Forum Activity for @Brad Churchill

RW... Your statementjust abovetypifies how stupid people can be. "I don't care if it will kill me. I want to know if it's healthier!"

My reply: "Hey retard! Being dead IS NOT HEALTHY!"

Usually when people ask me (and I get asked at least once a week), my answer is simple: "Would you go to the same country and drink the water right out of the pump?". They answer "Absolutely not!", and I reply "Then why the hell would you pick something up off the ground of the same country and eat it without cooking it first?"

Geesh....

Brad

Washed and dried with what? Water? Is the water purified? Is the handling facility purified/sanitized?

Contamination of cocoa is the result of cross contamination from other sources - sources such as contaminated water, exposure to animals, contaminated storage facilities, and many others. From what I understand, the fermentation of cocoa does not cultivate salmonella or ecoli.

I'm still not convinced that it's safe.

Jonathan...

Who are you trying to fool, you or the reader?

Ask any surgeon who's had to operate on a grossly obese person. They aren't cutting through huge lymph nodes! They are cutting through 100's of lbs of FAT.

As an FYI, a person doesn't lose fat cells when they lose weight. We are all born with the same amount of fat cells we die with. The only difference is the amount of fat STORED in those cells which changes as we gain or lose weight. The only way we die with less fat cells, is if they are CUT out of us - such as is the case with lyposuction.. The only place the fat cells can't be cut out of us are in our livers.

Please see my April 22nd post (above). You're definitely in the "gullible" group where I and many others are left simply shaking our heads.

Brad

Peter;

"Exploited" is a good word to use.

People jump on the "enzyme" and "anti-oxidant" bandwagon, and religiously wave their "raw healthy chocolate" flags, but forget to mention that their "healthy" chocolate SUPER FOOD is still about 70% fat and sugar!!

Call my cynical, but some people are so gullible I have to just sit there and shake my head....

Let's face it people. Chocolate is a CONFECTION, not a super food, or health food, or a magical elixer that will clear your arteries and let you live to 120 years old.

Tell your customers to stop trying to justify their vice, treat it for what it is - a CONFECTION - and live a more balanced life. You'll gain more respect from them than trying to feed them a line of crap that raw chocolate is some magical elixer that will cure your ails!

Brad

Pixie;

If you're making chocolate with cocoa powder, it's not raw chocolate. Most cocoa powder is a by-product of making cocoa butter, and is created by roasting and crushing the cocoa beans, then putting them through intense pressure to "press" out the butter.

Most cocoa powder is also alkalized using a chemical called Potassium Carbonate.

Cocoa powder is literally the farthest from "raw" that a person can get in the industry, as it's the most heavily processed.

Having said that, you might want to revisit your use of the word "raw". Simply put: what you make isn't raw.

Brad

99.99% of chocolate companies in the world don't make chocolate. They simply resell something that they buy. It's simply misinformation that they have been provided and trust. Somebody lied to the reseller. For example, a spice shop in my neighborhood had "raw" nibs for sale. I took them 4 different varieties of REAL unroasted nibs, and as a result, they pulled the "raw" nibs off the shelf. Why? because the nibs they were told were raw, were actually lightly roasted and had a very delicate, mild chocolate flavour - similar to the mild chocolate flavour I can create in my shop when I mildly roast cocoa too.

Think about this for a second: If the FDA and the CFIA stipulate the cocoa is a 100% guaranteed contaminated commodity, do you actually think they would allow someone to sell it as a food product in it's raw state without going through some type of heat sterilization process first??? (which incidentally nullifies any "raw" claims they should be able to make).

Brad

Cocoa beans don't taste like chocolate until they are roasted. Before then, they are very acidic and unpleasant.

On top of that, if you make chocolate with raw cocoa beans, you are playing russian roulette with the chances of killing someone from ecoli or salmonella. Remember: Cocoa beans are an agricultural product fermented and driedon the ground of a third world country. If you wouldn't drink the water from the tap there, why on earth would you eat something right off the ground?

