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Post by Chip on Apr 16, 2018 19:05:44 GMT -5
Hello, all. I'm a low carb dieter on the hunt for my ideal low carb chocolate bar. I found the site from looking into allulose as an artificial sweetener, and I've learned a tremendous amount about so many subjects. I also think I have issues with A1 beta casein, and I'm excited about realizing that whole goat milk powder is an option. It's nice to find answers to questions I would have eventually had before I actually had them. I'm not particularly interested in doing full bean to bar, more likely using commercial liquor / butter along with allulose and goat milk powder. My melanger I ordered from indi chocolate should be here tomorrow, and I'm excited to get started. Welcome! This place has so much to offer and you can spend months and months learning all kinds of stuff! Also, don't be afraid to ask questions!
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Post by Chip on Apr 16, 2018 11:51:40 GMT -5
Anyone have any experience with the Croquade La Chocolatière for this purpose? I'm pulling the trigger on purchasing one even though I'm not certain it's capacity or how stable a temperature it holds, but it seems nice and more economical than some of the options in this thread. I have no experience with this particular machine, but I do have experience with a "regular" chocolate melter. IMHO, the problems with this type of machine is that while it keeps the chocolate near the bottom of the pan warm, the entire surface area is cooling and not being kept warm and at the same temperature, so you will have to manually stir the chocolate often. I see no advantage to this over just keeping it in a bowl and put on a heating pad, or just keeping it in a bowl and molding directly from the bowl. Basically, it's a heated bowl and you can get for a lot less money than this one costs. Again, just MHO.
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Post by Chip on Apr 14, 2018 16:12:50 GMT -5
Hi Guys, Has anyone used dairy butter in their chocolate ? I used ghee before but it would develop the signiture ghee taste after a few days, regardless of how much I used. So I moved to diary butter - I would heat it to 100c to ensure any water would have evaporated. I started off with about 3% and go through the usual process of tempering but it would just bloom. Yesterday I used 1.5% and it's still not tempering correctly. Any thoughts on why this could be ? I also put it into the fridge for 8 minutes to set before leaving it to go off. The chcolate itself is very soft, but becomes more crumbly over the days. First, what is your objective in using butter? Or ghee? Second, and more importantly, if you are using butter, you need to use clarified butter (sometimes called ghee, but not really ghee.) Butter has water, fat and milk solids in it. The water is a real no-no for making chocolate. Heating it to 100c will not totally boil off the water in total. The clarifying process removes the water and milk solids while only leaving the butterfat which is compatible with chocolate. Butter itself is incompatible. It will cause you lots and lots of problems. That being said, too much clarified butter in your formula will also leave you with less than stellar results. Clarifying butter is really, really easy. I would go no more than 1% clarified butter, and really .5% should be sufficient. Ghee is many times cooked much longer than clarified butter to give it that darker, smokey, caramelization attribute. Clarified butter is NOT ghee...but sometimes ghee is called clarified butter. If I was a betting man, I would bet the water and milk solids in the butter are messing up your chocolate and will prevent any successful tempering of your chocolate.
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Post by Chip on Apr 12, 2018 9:35:17 GMT -5
I also have a Premier tilting melange and I disassemble the entire assembly, take wheels off, etc. every time I clean it.
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Post by Chip on Apr 8, 2018 20:49:49 GMT -5
There are a few ways to do this. In a small scale, you can make food grade silicone molds using a positive of the shape and pouring a mold. The photos you show have an insert type of mold that allow you to put pre-made letters (from various sources) much like type-set into the mold then cast it. There are also ways to emboss the mold material using a similar technique. Edges are sometimes an issue and you'll have to play with the viscosity of the silicone to make it work but it can be done on a small scale. On a larger scale you can get a sub $5000 CNC machine based on a woodworking router that can engrave and then you can make a positive then negative. Try looking at small CNC machines for woodworking and you'll find many options. The software isn't a big deal especially for what you are proposing. Brian I have been using a glycerin/water/gelatin mixture with GREAT success to make molds. I have written it up and attached it to this post. It really works great. The only thing I don't have in the instructions is how to melt it: melt it in the microwave on high. A quart jar will take about 3 minutes to melt. Then just pour it over the positive in a cookie pan, bread pan, whatever you have to hold it you can use. It releases really well and can be used over and over and over.
