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Post by mark on Apr 2, 2024 20:25:27 GMT -5
Yeah same I took the wheels off for cleaning after each batch and never had issues that sounds odd.
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Post by mark on Apr 2, 2024 20:24:12 GMT -5
If you're wanting to sell your chocolate in a retail setting you'll soon realise that the packaging plays a HUGE role in how well your bars move. We moved from foil with outer paper wrappers (printed ourselves) to glassine bags with outer boxes (custom printed and die cut) and we definitely see our bars moving quicker in stores. Downside is you need to get large amounts of boxes made to keep the unit cost low enough. So we have thousands of boxes in our attic! If you have graphic design skills you'll be able to create a super attractive box I'm sure. Find a local printer that does custom boxes.
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Post by mark on Jan 2, 2024 19:45:17 GMT -5
I second Ben's suggestion to go with DCM if possible. I live on the other side of the world from where they are located and their after sales service has been excellent. They have shipped spare parts to me when I've had issues.
Having said that, I used to have a Spectra 11 and their service was also quite good. Sometimes they took a few days to respond to my email messages. They shipped spare parts to me directly from their factory location in India and they arrived here within a few days.
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Post by mark on Dec 19, 2023 22:47:27 GMT -5
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Post by mark on Nov 14, 2023 19:11:19 GMT -5
John just did a long ATS post on silk if you’ve not seen it.
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Post by mark on Oct 2, 2023 10:43:59 GMT -5
I also had a cracked wheel on a DCM once. It was caused by temperature shock. It's possible you caused the wheel to crack if you poured that very hot cocoa butter over a wheel that was a significantly lower temperature. I don't speak Fahrenheit but I only heat my cocoa butter to around 50 to 60 C before adding it to the melangeur.
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Post by mark on Jul 13, 2023 2:35:20 GMT -5
Yeah I've heard the same thing. I recall John the Alchemist did some test batches years ago where he added the sugar at different stages. There was no difference in taste. Other things are worth adding later. For example, some of our chocolate has inclusions and I find if I add those too early a lot of the aromas of the inclusions are lost.
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Post by mark on May 12, 2023 6:29:09 GMT -5
That’s a nice custom mold you’ve made there, well done. That text is quite fine, so I think you’ll want to aggressively vibrate those bars as soon as you’ve deposited the chocolate into them. I’m not sure what the viscosity of your chocolate is like. If you’re making two ingredient bars around to 70% mark the viscosity can be quite low depending on the beans you’re using. One of our origins makes a 70% two ingredient bar that is really thick. I have to preheat the molds and deposit into the moods while they’re on the vibrating table to have any hope of the chocolate spreading out across the entire area before it sets.
You may be having a similar issue here. That little bit of air on that text won’t rise through the low viscosity chocolate unless you band the mild down hard on your bench top or vibrate it hard for a few minutes. If your custom moles are transparent you will be able to see the air bubbles in that text from the bottom so you’ll know if you’re banging or vibrating has done the job.
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Post by mark on Jan 29, 2023 20:58:28 GMT -5
Many makers just have folded foil or glassine bags as an inner wrapper so I'm sure that will also be fine for your circumstances. Hey, if it's good enough for Dandelion, it's good enough for you :-)
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Post by mark on Jan 9, 2023 21:16:16 GMT -5
Hi Ben, what do you currently use for refining? Still the universal or something else?
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Post by mark on Dec 12, 2022 20:45:24 GMT -5
Oh my Chip that's so sad to hear. I'm sorry to hear that all of those things were destroyed by the fire but at the same time it's great to hear that nobody got hurt and that your lovely dogs were also saved by your decision that morning. You've lost material things which is sad but they are replaceable. Hey, this means you can get the Mark II DCM-20, yay. So don't you even think about not starting over, you WILL make chocolate again and it will taste great. Also, the smell of the first roast after your hiatus will be be divine and the pouring out of the first batch from the melangeur will be a special moment. We look forward to you writing about that here when the time comes Chip.
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Post by mark on Dec 8, 2022 20:11:06 GMT -5
I pretty much do what Ben does, also cutting off the entire nozzle. I noticed that sharp edges on the nozzle cut appear to have a negative impact on temper so I generally sand the edge a bit after cutting off the nozzle. I use the markings on the syringe for dosing each bar, I found that quicker than using a scale.
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Post by mark on Dec 8, 2022 3:46:50 GMT -5
That's a very interesting point you make there Sebastian. But how can we as small producers accurately measure moisture content in beans?
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Post by mark on Nov 14, 2022 21:17:03 GMT -5
Dan, by ATA I'm referring to John's Ask the Alchemist posts. He did a whole series of those a few years ago and they're super useful. Unfortunately the search feature does not always find everything in my experience, but they start around the post 200 I recall. Here's an early one: chocolatealchemy.com/blog/2017/1/19/ask-the-alchemist-191 and then here's that post 200: chocolatealchemy.com/blog/2017/4/5/ask-the-alchemist-200You're right that comparing my graphs to yours is not useful but in any case my graphs look pretty similar to the graphs John shows in those posts. The key elements are those development and finishing phases. You'll want to vary those for the beans you're using and see what works best for your particular taste. Regarding your question about the multiple Behmors: I've found running a few Behmors in parallel is more cost and space effective for my current set up than purchasing a larger roaster. Of course if space and cost were no issue I'd have a nice custom colour Diedrich :-)
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Post by mark on Nov 13, 2022 21:38:58 GMT -5
Hi Dan
I roast using multiple Behmors running in parallel plus Artisan to track the roast via a bean temperature probe. In my opinion moving to this setup has improved the quality of my chocolate significantly. As each Behmor roast is a cold start I can't comment on the charge temperature but really all the info on profile roasting is in those ATA posts from a few years ago. Happy to attempt to answer any specific questions you may have. I attended John's roasting seminar a few years ago and it was a great learning experience, highly recommended.
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