Cheers

Brad

My suggestion would be to figure out a way to use the coffee in your confections, and not grind it at all into your chocolate. Coffee is a very strong flavour, which could very easily find its way into other chocolate you make regardless of how much you think you've cleaned out your grinder.

Depreciation is an accounting function, the calculation of which is derived from a number of business decisions you make WITH your accountant. Depreciation can accrue over a period of years, or can be calculated on a flat/sliding scale and accounted for yearly prior to your business taxes being done.

In a nutshell? There is no one single way of calculating depreciation for equipment.

Cheers.

Brad

Hmmmm.... I don't know Mark.

I've never heard of lecithin being used to absorb water. Nor have I heard of sugar melting during the refining process. My view is if that much heat is generated, then you're WAY too hot.

I've also never heard of Lecithin being used to aid in the crystalization of the Cocoa butter to make the final chocolate "harder"...

Maybe Sebastian can weigh in here. He's a lot more conversant on Lecithin than I....

Sebastian?

Correct.

Journey, you're right that Soy lecithin (and that's what was being referred to in an earlier post) is used as an emulsifier. HOWEVER, it is not used for this purpose in chocolate, and it CERTAINLY isn't used to keep cocoa and cocoa butter together. It's purpose is the exact opposite. In chocolate it's used in place of added cocoa butter to increase fluidity (decrease surface tension), not increase binding/surface tension between the particles of cocoa beans and the fat.

The bottom line when it comes to the use of lecithin in chocolate: you can cheap out on the use of cocoa butter to a certain point by including lecithin. However at some point you will still need to add some cocoa butter for fluidity.

I brought this point up in another discussion, and it wasn't argued there either. The term "soy lecithin as an emulsifier" in chocolate bar ingredients is marketing jargon by manufacturers, because it sounds better than "soy lecithin as a lubricant".

Do your homework Journey and you'll see I'm right.

Cheers.

Brad

Lecithin is NOT an emulsifier, and chocolate is not an emulsion. Chocolate is essentially a suspension of tiny particles of stuff in fat - fat that exhibits specific solidification properties. Having said that, lecithin's role in chocolate is to essentially coat all of the tiny particles of "stuff" (cocoa beans, sugar, vanilla, etc) and makethe particlesslide much easier through the fat. The increase in fluidity created by the lecithin is why chocolate makers like it. It's a cheap alternative to adding more cocoa butter (fat), which also increases fluidity.

Having clarified that point, I have seen lecithin lose it's effectiveness when added at the beginning of the refining phase. By the end of 3 days of refining and conching, the chocolate is quite thick. As a result, when we were using lecithin (I don't use it anymore), my staff would add the lecithin to the refiner about one hour before we were to remove it from said refiner. This allowed the lecithin to work without breaking it down too fine.

Cheers.

Brad

Tom;

Two of the three most important components of making chocolate are 1) fermentation and post harvest care, and 2) roasting and removal of shell.

A properly trained monkey can make a chocolate bar. Case in point: machines do it all day by the millions.

However, the two points I provided above MUST be done by humans who know what they are doing. At the same time the person doing the roasting and refining must understand the taste profiles of the demographics to which you intend to market. I'm guessing that the person roasting the cocoa in Nigeria to press out the butter has absolutely no idea what fine quality chocolate tastes like in the US.

Brad

If your coatings are too thin, they will most likely break as the chocolate crystalizes around the soft caramel. Quite often soft caramel requires double coatings because of cracking.

I have a question...

Where can you get good quality 3D molds like this?

Hey.... You know Spider too? Wow! Small world. Tell him Brad says you can have whatever bunk you want next time or his sister doesn't get any more choklat! LOL

Sebastian;

If I host a course, will you be a guest speaker?

Cheers

Brad

1. you didn't use HOT water

2. you didn't use enough Sodium Hydroxide. The water should be pink.

Dry them right after either with compressed air, or a microfibre cloth. They will look like new.

We've been using it weekly on the same polycarbonate molds for 4 years. If it hasn't broken down the mold by now, it never will.

The sodium hydroxide solution we use comes already bottled and somewhat diluted. I purchase ours from a commercial food service company, and the bottle states that it's safe for use in food establishments on food equipment for degreasing purposes.

