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Post by mark on Apr 9, 2021 7:52:13 GMT -5
What about using a melter and silk?
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Post by mark on Mar 31, 2021 20:13:11 GMT -5
Hola, what's your room temperature there? You say it stays melted on the knife for 40 minutes, that seems to indicate that your room temperature is too warm. It gets quite warm here where I live and I generally don't temper / mold if the room temp is over around 25 C.
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Post by mark on Mar 29, 2021 20:29:27 GMT -5
Hi Ben
they're not as air tight as something like flow-wrapped plastic. We're replacing folded aluminium-backed paper with glassine bags that are folded over at the top. In my opinion they'd both be very similar as the folded foil-backed inners are not airtight either. Sustainable packaging is really important for us.
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Post by mark on Mar 28, 2021 19:29:52 GMT -5
We also use what Thomas uses but we're planning to move to glassine bags as they are more environmentally friendly (it's just paper) and less effort for wrapping.
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Post by mark on Mar 22, 2021 19:26:26 GMT -5
I think John addressed this in one of the Ask the Alchemist posts. From recollection, he did an experiment and was unable to distinguish between the batches with sugar added earlier or later.
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Post by mark on Feb 28, 2021 21:14:56 GMT -5
Could be your belt. I suggest you replace that and see if that was the problem. The belt is cheap and quite easy to replace.
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Post by mark on Feb 25, 2021 23:14:04 GMT -5
The Ritual folks have a beast of a machine that takes large blocks (seemed to be around 20kg) and shreds them into fine pieces for drinking chocolate. But as Ben says, it's Italian and it's quite pricey. We use a food processor that's designed for household use and I think it will die soon. Those restaurant-style processors do seem to be better suited to the task at a reasonable price point. I can confirm the mess due to static, argh.
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Post by mark on Feb 25, 2021 23:08:25 GMT -5
I've found that anything below around 1 kg is challenging, so if you've been happy with 500g batches that's pretty good.
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Post by mark on Feb 25, 2021 22:45:11 GMT -5
We make a Chai bar and I add the dried spices directly to the melangeur. Just make sure they're really dry, no moisture left. I coarsely grind them as adding a whole cinnamon quill is going to cause issues, right?
For some of our other bars I add dried, very finely ground herbs to the chocolate just before molding. This also works, but you can obviously feel the slight grit from the herbs on your mouth.
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Post by mark on Feb 12, 2021 23:06:34 GMT -5
Thanks for the info on Fructose, Sebastian. That’s really interesting to learn. Thanks so much for sharing your knowledge with us here.
So based on this, I guess it’s a firm NO to a bar using High Fructose Corn Syrup 😊. You know, to support the corn farmers.
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Post by mark on Feb 12, 2021 1:01:03 GMT -5
One word: water. Many alternative sugars can contain a not insignificant amount of water and this will cause your chocolate to seize. If you want to use these sugars you'll have to dehydrate them first, e.g. in an over. If you search through the "Ask the Alchemist" posts you'll probably find some of John's posts on this.
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Post by mark on Feb 12, 2021 0:58:27 GMT -5
We run the melangeur continually, we don't stop it and then restart again the next day. As you already figured, it's not practical to do that.
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Post by mark on Feb 2, 2021 18:52:33 GMT -5
I've found the probe thermometer is way more accurate than the IR one so I always use the probe. If the bars are not well tempered bloom can appear a bit later. Also, you mention putting them in the fridge. Depending on your local conditions you could get moisture condensation on the bars and that may also be causing your issues.
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Post by mark on Jan 21, 2021 21:25:37 GMT -5
OK, that's understandable. If you're buying the nibs from John, why not just buy the roasted nibs? The roast will be spot on and you can initially concentrate on the refining / tempering / molding processes. If you're interested in getting into the roasting, I'd honestly recommend doing that with the whole beans and not roasting nibs. As you move forward you'll end up roasting whole beans anyway, so might as well plan to start with that. If cost of purchasing the winnower is the only thing holding you back it's worth noting that you can build your own winnower with minimal cash outlay. You only need to purchase some PVC pipes, a bucket and some plywood. From memory my winnower cost me around $30 in parts.
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Post by mark on Jan 21, 2021 21:12:01 GMT -5
They do wear out over time and you can order replacements.
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