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Post by timwilde on Feb 3, 2016 23:46:31 GMT -5
I'm kind of curious as I'm all out of ideas for troubleshooting this. First, a quick look: imgur.com/a/69FV2The top picture there is what I get after about 32 hours of refining. The bottom pic is what all the ingredients look like after about 1 hour of refining. This was a previously unused Premier Wonder Grinder, it was washed first I've since pulled apart the wheel assembly and found some black lubricant, that has been cleaned out thoroughly. I've washed and scrubbed the bowl and all of the granite surfaces. Formulation: 36oz CB 34oz Whole Milk Powder 30oz Sugar 4 vanilla beans The first time this happened, the grey was rather dark and almost sickly. It did taste ok, but was an odd color. After washing thoroughly, the 2nd batch came out grey too, but lighter in color. And now a third batch is the same lighter grey color as the 2nd batch. Any idea what could be going on here? <edit> The vanilla beans I'm using are quite fresh and oily. That's the only variable I havent really tested to see if for some reason it's not just vanilla oils. </edit>
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gap
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Post by gap on Feb 4, 2016 0:09:11 GMT -5
I'm guessing that it's stone and/or dust from the grinder. When I get new grinders, I run oil and sugar through them for an hour or so (it goes a similar colour to that) and then I wash them thoroughly.
Even with a machine that's done north of 50+ batches, I still get some very slight discolouration (nothing like yours) and get more of an off-white colour in my final chocolate.
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Post by Thomas on Feb 4, 2016 1:07:06 GMT -5
I agree with gap and I do the same with a new grinder.
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Post by timwilde on Feb 4, 2016 1:18:39 GMT -5
Cool, that explains why it doesnt taste off. So suggestion is some oil and sugar and run through it for a while to help pull the dust out?
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gap
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Post by gap on Feb 5, 2016 4:21:12 GMT -5
Yep. Even after that though and lots of other batches of dark/milk, I still can't get a pure white finish out of a stone grinder. Nothing as bad as your photo above - but it's always a tinge off-white rather than the normal, commercial, pure white chocolate.
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Post by dublinguy on Feb 5, 2016 8:46:48 GMT -5
I also get some bits of grey in my white chocolate when I run a batch in my Santha - however it's not really mixed in with the white, it's more like tiny specks of grey that seem to stick together (in particular around the outside of the granite wheels, around the plastic by the axle). The quantity varies, but it's generally easily removable by hand.
The grey bit feels smooth (not like stone) and has no taste, and also sinks to the bottom when I stop the machine. I've always assumed they were residues from previous (dark/milk chocolate) batches or granite dust, or even possibly just plain dust or residues from dishwashing gel (I rinse thoroughly, but there are so many crevices that I assume some gel remains trapped).
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Post by timwilde on Feb 7, 2016 16:18:12 GMT -5
Wow. So, I tried the oil/sugar run through both of the new premiere wonder grinders. Both turned a sickly grey. So cleaning them out, I'm finding there's WAY more lube than should physically be able to fit inside those wheels.
It looks like the wheel shafts are 2 pieces of plastic inserts, and there's a gap between them inside the wheel. I've used q-tips, napkins, cotton balls on the end of a skewer stick and finally a dip tube cleaning brush from my kegging system. It's looking empty as of right now, but this will be the 4th time of cleaning these things that appeared empty and they still had tons of lube in there. Any idea of a better, more efficient way of getting that gunk out of there?
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gap
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Post by gap on Feb 7, 2016 16:46:43 GMT -5
I'm not sure its lube (but I don't know for certain). I think it might be very small soft parts of stone in the bowl/wheels chipping off and being refined down and mixing with cocoa butter. Depending on how your machine is balanced, it can accumulate in different spots (it tends to accumulate in one particular wheel/side of my machine). I'm sure there's a thread on here somewhere where we've discussed this before. Found it: chocolatetalk.proboards.com/thread/1307/grinder-wheels-releasing-stuff
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Post by dublinguy on Feb 8, 2016 11:14:20 GMT -5
Cheers gap - seems to all be converging to the same conclusion about granite dust. Do you know if there's an industry standard for how much granite dust is tolerable, and if there are consequences to health if you have too much of it?
