The tempering process is all about forcing the majority of crystals that form to be Form V crystals. This is done by raising the temperature of the chocolate to melt out all the crystals (usually to about 115F), then cooling the chocolate down under controlled conditions, then warming it back up slightly to a working temperature all the while agitating (mixing) the chocolate in a controlled fashion.

This can be done entirely by hand on a marble slab. Warm chocolate is spread out on a cool surface and as it cools down it is moved around by hand. It is the agitation of the chocolate that is part of the key to proper crystal structure. Because the relationship between the temperature of chocolate, the temperature of the slab, and the speed at which heat is transferred from the chocolate into the slab, the hand-tempering process is one that requires a high degree of skill. When the chocolate is tempered it is usually added into a bowl of melted chocolate. The tempered chocolate acts as seed - coercing the crystals in the mass of melted chocolate to form preferentially into the desired form - Form V.

Batch tempering machines take the hand work out of the process. It IS possible to temper the chocolate through agitation and precise control over the temperature during melting/cooling/warming, but it's much easier (and more consistent as Ben points out) to use seed chocolate during the cooling phase. The Form V crystals in the seed chocolate "nudge" the crystals being formed in the cooling chocolate to preferentially form in Form V. The basic concept of batch tempering is that you have a fixed amount of chocolate (a batch). You temper that and use it, and when it's gone, you temper another batch.

In a continuous tempering machine, the physics is pretty much the same. You melt the crystals out, then cool the chocolate down in a controlled fashion while agitating/mixing it. What is happening in the cooling pipe of the continuous tempering machine is that the chocolate is being pumped through using an auger. The chocolate in contact with the inner surface of the pipe is subjected to a temperature below the temper point and is subject to shear and mixing as it is transported through the pipe. The combination of temperature and shear/mixing causes (when the geometry and speed of the auger/pipe and the physics of the cooling system are correct) Form V crystals to predominate as the chocolate cools down completely.

When the chocolate comes out of the spout - when the tempering cycle is in its active phase - it is tempered. Any unused chocolate is returned to the bowl where the crystals are melted out.

At this point it's helpful to realize that not all of the crystals in the chocolate are of the desired form, even though the chocolate is "in temper." What happens is that the dominant tendency for Form V crystals in the melted chocolate coerces the preferential formation of Form V crystals over other forms in the chocolate as it cools down.

Chocolate really never stops crystallizing, even when it's solid. In a batch tempering machine crystals will continue to form, even when the temperature is not allowed to cool. This results in the chocolate thickening and becoming more difficult to use over the course of a shift. Therefore, it's necessary, in most batch tempering setups, to be aware of the thickening process and to play with the temperature in the working bowl to melt out crystals as the chocolate thickens.

This is not an issue for most continuous tempering machines because the crystals are continuously being melted out in the working bowl. If you have a continuous temperer and the chocolate starts to thicken up (over-crystallize) during a shift, there is something wrong with the tempering machine (either it is poorly designed and so it's not capable of keeping the tempering cycle in balance or it needs repairing).

Felipe/Ben:

Ben - you are right, this is not a continuous tempering machine, it is actually a melter and instead of a wheel to move the chocolate around there is a stirrer.

In a wheel machine, the wheel serves two functions

1) mixing the chocolate
2) transporting the chocolate to a spout for dispensing

In the case of this Savage, there is a take-off valve at the bottom where you drain tempered chocolate out of the bottom of the bowl. (You can add a pump and/or a depositor.) But tempering requires adding seed and/or controlling the temperature via the water jacket. There is a version of this machine with a PLC control panel which makes it into a semi-automatic batch tempering machine.

One of the clues that you have a continuous tempering machine is the visible presence of a dispensing spout over the working bowl. The continuous tempering process (in these machines) relies on pumping the chocolate from the working bowl through a cooling pipe and then back into the working bowl. If you don't see the machine operating that way, it's not a continuous tempering machine

Does anyone know the price of this melter with the PLC controls ?

Rob:

Continuous tempering machines (like the ones from FBM, Selmi, and others) do not require the use of seed chocolate, as is required in batch tempering machines. You do not need to purchase a large capacity machine to get the advantages of continuous tempering technology, you can get machines with bowl capacities of 4-12 kg, which can translate to 10-35kg of tempered chocolate per hour.

Continuous tempering machines work by keeping the chocolate melted in a working bowl. The chocolate is pumped through a cooling pipe and subject to shear force to start the formation of the proper crystal structure and then spread the crystals through the chocolate. When the chocolate leaves the cooling pipe and exits the spout it is in temper. Unused chocolate is returned to the working bowl where the crystals are melted out before the chocolate is pumped through the cooling pipe again.

Without going into too much detail (which would fill a book - which I am in the process of writing), there is a balance that needs to be maintained between the temperature of the melted chocolate in the bowl and the temperature of the cooling pipe. The temperature of the cooling pipe is lower than the temper point - what is important is that the temperature of the chocolate as it leaves the cooling pipe is correct. Often (usually), the melting point and the temper point are different in a continuous tempering machine than they are when hand or batch tempering.

The advantages of continuous over batch tempering (in addition to not requiring seed) are:

From a cold start, you can start work in 20-30 minutes or less in a continuous temperer. From a warm start (melted chocolate in the bowl) it can be less than 10. In even a small batch temperer you can be talking 30 minutes to an hour or more.

No long waits between batches. In a batch temperer, when you finish a bowl of chocolate you have to wait for a new batch to temper - which may or may not involve manual intervention. That might take an hour or more to get ready - a long break in the middle of a busy production schedule. With a continuous tempering machine the warm restart (add melted chocolate when the bowl is down by 25-33%) is extremely fast. This is why you can get 2.5 to 3.5x the bowl capacity in hourly throughput.

More consistent crystallization. Because of the nature of the system, most continuous tempering machines are better at holding a chocolate in temper throughout a long working day and can tolerate changes in the ambient environment automatically. Especially, the chocolate has a tendency not to thicken up over the course of a long shift. This is because the crystals are constantly being melted out and the chocolate is being re-tempered. All modern continuous tempering machines have computers on them to regulate the tempering process. With a batch or in hand-tempering, the operator has to have the experience to know what to do when the chocolate goes out of temper.

Please note that a continuous tempering machine (or any tempering machine, actually) is not a substitute for knowing how to hand-temper chocolate. Anyone who is experienced at hand-tempering chocolate will be able to get the best out of any tempering machine, irrespective of the technique employed.

Ahhh, Brad - that makes so much more sense . I am glad this got straightened out - ammonium hydroxide is pretty nasty stuff. Not that sodium hydroxide (aka lye, caustic soda) is a cakewalk.

Please note, everyone, that this provides a very good reason to RTFM (that is, read the material safety data sheet, or MSDS) on any chemical you are considering using. I was looking at the MSDS for ammonium hydroxide and wondered what others knew about it that I couldn't find out.

In doing some follow up research on sodium hydroxide I ran across the following ( Red Lightning degreaser ), which might be a good (and perhaps safer and easier to handle) alternative for anyone who's at all skittish about using lye as a degreaser. I plan to try it - and I will let people know what I find out.

Someone came to me asking about sourcing ammonium hydroxide. I can find semiconductor grade, 99.5% pure 29% dilution - but the MSDS is pretty frightening for a product at that concentration.

What are people sourcing for the original strength before diluting to what level?