Hi All,
I'm working with a potential client, and am starting to do research for contract manufacturing help with fulfilling molded chocolate orders. It potentially could be a sizable volume of chocolate (and multiple orders). Anyone here know of anyone or do contract manufacturing? If so I'd love to chat with you etc.
Thanks in advance.
Interesting. Thanks Brad. I'll experiment with all your suggestions. 
Ah, okay. excellent. Thanks for the numbers! Again, thank you Ben and Ruth for your help. Much appreciated.
Thanks for the reply Ruth. I'm using primarily E. Guttard chocolate. I'm working with: Milk, white and Dark (55-72% Blends). So, going up to 118 won't be too hot for the chocolate?
Cool. Thanks! Yay for saving thought-to-be-lost chocolate!
Great. Thanks Ben! I have a Chocovision rev2 (just starting out). So I assume that you just remelt all the chocolate to the first stage (108 deg), then add brand new seed chocolate to temper, and all is good?
Thanks again.
Okay, quick question: I've had a few of my pieces of chocolate that I've been trying to mold have some "bloom" in them. I was wondering if I can re-melt and re-temper the chocolate and use it again or since it "bloomed" it's pretty much not useable anymore..
Thanks in advanced.
Thanks Sebastian.
That helps a lot. If you are using ml for volume, then what is the scale for mass? Grams? Ounces?
Hi Sebastian. Thanks for the response. Perhaps I should give you a bit more info about my situation, so it makes more sense. I am actually manufacturing my own molds. I will always know the exact dimensions of my molds every time. So like Clay said is actually really trivial. I just need the densities of the chocolate I plan to use, and figure out the formula to calculate the mold volume and density (I'm suspecting that it's something like: w*h*d*Density etc. Yes, I can approximate with a cubic inch (like using the chocoley calculator), but since I have access to the exact measurements (perhaps I'm completely off base), it seems to me I can get much more accurate results by doing the math. I apologize to anyone if my responses sound stubborn or like I'm taking the wrong path. It just seems to me if I have my mold dimensions, and I can get the densities I can get relatively close estimations of my needs (especially on large scales) by doing some math, and perhaps as a result save money on my chocolate needs etc.
Thanks again for the feedback guys. I really do appreciate it.
Hey Clay. Thanks much for the response. Yes it's a single test mold. For this purpose, I went ahead and did a few molds (thankfully I had a little Guittard chocolate on hand), and weighed each piece. I then scaled my mold size up/down based upon the chocolate weight. So for my immediate need that worked. Not my preference of course, but I think it worked. I know you guys prefer to measure with chocolate rather than a calculator, and I totally understand that, but I would also like to have the capacity to calculate with a calculator to get close measurements. I can easily get my mold dimensions so that isn't a problem. I'll contact Guittard and see if I can get the densities of their chocolate.
Clay: Can you give me a formula that would calculate the mold capacity using volume and chocolate density? How would you put that together? (w*h*d = volume +*/- density?
Thanks again guys.
Thank you so much for the responses. Unfortunately, I don't have that mold in my possession, so I was hoping for a way to closely/accurately measure the chocolate needed to fill the cavity. Thanks for the clarification on Chocoley's calculator. That makes sense. I do have some Guittard chocolate in possession, but don't have a simple way to calculate a cubic inch of the Guittard chocolate.
I do have a smaller version of the same mold however (only one cavity though), so I guess I'll have to fill that one, then weight it, then figure out how many get me a pound..I was hoping for a more elegant solution, but I guess that will have to do.
Thanks again guys.
Hi All,
I'm trying to calculate the volume of chocolate for a mold with the following dimensions:
1.80x1.21x0.58
I used the following website's chocolate calculator to calculate the volume:
http://www.chocoley.com/chocolate-candy-making-guide/how-much-chocolate-per-mold.htm
Is this accurate for all chocolate or just theirs? If it just works for theirs, I need to calculate for Guittard chocolate.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Hi Clay,
Sounds great. Will do. Thanks.
Just wondering if someone has a contact for a US FBM distributor? I'm researching possible chocolate equipment to buy for my new business, and need some information. There is no contact information on the Ad page for FBM on this forum.
Any help would be most appreciated.
Thanks.
That is probably the case. So if you are doing creme centers, then yeah, that may be a problem. Still this is a huge opportunity. While not perfect, it will give a lot of people a chance to get a home business off the ground, which would otherwise be impossible.
Thought I'd share this news. Since I'm hoping to start my business out of my house, and save a ton of money on renting a kitchen or trying to find a community one, this news makes my soon to be business much closer to reality.
Just a little background on a "cottage law" for those not familiar. It's a law that allows "low risk" foods (like chocolate or baked goods) to be produced out of a home kitchen and sold to the public. There are several states that have these laws on the books, and California (from what I understand) used to have one years ago. Unfortunately, California tends to overreach and put too many laws/restrictions that tend to be not business friendly.
Well, Gov. Brown signed a law back in Sept. that went into affect Jan 1st. 2013. So now people wanting to start a small chocolate business out of their house can now do so.
http://www.qualityassurancemag.com/california-cottage-food-law.aspx
Here's the direct link to the L.A. Co. health dept. website to register:
http://publichealth.lacounty.gov/eh/misc/CAHomemadeFood.htm
Hope this info helps someone.
Cheers,
Brian
That's a great start, although I was looking more for tempering equipment, any and all sources I think would be welcome in one spot.
Hi all, my name is Brian,
I'm new to the forum, and new to the chocolate business. I'm excited to say that I'm in the process of starting an online chocolate business of my own, focused mostly on chocolate designs, custom as well as a library. Eventually I'm planning on expanding into Bean to Bar production.
Anyway, I'm at the information gathering stage and putting my business/financial proposal together (I will be posting a lot more questions as I go, and as I learn stuff, will try to share as much as possible as well). I was wondering if someone could post contact information for dealers of all the major chocolate equipment manufacturers in one place? Possibly within this post? I thought it would be nice so it would be easier for us to track down. I'm located in the U.S. (Specifically Los Angeles). But, I'm sure it would be great if the info could include dealers from around the world for others to make good use of as well.
Any and all info would be greatly appreciated.
Hi Kalibri,
I'm new to the forum, and new to the chocolate business. I'm in the process of starting my own. I also am looking to an inventory tracking system to keep track of my molds. I'm investingating barcode management systems like WASP. Their packages include: barcode scanners, printers and database management tools. Some of the features are unnecessary for my business, but I think for the most part they could work. Here's their website:
Hope that helps.
Best,
Brian
I'd like to add a little something to the hot weather shipping conversation. I'm not quite at the stage to do shipping (especially hot weather), and this thread is extremely valuable for it's tips and tricks (thanks all!).
Anyway, here's my little tip in regards to worrying about condensation and the chocolate with using any kind of cold pack. If you add a small dessicant dry-pack (they come in all sizes / a bunch are available on Amazon, just get one that is about the volume of your shipping box), and throw it in there, they do a great job of absorbing moisture, and could reduce if not eliminate any possible moisture build up from the cold pack as it warms up. Also, if you buy in bulk, the unit price is quite reasonable. I use dry packs in all my air-tight storage containers for the chocolate, and for any molded chocolate I finished setting, and they do a great job of keeping the moisture away.
Hope this helps.