Also, yes, the molds will be "squeaky" clean once washed. You will also find that it makes the water slippery, and the molds hard to hold on to when cleaning.

We have been using it for 3 years now, are regularly inspected by the Canada Food Inspection Agency, AND our local Health Inspectors, and all is just fine.

Cheers

Brad.

Antonino;

Glad I could be of help!

Cheers

Brad

Don't use it straight. It can be considerably diluted in warmwater, removes ALL cocoa butter very nicely with almost no effort. The molds will feel slippery when being rinsed, and you'll see the water sheet right off of them. No spots. We take a bit extra care and use a hair dryer to blow off the remaining few spots.

CORRECTION:

A while ago I put a post in here that we use Ammonium Hydroxide to clean our molds. THIS IS WRONG!!! What I meant to write is that we use a solution of water anddegreaser containing SODIUM HYDROXIDE.

IT WORKS AWESOME, AND REQUIRES NO DRYING OF THE MOLDS, WHICH COULD POTENTIALLY OVER TIME CAUSE SCRATCHES IN THE POLYCARBONATE.

Sincerest apologies everyone.

Brad

Our bars have a lot of fine detail, and are cleaned with water/Amonium Hydroxide on a regular basis. The same18 molds (3 bars per mold)have made over 60,000 bars in the last 3.5 years and stilllook like new. They are washed and then dried with a micro fibre cloth.

Real Canadian Wholesalers (Similar to Real Canadian Superstore). Both Owned by Loblaw's. Hope that helps.

There's a difference between ammonia and ammonium hydroxide. I don't know that I would recommend ammonia. I buy our ammonium hydroxicefrom a local commercial food wholesale store.

In the past I've used full strength (from the bottle), and it did no harm to the molds.

Be sure to wear protective gloves though.

Ben;

If you have release marks, you're not letting the chocolate cool long enough. Well tempered chocolate will release itself from the molds, and allow you to make bars several times through the molds before you have to wash them.

Now having said that, if you don't have much detail in your molds, you should very seldom ever have to wash them. Our molds have lots of little tiny crevices and details where chocolate gets caught and doesn't come out. After a while we have no choice but to wash them.

Brad

The plastic has already been invented and is currently used in the Chocolate Industry. It's called Polycarbonate. This is the defacto plastic used in commercial quality molds.

Cheers.

Brad

Kerry;

You're absolutely right, and I was absolutely wrong.

I learned something new today.

Cheers and thanks!

Brad

Gita;

You said you were looking for a creamy center. Have you actually "tasted" goat's milk? It's consumed world wide more than cow's milk and tastes just fine.

Coconut oil will not get you a creamy center - just one that's high in fat.

Use goat's milk. It has no lactose.

Andy;

I've been invited skydiving before. My propensity forpushing the envelope and trying stupid things while performing any particular sport has me thinking that after a jump or two, what's left of me would need to be shovelled into a bucket after I hit the ground. At least when I crash my dirt bikes (and I DO crash a few times a year), it's some bad bruises and the occasional broken bone. A skydiving crash would have me looking like I've gone through a wood chipper. No thanks! Haha!

Cheers.

Brad

Wendy;

A few moments ago I was lying in bed, and brought up your post here on my blackberry. I had to come downstairs to my computer and write you a reply. Here is a GREAT opportunity for you to read your post back to yourself while keeping in mind the three golden rules I wrote in bold earlier on.

You say "I'm a very hard worker..." I say "Work smart not hard."

You say "I'm an artist...not a business person..." I say "Business is about one thing: money"

How do you work smart and not hard? Well, the first thing you need to do is come to the realization that your recipes probably aren't unique, and that someone somewhere has most likely already created what you have. LET GO!!! In all honesty, it'sa very liberating and rewarding feeling to share your "creations" with those around you who are interested. ALL of my recipes are available if people ask. In fact I post our chocolate recipe right on our bars. Just this month I've started hosting truffle making classes, and actually TEACH people how to make the truffles we do in our shop. They have a wonderful time and will always be our customers, even though they possess my "secrets".

