Forum Activity for @Calum

Chocolate bars bending in the fridge.

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

Thanks for the input folks.

My feeling is, it's the inclusions, we are doing some tests as you suggested.

Fridge - we purchased from Vantage House in the UK, this is a fridge designed for chocolate work. We have been using it for years and still, to this day, have never had a problem with hand ladled bars. The only difference is that instead of mixing through the inclusions and hand ladling, we are dousing straight from the machine and sprinkling the inclusions on the back. That's what makes me think its the inclusions. 

Chocolate bars bending in the fridge.

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

*heat (not hear)

my thumbs on a small phone!! 

Chocolate bars bending in the fridge.

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

Sorry for all typos above, autocorrect!

We use a manufacturer modified (for chocolate work) Foster fridge:

http://www.foster-fridge.com/foster-ep-1440-g-ecopro-g2-refrigerator-with-glass-doors

we set this at 10-12C

So, are you saying that we would have to hear the inclusions to around 29C? 

Chocolate bars bending in the fridge.

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

Sebastian 

the inclusions will be at room temp 18-22C. The chocolate is at 29C when taken off the machine and inclusions vibrated in. Is that a. Station that would effect the cooling?

its strange as we use the chocolate fridge of about 1000 hand Ladeled bars a bay and they cool without any issues.

Chocolate bars bending in the fridge.

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

Hi folks,

We have done some tests with just plain milk, all looks fine.

Quick thought, the inclusions we were sprinkling on the back were a mix of hazelnuts and sea salt. Do you think the sea salt was drawing in moisture when left sat on the shelves and that may have caused this?

Thanks!

Chocolate bars bending in the fridge.

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

Will try and cool at room temp.

The temps from manufacturer are:

Melting 48-50C

Cooling 26-27C

Working 28-29C

Chocolate bars bending in the fridge.

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

Better quality photo 

Chocolate bars bending in the fridge.

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

- It's bee going on since we started dosing from the machine, we normally hand ladle from the machine.

- We may not have been waiting 15minuts after temp is reached. We only take about 2 - 3 kg out, before topping up. If we were to wait 15 mins between each topping up wee would only get through 8-12Kg per hour. 

- We are using a plain milk organic couverture from Belcolade

- Milk settings 45/29C

- Fridge Temp 10-12C (20-30 mins)

- Room temp 20-22C

- I don't believe there is anything wroing with that machine, it must be our settings as it also happened on our dark Compatta machine.

- It 7kg Prima

- Out of interest, what do you advise as a good setting on the auger, as we have this setting on our Compatta

- See photo for bending - it happens a 20-48 hours later. 

Thanks all! 

Chocolate bars bending in the fridge.

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

Hi Clay,

Its a FBM prima.

when you say it might not be tempered, do you have an idea what might be the issue?

im going to get some photos tomorrow, hopefully.

thanks all.

Chocolate bars bending in the fridge.

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

They are plain milk bars. 

Melting 45c

tempered 30.5

Dosed straight ff the machine.

80g bar 150 x 80 x 9mm

Cooled in fridge at 12C for 30mins

they then appear to be fine and then a couple of days later they bend.

We never have this problem when we hand ladel, I just cant get my head around this.

Any help is, as always, much appreciated.

Chocolate bars bending in the fridge.

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

Thanks Brad. I'm pretty sure they are tempered. 

Chocolate bars bending in the fridge.

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

Hi all,

Looking for some advice.

We are starting to get a fair few of our bars bending when they come out of cooling (our chocolate fridge). I can only assue that they are cooling too fast? 

Any tips most welcome.

Thanks

Calum

updated by @Calum: 11/07/16 05:18:23

Selmi Removable Srcrewpump - cleaning

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

These are the questions I have put to Selmi and their response. Would be good if anyone had any practial experiance to back this up:

- what is the maximum sized inclusion?

Should be lesser bigger then 4 mm 

- what is the max % of chocolate to inclusion that is can run.

We advice maximum 18% of inclusions for each kg of chocolate you will have inside the machine 

- Can the machine be fully cleaned. We are interested in the removable screw pump option, but does this clean to a standard where to could still not contaminate other batches with previous allergens used, I am thinking nuts here.

The machine with the removable screw such as COLOR EX and PLUS EX allow you to remove the screw pump and wash the machine complete. 

- Is there any wastage when swapping form Dark to milk etc.

from Dark to Milk we usually advice to not wash the machine but empty it as much as you can then put the new chocolate inside, for the swap from Dark to White the waste of product is very small because you can empty the machine and then wash it.

Selmi Removable Srcrewpump - cleaning

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

Hi all,

We are looking at one of the Selmi machines, possibly the Top Ex. What attracts me is the removable screwpump for easy cleaning. Now I know that this isn't unique to Selmi but they are the only comoany I see saying that you can use nuts in the machine and then clean. This makes mean think that they must be very confident of ease of cleaning.

- Anyone have first hand experiance of this?

