Forum Activity for @Delcour Thomas

Hi it's me again,

As I explained in my previous post we are expanding and I am also looking for advice on roaster.
I will definitely go for a drum roaster, but their is quite some choice out there, so could you please share your experience on what to look at for a good roaster.

-I think I will go for a gas one, what do you think?
-I know there is some modification to make on the coffee roaster but could you please tell us which ones?
- And about the size, someone told me "If you think you need 10kg go for 20kg" What do you think about that? Is it wise to go for a bit bigger than you think?
-Any model or maker suggestion are of course welcome  

Again thank you so much for sharing.

Hi everyone,

I am looking to expand our production line, I always thought I would just keep on going with bigger wet stone grinder all the way to a big Lehmann melangeur. But since I started looking deeper I am not so sure anymore.

I would like to know about your experience on Large (50kg and more) Wet Grinder, Ball Mill, Roll Mill and Universal.

-Which one can achieve a better texture or are they all equal on this point?
-Flavour wise, What is your opinion about each one?
-Maintenance, what are the advantage and disadvantage of each?

Thank you very much in advance for taking the time. 

Thank you Sebastian for your useful answer.

I go to south east asia find and buy some beans, so I wanted to be able to control at least if the beans are dry enough and well fermented. I just check the Mini GAC 2100 and it looks like it is what i was looking for. I found this one to http://www.farmcomp.fi/en/wile/products/wile-coffee so now the price will help me do the final choice.

And I will forget the guillotine I know it cost a fortune like 1000$ so I will use a good old fashion knife, or i was thinking maybe i could use that http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B000RLJED6/ref=ox_sc_act_title_3?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE . It has a wider and flat base as bottom blade so it might work and it is much lighter.

Do you think of anything else I could need?

Thanks you very much.

Hello everyone,

I will take off on may to go find some cacao beans to start my business, I will need an moisture meter to be able to control the beans. Can someone advise me about which one to get. I found those ones on ebay will they do the job?

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Grain-moisture-tester-rice-corn-wheat-barley-oat-USA-/221264440374?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3384636c36

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/sinar-moisture-meter-/321344659865?pt=UK_BOI_Electrical_Test_Measurement_Equipment_ET&hash=item4ad1a26199

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/DRAMINSKI-TWIST-GRAIN-hygrometer-Portable-moisture-meter-for-seeds-grains-/170930553557?pt=UK_BOI_FarmingEquipment_RL&hash=item27cc4142d5

And by the way if you also know where to get a guillotine at decent price, that will be wonderful.

Will I need something else?

Thank you very much by advance for your precious help.

Thomas

Hello everyone,

I thought Id introduce myself a bit more and hope to get some of your professional input.

Me and my partner are starting a bean-to-bar company. Just a brief background of us, Im French and Ive been a Professional Waiter in some great gourmet places in Melbourne, NZ and France and my partner, British, is a Digital Art Director and we are currently based in London. Both of us combined hope to bring a great bar to this world, with the all best intentions.

Were wanting to travel to Indonesia next year for a base to start sourcing and sampling beans in SE Asia and Oceania.

We would be grateful if anyone had any advice, ideas, experience or anything you think we should know. Or perhaps some contacts for translators would also be helpful.

Many thanks in advance, and I look forward to everyones response!

Thomas & Bo

Thanks Clay for all those information, I live in London anyway so I think I'll go to the Salon here, and see if I can find what I'm looking for.

I was just wondering if it was worth the trip to Paris, or even Lyon because it is the capital of the gastronomie, in France as you already know. I guess I'll decide after see how it is in London.

Is anyone already been to the Salon du Chocolat?

I will go this year but I'm not sure which one of those three cities is the most interesting, London, Paris, Lyon?

Thanks, it sounds good. I'll try it this week.

Hello everyone,

I am trying to make chocolate at home, and I would like to try make chocolate spread with my grinder. Is anyone tried or have a recipe?

Thank you in advance,
Thomas

I did check the temperature, it goes between 55-58C (131-136F) so it wasn't the problem for me. Releasing the pressure on it fix the problem and like that it add an adjustment on the melangeur.

BUt thanks for pointing this out it could be part of the problem.

How goes the chocolate business inPennsylvania by the way?

If someone is interest about a system for adjust the pressure on the arm of the melangeur.




I didn't try it yet, I'll tell you more after using it.

I finally found the solution to my problem.

Too much pressure.

I talked about it on the alchemist forum, and someone told me he solved this problem by releasing some pressure on the wheels, when I was trying to add lots of pressure. He made me realise I was going to worn the stone much faster. So I tried the opposite, which is going easy on the pressure. It worked very well! The wheels started to spin full speed again.

Now I just have to find a fix system, to be able to adjust the pressure.

Hope this will serve to someone.

Thanks everyone.

Still have trouble with my Ultra Grind+, the last batches was alright because I added cocoa butter, so the chocolate was enough fluid, then the wheels didn't have to much trouble to spin.

But I would like to make chocolate without adding any cocoa butter. So I'm facing the same problem, the wheels stopped again.

I runned the grinder with the liquor ( 1kg) until it was well fluid, and then I added the sugar on three laps of time, little by little. Waiting between each time to see the liquor getting enough fluid.

It was going well for an 1h30 and then one wheel stopped, so I took off half of the liquor and it started to spin again so I left it run during the night and when I woke up, not good!!!! both wheels were stock.

I wonder if the sugar could make the mix sticky, or maybe it start caramelise a little , but the temperature never go over 136F, so i don't think so.

Is it the me doing something wrong or is it necessary to have a bigger melanger to be able to make chocolate without cocoa butter?

I probably had little bit to much in the drum.

The temperature was around 55c so I don't think it was that.

I just realise the humidity was quite high, around 65%, do you think this could make the chocolate thicker? As I had trouble for tempering, the chocolate started to thicken a lot at 27c.

I know the ideal humidity is 50% or less. Is 65% already to much for work with chocolate?

The thing is all the chocolate was in since 12h,I added the sugar and butter and let it run for 4h and it is only when I added the powder milk, the stone before the scraper stopped after 1h.

And since then the stone spin when I turn the drum by hand but stay fix when I start the grinder!?

I have 2.1kg in the drum in total, is it to much maybe?

Hi,

I'm just starting making chocolate at home and use my "Ultra Grinder+" for the second time and I have a small problem about the stones, when I had ingredients, one or the other stop spinning. It is always only one who stop. I cannot see any sugar stock somewhere or anything else, the chocolate isfluidso I don't understand, why one stone doesn't spinne.

Should I worries about that or not and is there anything I can do to fix that? Even if this doesn't damage anything, I imagine this slow down the process as only one stone do the work!

Any advice will be welcome, thanks by advance.
Best regards,
Thomas

Thanks, you can send to:

thomasnowsun@gmail.com

Hello, I know you posted this 2 years ago, but do you have the picture of the pretty much home made guillotine please.

Thanks