The second thing in working smart, not hard is to understand that the best manager/coach is someone who teaches those around them to be BETTER than they are. Think about it: If you can teach 4 staff members to ice cupcakes to a higher standard than you, not only does the quality of your product increase, but you have in essence quadrupled production without ever icing a single cupcake!

LET GO! Become the coach. Your staff will respect you more for your ability to guide and teach them, and WANT to please you.

Now for the business end of things - the "business is about money" part of it. Develop, test, and marketa line of products that become your business's bread and butter - products that sell every day regardless of season. These products should have a "fresh" aspect to them, should appeal to your customers and NOT necessarily you, and should generate high profitability (food cost around 15%, and labour cost around 20%). The "fresh" aspect is what will have your customers returning for more, regularly, because the product isn't shelf stable. They NEED to come back.

Never release a product until it's been thoroughly tested with customers and focus groups, and a thorough cost analysis has been done to determine profitability. How long does it take to make the product from start to finish in terms of manhours? What's your food cost? What's the top price thresh-hold? How can this be marketed?

Stay true to the product lines you create. I can't stress enough that as a general rule, people don't like change. If they buy something today and like it, they want to come back tomorrow and buy more, and will most likely tell their friends about their purchase too, prompting their friends to come in looking for it. If you disagree with this, why do you think that the Baby Ruth,O-Henry, Coffee Crisp, and Kit Katchocolate bars have been around for so many years? How do you think the term "comfort food" came to be?

While keeping your regular "tried and true" product lines, you can delve into your personal creative side by offering your return customers with "Wendy Buckner Specials" - limited edition creations that you have put your personal touch on. This allows you to continue developing your skills and recipes, while at the same time determining if the techniques used to create your new confections can be taught to your staff and can eventually become part of your regular product offering. Essentially in this regard you are being paid by your customers to experiment and further develop your skills.

By building your business in this fashion, you are training your staff to be able to operate the business independently of you. If you decide to take a month off, well... next month you won't be offering any "Wendy Buckner Specials". But that's ok, because your return customers will still have the "tried and true" products your staff have been well trained to make, to purchase. This model allows you to play with chocolate at your leisure, and still have a life.

In closing, always ask yourself, "If I can't be here tomorrow or the next day, or next week, who needs to know what, in order for this business to continue to grow?" Answer the question, and then ensure the right people are taught what they need to know. It will give you immense peace of mind.

Hope this helps.

Good Night.

Brad.

Mimi;

I'm curious to know how many hours a week you work? Is your presence required for the business to run smoothly? How much time off have you taken in the past couple of years? On any given Wednesday, can you wake up and say "I'm going away for next 4,7,10 days." and do so with a clear conscience. Can you enjoy those days away from the business truly knowing your business isn't going to suffer? Was your presence required during the past Christmas rush? Is your presence required today, Valentine's Day?

If youhave to be there to operate the business, then it owns you. You don't own it.

You may disagree with what I've written above, but I guarantee that while encouraging your staff to be creative as you mention in your post above, at the end of the day they still need to produce enough product to justify their wages, cover your overhead, and yes.... put money in your pocket too. I guarantee that the moment money stops landing in your pocket things will change. Havingsaid that, whether you do it on a large scale, or small scale, the underlying principles I outlined above still apply.

That doesn't mean you can't enjoy doing what makes you money. It just means that you don't have 100% freedom todo everything you want, because as you know, some of it will cause you to lose money.

In the end though, in my opinion,true freedom is defined by going into your place of business and working because you WANT to, not because you have to, and that ability comes from working smart, not hard.

Brad.

Jessica;

I could be at my shop all day if I wanted to be. What's important tolearn here is that a chocolate business can be built in such a way that it gives the owner CHOICES. Most entrepreneurs don't have those choices. There's a colloquialism for not having those choices. It's called "Retail Jail".

By building my chocolatebusiness in the manner that I have, I can get up most mornings and decide what I would like to do that day. Did the mountains get a big dump of snow? Should I go skiing? Or should I work on that coconut creme/passion fruit truffle center I've been mulling over lately? Or should I go spend a day with my daughter?

