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Post by Ben on Jan 28, 2014 13:28:19 GMT -5
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Post by Ben on Jan 27, 2014 22:52:54 GMT -5
The conche you're describing is a longitudinal conche--basically, the original conche. It's action is somewhat similar to that of a melanger, except that it can slosh the chocolate around, aerating it a bit. It's not very efficient either, so conching times are probably comparable to conching in a melanger. More modern conches work in a lot of different ways. Too many to really list here. Check out google image and video searches for 'chocolate conche', or 'rotary chocolate conche' (but ignore the pictures of melangers...). Also, FBM has started selling the Kleego, aimed at smaller chocolate makers: www.thechocolatelife.com/video/introducing-kleegoSome of them can do all three types/phases of conching (dry, pasty, wet), while others, including the longitudinal conche and the melanger-as-conche, can only do the wet phase. With all of them, though, the goals are more or less the same: subject the chocolate to shear stress, aerate the chocolate, and heat the chocolate. This can do a lot of things, among them driving off any remaining moisture, breaking up sugar agglomerates (not sure that's a word), driving off various chemicals, reduce viscosity, etc. As I mentioned in my earlier post, there's a lot going on when conching and a lot of it is not well understood.
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Post by Ben on Jan 27, 2014 15:32:56 GMT -5
Hello,
I think you've got this pretty much right. There's a lot going on when conching. As mentioned elsewhere in these forums, I wouldn't bother releasing the tension on the stones. I've ran chocolate in the melanger for days and have never had it over-refine. The additional pressure will generate more heat and shear, which will aid in the conching effect. When it comes down to it, melangers just aren't great conches. To compensate for their limitations, a lot of makers will run the chocolate in the melanger longer and/or add external heat.
The Peruvian cacao is some pretty intense stuff. You may want to adjust your roast or extend the time you're refining/conching, but most of the chocolate I've made with it could probably be described as strong and sharp.
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Post by Ben on Jan 23, 2014 9:22:47 GMT -5
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Post by Ben on Jan 23, 2014 9:20:06 GMT -5
Hi Tbone. I had that problem with my cocoatown melangers, too. I always attributed it to the screw head cutting into the wheel's plastic insert, though, as opposed to melting. I wonder if you could just put a large diameter washer between the screw and the insert to alleviate this.
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Post by Ben on Jan 23, 2014 9:13:30 GMT -5
Hi Thomas. John (the Chocolate Alchemist) doesn't get here to the forums very often. It's probably best to email your questions to him at alchemist@chocolatealchemy.com.
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Post by Ben on Dec 31, 2013 8:31:58 GMT -5
Yep, adding cocoa butter changes how you calculate the cacao percentage, which is made up of both the whole cacao and the cocoa butter. For example a 70% chocolate with only cacao and sugar is:
70% cacao 30% sugar
A 70% chocolate with cacao, cocoa butter and sugar could be something like the following (using 10% added butter):
60% cacao 10% cocoa butter 30% sugar
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Post by Ben on Dec 31, 2013 8:23:13 GMT -5
Hi Chocobear. The wholesale shop is at the following link: chocolatealchemy2.myshopify.com/You don't have to have a login to use it, but you can configure one during the checkout process if you want to be able to track your orders.
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Post by Ben on Dec 18, 2013 9:20:44 GMT -5
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Post by Ben on Dec 9, 2013 14:40:03 GMT -5
I may be mistaken, but my understanding is that you still need to pre-grind the nibs into liquor before running them through a roll refiner.
The Nixtamatic looks a lot like the Olde Tyme Peanut Butter grinder. Do you know how it compares? I used the OTPB for a while, but found that it took as long to pre-grind as just putting them straight into the melanger. It also had some other issues, but some of those may have been due to the fact that my OTPB was an older version. Also, the blades needed to be replaced. To be fair to the OTPB, I should probably replace the blades and see how that affects pre-grinding times... That being said, I've spoken with another maker who used the newer version of the OTPB and had a lot of the same issues.
That maker has is now using a large VCM. They said that they were able to pre-grind a full batch of nibs to liquor in 5 or 10 minutes. Since I'd be using a much smaller version, I'd expect it to take 30 minutes or so, but that's still a lot faster than either the OTPB or just adding the nibs straight to the melanger.
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Post by Ben on Dec 9, 2013 9:23:20 GMT -5
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Post by Ben on Dec 9, 2013 9:20:47 GMT -5
Thanks Cheebs. The RC models that I'm looking at are in the <$2k range (I'll probably start with one that is $800 or so). Also, I'm very limited on space, so I need something that is table-top size.
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Post by Ben on Dec 3, 2013 10:26:30 GMT -5
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Post by Ben on Dec 2, 2013 8:50:14 GMT -5
Thanks, Sebastian.
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Post by Ben on Dec 1, 2013 9:43:18 GMT -5
Sebastian: forgive me if this is a stupid question, but what are you referring to when you say a wheel type conche/grinder? Just one of the melangers?
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