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Post by Chip on Apr 2, 2018 19:42:27 GMT -5
Let me start by saying I am new to the process of making chocolate. I just upgraded my equipment to include a Sylph winnower. My first run with it did not go well, and I am hoping for some help troubleshooting why. My problem was that even with both adjustment valves fully closed it only pulled about half of the chaff away from the nibs. From an original test batch of 100 g, I got back a combined weight of 90. I used Nicaragua Trinitario beans, if that matters. And yes, I made sure the bucket lid was securely and fully on. Any ideas what I might have been dong wrong? Or how to increase the suction? I had the same trouble and there were two sources: 1. The lid on the sylph was not all the way on. It pushes down REALLY HARD. 2. I started using a large wet/dry vac and actually overpowered the system which made it act in really odd ways, such as not separating the chaff at all. You are shooting for a return weight of about 80. It took me about an hour of playing with each adjustment valve before I found the correct setting. It truly is a hit and miss type of thing.
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Post by Chip on Mar 30, 2018 14:36:12 GMT -5
For me it is not the cocoa percentage. I have made chocolate with cocoa percentages comparable to commercially available chocolate, and mine is way harder. But I get it over the board, with all my recipes (even low cocoa percentages), so that leads me more into the direction that my consistent process might be the reason. My current guess is that I have a case of overtempering, but haven't figured that out yet. Are you sure it’s not the cocoa percentage? Not all percentages are created equally. For example: Assuming a three ingredient bar (i.e. nibs, cocoa butter, and sugar), a 70% bar with a higher percentage of cocoa butter will be different than one with a lower percentage of cocoa butter. I would expect the more cocoa butter, in this case, would produce a harder bar. I’m not picking on your words, just pointing out a difference. So if I understand this right, if I make a 70% bar with 70% nibs and 30% sugar, it would have a different consistency than a 70% bar with nibs, cocoa butter and sugar? Interesting! . And it makes total sense.
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Post by Chip on Mar 29, 2018 16:29:21 GMT -5
Hi Chip, I have the same problem. For me, it is not lecithin (I don't use it), not too much silk (first, what is too much? But John advises 1%, I am now mostly using 0.5% and still getting the same result), and not too much cocoa butter (I get consistent results with widely varying amounts of cocoa butter). I think it is related to cooling (after pouring), but haven't figured it out completely yet. There is a recent ATA on it that might shed some more light on it, but I am very interested to hear others about this ATA #242: chocolatealchemy.com/blog/2018/3/9/ask-the-alchemist-242If you are getting further with your experimentation I'd love to hear about it! Hi CS, I just ordered (last night) some clarified butter. I am going to try a 1% as per the ATA, and see from there. I also have some organic coconut oil on my shelf that I haven't opened yet, so that would be my second experiment. I will let you know how everything progresses!
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Post by Chip on Mar 29, 2018 9:55:25 GMT -5
Using a tilt Premier Chocolate Refiner Using liquor made from nibs ordered from Chocolate Alchemy, and recently from beans I ordered from CA and roasted myself. Keeping temp at 38C (102F) with the heat gun contraption I built Letting stay in melange for 48 hours Using silk tempering. Adding silk at 98F Letting batch cool to about 91 before pouring/dipping
My formula which I frequently double/triple and supposedly provides a 45.4% cocoa butter content.
680.0g Cocoa Nibs 100.0g Cocoa Butter 220.0g Sugar 1.0g Lecithin 0.0g Vanilla Total Weight: 1001.00 Grams, 1.00 Kilogram
I know that good chocolate is supposed to have a snap to it, but many times my chocolate downright hard. Not lollipop hard, but not snappish, then melt in your mouth hard either.