As a serial entrepreneur who has had many successes and failures over the years, I've learned that it's important to be passionate about what you do to make money, but making money isn't everything. It's also important to balance your life with other things.

I'm passionate about chocolate. I'm also passionate about my daughter and extreme sports. All three of these are important components of who I am and how I live my life. However, only one makes me money, so I have to embrace that passion in such a way that it allows me the freedom to embrace the other two just as much. It just so happens there are some "school of hard knocks" lessons that I've had to learn in order to do so. If I can pass those on to others, then I'm happy to do that too.

This tiny window into "Brad" dovetails nicely into what Clay writes below. To summarize, he says you need to evaluate your skills and priorities, but to never lose focus that what you have isa businesswhichneeds many different (and sometimes mutually exclusive components)to make money. There's no place for ego in business.

...and don't forget to balance your life.

Cheers

Brad

1. Drill it into your brain that business is about one thing: money. Business is not about talent and artistic ability. Business is about money. Period. Yeah, brownies are boring. 1,000 brownies are 1,000 times more boring. However 1,000 brownies over the course of the month pays your rent. Business is about money.

2. Find out what your customers want and then give it to them. Talented people go out of business for lots of reasons - one of the most common being Ego. They feel that THEY are the talent, THEY feel that only THEY can create the product that people like, and THEY don't manage their time/cost ratio. Yet they never ask the end customer what the customer thinks! Sure, they can make a chocolate sculpture that rivals a Michelangelo. However how many can they make in an 8 hour day which they canpackage and sellat prices that people will be willing to pay? Better yet, how many can their staff make? In the end, the talented person works themselves into a corner - busy being artistic, and in the end there isn't enough time in the day, and they don't get paid enough for what they do, so... poof! They don't make enough money and they're done.

A really good example of this is an "ice wine" truffle. When I started in the business, I had several chocolatiers insist that I "had" to have an ice wine truffle center on the menu. It was one of their biggest sellers. Today, my shop offers over 500 different varieties of custom made truffles, and the "ice wine" has been discontinued because it's the least popular. Why is that you ask? The reason is because when people visit an averagechocolate shop, they make their purchases through a process of elimination - starting with the ones they dislike the most, then narrowing it down to a couple of confections they like, and a few they can tolerate. Apparently the ice wine center fell into the "tolerate" category with my peers. Conversely at my shop, when people are given choices of anything they want, theyalways start with what they like most, and go down the list like that. In our shop people prefer other more convential centers, than the "creative" or "artistic" ones.

WHY???

BECAUSE PEOPLE ARE CREATURES OF HABIT!!! MOST PEOPLE DO NOT LIKE STEPPING OUT OF THEIR COMFORT ZONE - ESPECIALLY WHEN IT COMES TO SPENDING MONEY. Find out what your customers like, and then give it to them!!! Be artistic on your own time, but remember, business is about getting your customers to open their wallets and give you money.

2. Work smart not hard. What's your time worth? Should you be sitting over a vat of chocolate all day hand dipping truffles, or can you pay someone $10 per hour to do that simple task while you get on the phone and drum up some more business? Can the $10 per hour person drum up business? In the confectionary business, if you are making confections you aren't making any money.

These are three great rules to begin with, and will totally change the way you look at your business. I live by these rules, my business is doing extremely well, and after only a couple of years I never have to be in the shop helping customers and making chocolate or confections. I enjoy life, and research new recipes for my staff to offer our customers.

You can too. IF you follow some basic rules about business.

Cheers

Brad

Ok... I'll help.