- Does anyone know max inclusion size.

thnaks

calum

Opinion: Pomati OSD 5 one-shot bar moulding line

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

Clay,

Thanks for this response!

To answer your questions:

- This line is 128k EUR

- Nuts are included through the OSD5 stage, I assume (I have asked for clarification)

- I have asked about max inclusion size.

I do like the quality of the FBM machines and if we could find a solution with FBM that is certainly what I would do.

The example of the company that makes 10k bars a day is interesting. At what stage do they add nuts and other inclusions?

Thanks

Calum

Opinion: Pomati OSD 5 one-shot bar moulding line

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

Hi all,

We are looking at a depositor for mainly our chocolate bars. I got talking to a reseller of Pomati in the UK and he has recommended the Pomati OSD 5 Depositors.

This can obviously do a lot more than just bars, which is great as this would be useful for doing our moulded chocolates too.

http://www.pomati.it/en-US/product/10/one-shot-depositor/one-shot-depositor-osd-5

At the moment we are doing 300 - 400k bars a year (30 tonnes), and sales are increasing quickly. At the moment our set up is wholly inadequate:

- 2 x Wheel 30Kg wheel temperers (just used to melt the couverture)

- 1 x FBM Prima (7kg working bowl)

- 1 x Chocolate fridge for cooling

- Moulded chocolate - All done by hand

All our oils, spices and nuts are then mixed, by hand, in a bowl and then poured, by hand, into moulds. One person can usually do between 600 - 800 days doing it this way.

Our main part of our business is bars but we are looking to develop the moulded praline side of the business so the one shot is interesting.

We are now in a position where we can spend some money of equipment better suited to our production, but its extremely confusing as to what would be best for us moving forward.

We have looked at a whole line for the one-shot, which is extremely expensive but I am looking in invest in a line that will future proof our production for a few years to come.

They recommended:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/an3psbwic6wxez5/OSD5%2BTank%2BT20%2BVERT175.pdf?dl=0

- Does anyone have any opinions on this?

- Is this the best way to go? How else would you do this volume if not?

- Is there a more economical way to achieve this?

- What are your thoughts on Pomati?

Many thanks!

C

Chocolate Refrigeration

Posted in: Geek Gear - Cool Tools

Anyone have any experiance of these?

 

Thanks!

Chocolate Refrigeration

Posted in: Geek Gear - Cool Tools

Hi all,

 

We are looking for a suitable fridge in order that we can speed up production of our bars and I stumbled across these fron Vantage House in the UK:

 

https://www.vantagehouse.com/chocolate-equipment-results/CHOCOLATE%5FRANGE/Chocolate-Range

 

Does anyone have any experance with this fridge Brand and is this suitable for cooling down bars in the moulds faster?

 

Thanks

Calum

 

 

updated by @Calum: 09/11/16 16:07:48

Fbm Prima

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

H Clay,I'm dealing with vantage House in the UK at the moment as they have a used machine.Thanks for the advise above, very informative, as usual!Calum

Fbm Prima

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

Any thoughts would be very much appreciated, looking to make a decision on this tomorrow so would love to hear so,e thoughts.Thanks.

Fbm Prima

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

Some figures:Av. 100kg/ weekBusy: 250kg/week

Fbm Prima

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

Hi folks,I have been offered an ex display Prima and enrober attachment at a reasonable price.The machine has less than 5 hours working time so it's essentially new. This would be our first continuous temperer and enrober, we currently have the old wheel style machines.I know the Prima has a 7kg working bowl with a theoretical 35 kg/ h output. While 35kg/h is fine I wondered how easily is this achieved? Is this just a case of adding melted chocolate to the working bowl whenever you want? Sorry, I've never used a continuous temperer before so don't really know how they work! My main concern is that I'm buying too small a working bowl and it would just be time consuming to constantly fill up.Also, how easy are these machines to clean and swap from dark to milk, is there any chocolate waste?Thanks in advance for any advise.Calum
updated by @Calum: 04/11/15 01:18:12

Chocolate Bar wrappers - Copyright issues from commercial use?

Posted in: Opinion

HiThanks for your feedback.I know the Mast brothers when they first started used Rossi1931 papers. Would they have had to have permission to use these designs commercially?I've seem so other companies I like how design and sell papers and as an interim measure I would like to use them but I'm not sure if I can?Thanks!

Chocolate Bar wrappers - Copyright issues from commercial use?

Posted in: Opinion

HiWe are in the redesigning our chocolate bar wrappers with original artist designs but as we have 44 different infusions this will be a lengthy process. While we do that I would be keen to buy some 'of the shelf' designs. My only concern is this infringement of someone's copyright if we then use these papers to wrap our chocolate and then sell them i.e Can I use them commercially?I've heard of other companies that use off the shelfs design but just wondered if this was allowed or they were just doing it.I'm in the UK and any advise would be much appreciated!ThanksCalum
updated by @Calum: 04/11/15 01:03:35