Forum Activity for @Chirag Bhatia

Have a look at the formulations page over on Chocolate alchemy, there is a formulation for a 45 % milk chocolate.

Hi Sebastian,

after I read this, i got curious and cut 50 of the beans i have in half. Almost all of them are purple/purpilsh inside. i was wondering what this tells you about the beans

ThanksSebastian, i really appreciate the reply, in your opinion, what is the the machinery i would need, i don't have much experience, but theoretically, couldn't i "reconstitute" the ingredients in a santha or other such stone mill?

Hello All,

I'm posting again after a long time. I unfortunately had to abandon the idea of Bean to bar due to cost constraints. In order to reduce my cost on machinery i was wondering if its possible to process cocoa powder, cocoa butter and sugar into chocolate using a stone grinder or conch. Also i read somewhere on here that if the cocoa powder is added at the beginning of the refining process the chocolate has a "slick" or "rubbery" mouth feel due to the particle size of the cocoa powder getting even smaller than it already is. Is this true?? If this is the case does it make sense to refine the sugar and butter first and add the cocoa powder at a later stage??

With regards to the formulation i'm guessing i would need to double the amount of cocoa butter to compensate for the fat content lost if i was starting from the bean??

Looking forward to your valuable advice.

Regards

Hey Members

I've been making good headway with my chocolateexceptthat after a couple of weeks in the fridge it gets grainy.. nodiscolorationto suggest bloom n it still tastes great but themouth feelis like chocolate coated castor sugar n this happens after a couple of weeks

any ideas n inputs are greatly appreciated

Regards

Chirag Bhatia

Thank You Omar will have a look..

Thanks Felipe will try using ghee.. sounds like an interesting idea.

Thanks Sebastian that makes sense.

Thanks for the knowledge Antonino

I live in India so my chocolate wasnt being compared to swiss chocolate..

i use nestle "everyday" brand of milk powder which is 18% fat content..

the reason i thought about cooking the powder was because i read about milk crumb which adds a cooked/caramel flavour to chocolate

i am a newbie using a stone wet grinder(santha) to refine and conch. i dont know what temperature the chocolate reaches in it.. but will now try to find a good ir thermometer to measure it..

i like thinking out of the box so do you think its possible to cook/caramalise the milk powder in cocoa butter or will thatreleasemoisture which will cause the chocolate to seize.

So i recently made a batch of 45% milk chocolate. The problem is that most people who tasted it said it had a raw(ish) milk taste to it, which theydidn'tlike.

That got me thinking if could i possibly roast the milk powder or maybe cook it in a little cocoa butter.

any suggestions??

Beth:

Idon'tknow if i'm qualified to reply or give advice considering how little experience i have with making chocolate compared to the others on this forum

I am experimenting with bean to bar currently and have discovered that a wet stone grinder(widely available here in India and not too expensive. I got mine for Rs4200 which works out to roughly USD80 ) does a very good job of both refining and conching.

regards

thanks RW.. i conched it for 24 hours .. wen i tested it i set a little inmoldand tasted it after about two hours and it was fine..

Thanks for the advice Nat, yes i am in Mumbai and we have high humidity, the problem is I have faced this problem only with this particular batch.

i re-melted and tempered it.. ill wait a few days now and see what happens

Yesterday i made a batch of chocolates that had an absolutely smooth texture when i removed it from themelangeur, i then tempered it ( i think i did it correctly because the batch i made before this was fine) andmoldedit and kept it in the fridge to set ( i'm based in India and dont have air-conditioning, so i have no choice). Today i tasted it and the surface had a gritty texture.

I read online that this is caused by sugar bloom and want to ask all of you who are much moreknowledgeableand experienced than me if this can be solved by re melting and then tempering the chocolate again.

I have made a couple of batches before this that i also set in the fridge anddidn'thave this problem.

Hey Guys

I need to make chocolates shaped like droplets of water (3d).. to get themoldsmade here will work out too expensive. Any innovative ideas?