If you get your room temperature down to 24 degrees, using the ACMC (I own 6) will take absolutely FOREVER to cool and reheat. My suggestion is as follows:

1. Heat the chocolate in your ACMC to 120 degrees F, and make sure it's thoroughly heated.
2. Ensure that your motor is running and the bowl is spinning.
3. Reset your machine temperature to 90 degrees F, and begin to cool it.
4. When the chocolate gets to105 Degrees, remove 1/3 and cool it using a cold water bath in your sink. DO NOT GET ANY WATER IN THE BOWL.
5. The temperature of the chocolate in your cold water bath should get to about 79 degrees F. It will cool very quickly, so make sure you are stirring the entire time. It should get thick like pudding, and begin to stick to the sides of the bowl.
6. Add the chocolate back into your ACMC and stir really really well, MAKING SURE THE WATER IS WIPED OFF OF THE OUTSIDE OF YOUR BOWL BEFORE YOU POUR IT BACK IN. This will not only bring the chocolate in your ACMC down to the working temperature, but will also seed the uncrystalized chocolate and bring it into temper.
7. Let the machine mix the chocolate for 10-15 minutes to ensure uniform crystalization before beginning to work with it.

That's it. Super easy.

Hope that helps.

Brad

Hey Sebastian, FYI: my conche/refiners go right from nibs and granulated sugar to chocolate with no pre-refining. You've tasted it. From a texture perspective what do you think? (I already know you think my 70%'s are too high in fat! haha!).

Oh by the way, I had Jean-Jacques Berjot and a few other Barry Callebautexecs in my shop the other day doing a tasting. He thought the Cuyagua 80% you tasted was amazing too. In fact I had to laugh.He crossed his eyes, did a couple of arm pumps, and ended up leaving with a couple of the Cuyagua 80 bars.

Cheers.

Brad

The Science of Chocolate is a good book for sure. So is Cocoa Chocolate & Confectionary by Minifie. My personal favourite is Chocolate & Confections by Peter Greweling. Peter's book is a great foundation for actually doing stuff with the chocolate you make.

Now, when it comes to particle size, I agree with Sebastian, and would also like to add that your claim about the modified home grinders on Chocolate Alchemy producing gritty chocolate is unfounded. I used a modified version of one of the Chocolate Alchemy machines for almost 3 years in my home kitchen until I purchased true commercial grade chocolate refiners, and with those little machines produced some of the smoothest milk and dark chocolate I've ever had. Following Sebastian's advice I actually kept chocolate I'd made in my little Santha, and occasionally go back to it for comparison. It's just as smooth as my commercial machines' product.

There is one thing to point out here, which I'm surprised nobody has touched on - and that's acidity and taste. Who cares if the chocolate is gritty when it hasn't been conched enough and is acidic and vinegary? Most machines I have used can grind cocoa beans down to the point where my pallate can't detect any grittiness at all in less than 12 hours. However I've found that to produce truly "great" chocolate, it can take at least another 36-48 hours of conching to round out the flavour.

I would have to say that if your chocolate is gritty to the point where you need a micrometer to test for size, you haven't refined and conched it NEAR long enough. When you get to the point where texture isn't an issue, and your focus turns to amazing, rich, deepflavour,THEN you're getting closer.

...but that's just my experience.

Cheers

Brad

Kathryn;

It's good that you're calculating setup and takedown time. It will give you a very good idea where your inneficiencies are. I bet you're finding them in the set up and takedown time.

Here are some benchmarks we have for minimum performance here at Choklat.

Scooping: 200 per hour

Hand Rolling: 450 per hour

Dipping and coating: 230 per hour.

Foil Wrapping: 240 per hour

My staff all surpass these minimums, and do it all day.

Cheers.

A POUND of chocolate per day??? Wow.... Chloe either has the metabolism of a mouse, has the exercise regime of an elite athlete, or weighs 400+ lbs herself!

As far as I'm concerned, chocolate is it's own food group, and I put down MAYBE 100g per day as I'm tasting various confections and recipes. Even with that small amount, I find I have to exercise extensively to keep the weight off. Usually over the course of November/December when I'm between dirt biking seasons (not riding or exercising), just those two months alone see me gain 6-7lbs. The only thing I've done different in my eating over the past 10 years is introduce chocolate into my diet about 5 years ago. Before that I never gained weight over the winter.

I can't even begin to fathom how many times I'd have to run the stairs to work off 2800 calories of chocolate per day! Yikes.

Brad