Forum Activity for @zimtly

Help with Craft Chocolate in an old Enro 2

Posted in: Tech Help, Tips, Tricks, & Techniques

HI All,

Ah thank you so much for reading. I'm going a bit nuts here. 

So, we have an old Enro 2 by Perfect. It has been pretty exhausting to deal with for some time. I am sure there is something we can improve upon.

Here is what is happening: 

We make our chocolate in the melanger. I cannot find a reasonably priced texture tester, cannot remember the name, so we taste test until smooth smooth smooth.

We have a minimum of 5% cocoa butter- more for the enrobed items, but to be honest, we are not entirely sure of the percentage at this point- have been not keeping very good track of tests, which is bad on my part. 

We have tried the seeding method which has sometimes worked. We have an  AX Temperer and it works for bars but not for our seed chocolate- comes out streaky and kind of grey in parts when deposited on the parchment lined trays. 

So instead, we use the good ol' time consuming tempering method. We heat the chocolate up to 105 at least overnight, turn the wheel on in the AM to mix it all in and make sure all the chocolate heats up to 105, then, we gradually drop it to 80 or as close as we can get it to 80 (it gets so, so thick. Like a thick frosting at around 81- the wheel certainly cannot handle it and we stir by hand- not the best). Then, I gently heat it up with either the heat gun (usually have to do this to be honest), until the wheel can spin more easily, and bring it up to 88 (today it went to 88.5 oh and now when I take the independent thermometer, it got up to 92.8... ). The chocolate comes out kind of streaky, a little bit dusty looking, and a tad spotty, once cooled. In the machine itself, it looks like there are tiny, tiiiiiny white dots in the chocolate (I am assuming cocoa butter, unmelted?). And the melted chocolate also looks a bit orange. It is dark chocolate with only 3 ingredients, cocoa nibs, cocoa butter, and coconut sugar.

So that is about it. I am considering the Silk Cocoa Butter method but cannot try this until next week. Pretty confused as to what to do here- it sometimes works, sometimes does not. 

Thank you very much!

Ramp Situation

Posted in: Tech Help, Tips, Tricks, & Techniques

Hi There-

May be moving to a temporary kitchen where we will be working out of a room with a ramp to get in and out- including to the cooler. Is there a workaround for this? I am of course, concerned that the chocolate will tilt and become lop-sided in the mold. 

Also- it is only 700 SF... am I crazy to be considering this space? We have some stand alone equipment and will be ordering more... I can map it out.

Let me know what size space you work out of- I'm curious =) 

Emma

Best tabletop extruder?

Posted in: Geek Gear - Cool Tools

Hi Shannon-

I am wondering if you ever got an answer to your post- I, too, am in need of an extruder. Would need to get one for thick, firm caramels as well as our very dense macaroon filling.

Thank you so much!

Emma

FBM Chocolab & Liquid Sweetener

Posted in: Tech Help, Tips, Tricks, & Techniques

Hi Everyone!

Just in the process of finalizing the equipment I need to purchase. Right now, we are using a Chocovision Rev Delta to temper our chocolate. It works great, but is way too small, and we need something more automized.

We make "raw" chocolate and use a liquid sweetener. Again, works surprisingly well so far (both tempering by hand and tempering with the Delta), but would you know if the FBM Chocolab 2.1 would be able to "temper" chocolate that uses a liquid sweetener? How do the technologies differ between the Delta and the Chocolab for tempering?

Thanks so much for your help- it is much appreciated.

updated by @Emma Smith: 04/15/15 20:45:55