|
Post by dstjonn on Apr 29, 2013 11:38:39 GMT -5
Hey everyone,
I am an aspiring chocolatier, and I had some questions on using a melander to make the choclate liquor.
I want to make chocolate at home on a budget for fun, and am trying to save money, so avoiding a champion juicer before the melander refining would be great. This website only really says that it is possible, but more trouble than it is worth.
Does anyone know how they do it? Any advice would be great.
Thanks!
|
|
|
Post by Ben on Apr 29, 2013 12:56:36 GMT -5
I think the consensus these days is to skip the champion and put the nibs straight into the melanger. It helps to warm the nibs and melanger first. You'll need to add them slowly to not overwhelm the melanger.
|
|
|
Post by dstjonn on Apr 29, 2013 14:14:16 GMT -5
Thank you for the help Ben.
I just have one more question, how do you know how much chocolate liquor is made from the nibs? Is it a 1 to 1 basis? Such that one lb of nibs will make 1 lb of liquor?
|
|
gap
Apprentice
Posts: 390
|
Post by gap on Apr 29, 2013 17:42:02 GMT -5
Alchemist John has done a good post on this sort of question. Basically 1lb of nibs makes 1lb of liquor, but there are some small losses along the way (or larger losses if you start with beans) and losses for chocolate left on the machinery that can't be scraped off. chocolatealchemy.com/2013/04/11/ask-the-alchemist-30/
|
|
|
Post by timwilde on Mar 5, 2014 18:39:20 GMT -5
I guess it pays to read the forums every once in a while I started making my own chocolate I think in late '09 early '10. Using this site as a source to replicate the processes I've read about in industrial and academic texts on chocolate production. It seems somewhere along the way, either processes changed or I have been doing things wrong as I've always used the plate to force all liquor out of the champion at the end (where the waste comes through) and generally tend to put that through maybe 3-5 times. Recently read that I shouldn't be doing that and that's what may have caused an off flavor from a couple of batches due to having kids do the winnowing and not getting it quite enough. But I guess my worries were for naught if everyone's just using all of the remaining husk into the chocolate as nibs directly to the melanger. I'll try that for the next batch, might save me a sometimes painful cleanup
|
|