Thank You all,

really understand the use of lecithin better after reading all your comments. Ill be trying my next batch without lecithin,

thanks again

cheers

Thanks Brad andSebastian

i have got a much better understanding from both your comments

please correct me if i'm wrong

in essence the goal is to is to cover/coat or insulate all the solid particles (cocoa, sugar, milk solids, etc) with fat in order to get a smooth mouth feel.. so if i have enough fat in my formulation iwouldn'tneed lecithin?

thanks journey

I'veread alot of discussions regarding the use of lecithin .. both positive and negative. i have made two batches of chocolate before this and did not use in either. This batch that i am making has genorous amounts of milk powder and sugar (most indians prefer milk chocolate, though i prefer dark) and thus i decided to use it to help with viscosity issues. do u think milk chocolate can be mabe without lecithin?

the formulation i used is

250 gms nibs

150 gms cocoa butter

200 gms milk powder

50 gms clarified butter

halfa vanilla pod

1-2 gms lecithin

hi guys,

I'm new to chocolate making can you'll please tell me when i should add the lecithin to the other ingredients?

hey Jeff

I know how you feel.. even icouldn'twait and now thatI'vestarted irealizethat the more i learn, the more irealize idon'tknow..its an absolutely amazing experience.. best of luck to you

Thanks Omar

hey members,

I just recently started attempting to make chocolate at home from bean to bar..

let me explain how this came about

I am a graduate of hotel management and whenever i tried to obtain a good cooking chocolate for my recipes (callebaut is a little out of budget) i hit a road block.

that got me thinking, why not manufacture a good cooking chocolate that is affordable..

and this further got me thinking that we dont have any good 'Indian' chocolate brands..

and for the past couple of months ive been going through everything i can find on bean to bar chocolate.. ive been through almost all the discussions on your site (very helpful).. and then i decided its time to stop reading and time to start acting..

through acolleague i procured 60 kgs of cocoa beans (not sure which variety, though i think its Indian Forastero)i was too excited to get starterd..

since i got these beans ive gone pretty mad ( in a good way).. i roast and then winnow them by hand.. and stay up the whole night conching/refining in a stone wet grinder..

i know i'verambledquite a bit and iapologizebut i wanted you to get an idea of who i am and how much ive fallen in love with chocolate.

regards

Chirag Bhatia

Ricardo:

though I'm fiarly new to making chocolate,,I have to agree with Brad and Sebastian and Clay.. a stone grinder can definately give you the smoothness your looking for.

i dont even use a factory modified grinder. i use a locally available brand(well not really brand, company) thats easily available to me here in India.. as far as the heat goes, all i do is give the machine a 10 minute break every 3 hours..

now to some that may not seem practical, but keep in mind that the machine cost me less than 100 US$, for me (who is working on a tight budget )it works very well..

i cangenerallyget 48 hours of refining/conching done in 2.5 to 3 days.

-Just the opinion of a newbie who recently discovered a great passion for good chocolate

Brad:

i hope youdon'tmind me asking, but when u say garam masala, what combination of spices are u refering to?

here in India we have 28 states and each one has their own blend of garam masala.

Don't know if this will work, came across this DIY temperer on youtube

How to build a large capacity home chocolate tempering machine

sorry for any misunderstanding Clay, what i meant by misleading is that when someone without alot of knowledge on the subject purchases say a 70% chocolate bar, they are looking for a certain depth/intensity of flavour, which they may not get if half of that % comes from added cocoa butter.

Thank You Clay.. that helps .. though i didnt use these proportions (they were just an example fo my understanding). it just seems wrong that the added cocoa butter shold be counted towards the %..

its kinda misleading,isn'tit?

still a bit confused.. say making 1 kg of chocolate and i use (for example) 300 gms nibs, 200 gms cocoa butter and 500 gms sugar, does this mean that my chocolate has 50% cocoa content?