Is it my formula? The lecithin? Adding too much silk? Too much cocoa butter?
Thanks!!
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Post by Chip on Mar 21, 2018 21:12:21 GMT -5
Aha! Thank you Thomas! I will keep the temp down tomorrow (or Friday) and let you know the results! I've been pounding my head agains the wall thinking crazy stuff like it was the sugar in the nougat and sponge, maybe the oil from the almonds in the marzipan, etc. Temp seems a more likely culprit.
Thanks again.
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Post by Chip on Mar 21, 2018 19:01:42 GMT -5
PS: A friend told me that maybe I could use confectioners glaze to cover and mask the bloom? That doesn't sound quite right. Any opinions?
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Post by Chip on Mar 21, 2018 18:53:35 GMT -5
The rest of the pictures. Thank you again. Attachments:
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Post by Chip on Mar 21, 2018 18:52:43 GMT -5
Hi all, This has happened to me 3 times now. I have made a batch of 65% dark. I have tempered using the silk method in a stainless steel bowl. From there I pour it into my Kitchenaid heated bowl and keep a thermometer in it to keep it between 92 and 96 degrees Fahrenheit. After pouring about 4 molds I use the same batch for dipping. I have dipped: home made marzipan (almonds/sugar), home made nougat, home made sponge and home made caramel. ALL of the dipped pieces except the caramel have bloomed, and bloomed badly. I have no idea what I am doing wrong. I even "re-dipped" a few pieces to see if I could cover up the bloom and that was a big flop. I am going to attach some pictures to show you the same chocolate from the same batch. The only difference is some are poured and solid, the rest are dipped. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Chip+
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Post by Chip on Mar 12, 2018 20:46:48 GMT -5
Does anyone have a good nougat recipe? I've tried a couple of variations I've found on Youtube, but the nougat comes out really, really soft. My first batch was more of a meandering blob than an actual nougat you could use for a chocolate coated candy. My second batch was a little better, but still pretty soft.
I also don't like using the rice paper: actually, my wife really thinks it's disgusting to eat.
So, anyone?
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Post by Chip on Mar 12, 2018 20:43:44 GMT -5
I've combed the premier threads and didn't find anything. It looks really really terrible. Has anyone else seen something like this? Is this a washer or a bolt on the wheel being shredded? After cleaning, all the parts look fine. This was very clearly a silver metallic liquid coming out of the wheel parts on both sides. Washers and bolts around the wheels seem to be fine. There was a little black-ish goopy build up on the scraper. It had been running about 48hrs and probably 2 batches since the last full wet wash. Usually when doing small quick experiments I'll run a couple small batches using a dry cloth to clean out in between and let the motor rest before running next batch. Total batch size was 1.3kg -- 70% nibs + sugar. I've made it many times before without a problem. Temperature refining usually around 124 but sometimes, like last night, I put the lid on overnight and it gets up to 134. After washing, I sometimes put melted cocoa butter around the parts to keep it well lubricated. This is the 220v 1.5L red chocolate refiner edition. Is there any sort of user manual that might provide basic maintenance recommendations? I just ran in to this last week, and then again yesterday. What is happening is that small amounts of chocolate and/or cocoa butter are getting into the wheel hub, and causing the wheel to bind up when first starting. That binding then causes the hub to grind away at the stone. The problem is basically in the type of metal used in axle of the plastic wheel mount and how it interacts with the hub of the wheel. I worked with Diamond Custom Machines with mine, for that is where I bought it, and I got the stainless steel version of the whole wheel assembly. That took care of most of it, but I also had a problem with the actual bowl losing some stone as well, so they are sending me a new bowl as well. To prevent this from happening again, when you clean the wheels, actually remove them from their spindles and use a straw/bottle brush to clean inside the hub of the wheel, and really clean and then wipe down the axle. Let it dry for 24 hours and then reassemble and you will be ready to go.
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