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gap
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Post by gap on Feb 8, 2016 15:28:05 GMT -5
No I don't - I haven't gone down the path of commercial production, so it hasn't come up for me
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Post by timwilde on Feb 10, 2016 4:04:43 GMT -5
Well, I've gone through the cleaning solution provided; oil and sugar and ran that through the machine. It turned a very sickly grey and almost a weird solid after a few hours. I pulled the assembly and cleaned it thoroughly. And pulled out my dip-tube brush from my beer keg gear to scrub the inside of the wheel thoroughly.
got everything together and now the wheels are seizing. The drum will continue spining, but the wheels will "float" and the chocolate will be pushed past (or over) the wheels but they are firmly not gripping the bottom and are not spinning.
I noticed this in the first batch after the cleaning. One wheel seized, so i turned the machine off and pulled the assembly. It looked like something twined up in the axle. I feared it was a piece of the wheel, but looking it was more like a string of some sort. So I cleaned it out and put it back together; cleaning the inside of the wheel out with the dip tube scrubber again.
While that was drying, I threw in the assembly from the other machine to finish the batch out. The 2nd assembly froze completely. Both wheels are seized. Now I'm hoping this isnt an issue with the lube/dust cleaning and scrubbing I've been doing.
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gap
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Post by gap on Feb 10, 2016 15:36:52 GMT -5
I take my wheels off after every batch and carefully clean the inside with cotton-tip buds, not had a problem. Is it possible you've pushed/moved the plastic insert/brushings in the wheels?
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Post by timwilde on Feb 10, 2016 17:40:28 GMT -5
I've checked for that as that's what i feared; but the bushings are epoxied in. I cant move them if I wanted to. However, the "food grease" seems to be cocoa butter. I had a big glop visible in the last cleanup so I poured it in a container to solidify before tossing it. It solidified and had the same temper/non-temper qualities as the cb immediately around it. This makes some sense now as I've seen more of this goop coming from inside the wheels than I think should physically fit in that gap between the bushings Big worry right now is the seizing wheels. The machines become useless if they cant grind. So, thus far, I've done the oil/sugar cleaning procedure on both machines. I've also run a "bed-in" procedure just running about 1lb of dry sugar in the machine. As of right now I'm at a loss. And I'm not trying to whine or compare but previously only experience I've had was with the Santha Spectra 10; which I've yet to have any real issues with. So troubleshooting is a new thing for me on this one.
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Post by timwilde on Feb 19, 2016 0:40:41 GMT -5
quick update:
I think I've resolved the issue and found out what the problem with discoloration was. Definitely granite dust.
I've since changed my process and did a dry sugar "bed-in" process and things seem to have been resolved.
The seizing wheels was largely because after cleaning there was still some water in the wheel. So, what I've done to change the process is preheat the stones completely disassembled. I then assemble after preheating and immediately before turning the machine on to pour ingredients in.
I dont know precisely how or why the granite dust went away, but the latest batch of chocolate showed no signs of granite dust and no seizing of the wheels either. Part of what I've changed is I add the ingredients more slowly, spanning out over a time. This allows the ingredients already added to be broken down a little before more are added. Also I've found that the premier wonder grinders seem to grind very fast, so I was unprepared to empty when the batch was done. Maybe because whatever is causing the faster refining, after a certain particle size it's grinding the granite? No idea. But now i'm planning around the faster refining times and will be pulling the batches once they're done.
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Post by refined on Mar 8, 2016 12:05:42 GMT -5
I have had similar experiences, but the discoloration was not from the granite but rather from the scraper rubbing against the stainless steel around the edge of the bowl. A slight amount of "wear" on the stainless bowl resulted in significant discoloration. I solved the problem by adjusting the scrapers.
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