Thanks Clay! I'm definitely thinking after the holiday season is over, we are most likely 3 months or so out from an upgrade but I want to get my research done soon so we're ready to pull the trigger.
Just out of curiosity, what is your opinion on Savage Bros machines? I've had my eye on them for a while but haven't hear much either way about them.
I know there are a lot of opinions about what tempering machines to run and the answers vary widely based on capacity and needs.
We've been running several Chocovision 3z's for almost 2 years now and I love them. However, my business is growing and their shortcomings are starting to cut into my efficiency. Most importantly, we are making on average 300-400 chocolate bars twice a week and hand pouring each one is quite labor intensive. I know there are machines out there with depositors and I'm hoping to find one that is metered so we can dial in various amounts based on what types of molds or products we are making.
Another factor is that the 3z's take quite a long time to heat up even though we are pre-melting a large portion of our chocolate. Idealy we want to upgrade to a larger capacity machine with the ability to deposit and at least has an option for enrobing as that is something we are interested in moving towards. I've been looking at Selmi machines and some Hilliards as well. Are there other good machines people have experience with? My biggest concern is reliability so we aren't down a machine in the busiest time of year.
Just out of curiosity, do you know what the humidity % is in the room you're working out of? We had some issues with streakiness as well and we're able to solve it by bringing in a dehumidifier.
Thanks Clay.
Do people ever use proofing cabinets to set their chocolate? Right now we use a walk in fridge but would be curious if a proofing cabinet would do the same thing....
That's an interesting thought and certainly not beyond the realm of possibility that our molds aren't squeaky clean. I agree too that I dont think it's the temp of our molds as we've made chocolate in various temps and it always comes out fine in our first round of batches.
It's odd though. We set our molds on metal baking sheets on a rack in a walk-in fridge and when we pull them out they've fully released. We generally do two rounds and the first round always goes perfect. The second round is the one that gives us issue and the only variable is that we re-use the metal baking sheets. We've tried letting them sit out for a half an hour or sometimes an hour to get back to room temp. We've also tried warming them back up on the stove tops ever so slightly. But the only thing that's consistantly prevented the second round from sticking is putting a sheet of wax paper between the molds and the metal trays on the second round.
Must be an issue with the temperature of the metal trays? Maybe the wax paper creates enough of a barrier to prevent the chocolate from setting unevenly....
What's the best way to pre heat molds? We haven't tried that approach yet.
Thanks all for the response. It definitely seems to be a temperature issue we are battling with. Unfortunately, we work in a shared kitchen so there are a lot of variables out of our control.
What we are finding out though, is if we put a wax paper liner down on the metal sheetpans just before placing the mold on it that it seems to give enough of a buffer that the mold fully releases. Don't ask me why that's working so well but it has thus far!
I've been having an intermittent issue where my chocolate sticks to molds. It will always release around the edges but the middle (sometimes a large area, sometimes a small area) sticks to the mold. When I let the chocolate sit overnight, usually the surface is dull, but it snaps and appears to be tempered properly.
I think I've discovered that the temperature of the metal trays I'm placing the molds on influences whether this occurs or not. Has anyone else experienced this? What is the ideal temperature to keep my trays at when placing my molds onto them. I'm using custom food grade pvc molds and my bars are rather large at about 7.5 inches x 3.5 inches. Thanks in advance!
I've used this a couple times and in general it works great to come in to melted chocolate. Chocovision actually recommended that I use this as I was having efficiency issues with my tempering machines.
I use the rev delta and have yet to seed my chocolate. I use the temper 2 setting (brings the chocolate down to 85 and then ramps back to 88.7). Pretty much perfect every time. Have you tried a batch without seeding? If so what were your results?
Thanks for pointing me to that Clay! Is there a benefit to running everything through a melanger before dropping it into a tempering machine?
This is my first post and I'm just starting out working with chocolate. I've beenexperimentingwith honey (liquid, creamed and raw). I've gotten some decent results but the texture of my chocolate always seems to start getting gritty and crumbly after about a week. I'm trying to figure out if this is due to not being tempered properly, because of the moisture content of the honey or possibly both and some other reasons?
Long story short, I have a tempering machine on the way. I've been using blocks of cocoa liquor, cocoa butter and a small amount of honey to make my chocolate. I'm considering buying a melanger (looking at the cocoatown ECCG-12sl). Does anyone know if it would be worthwhile to use one to get the honey and cocoaliquorbutter more evenly mixed before going into the tempering machine? I was also thinking that the heat generated from the melanger might evaporate some of the moisture out of the honey/cocoa mix? I was also considering trying to find dehydrated honey to mix in, would a melanger still be useful in the process regardless?
