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Post by Alan on Feb 9, 2006 11:08:18 GMT -5
Dear all,
As regards cleaning the Santha, do most of you:
a) Not clean it, leaving a thin layer of chocolate inside since you make chocolate so often that it doesn't matter? b) Add warm water and let the Santha run for a couple of minutes, dump, and repeat until it is clean? c) Other?
Thanks for your comments.
Sincerely,
Alan
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Post by Alchemist on Feb 9, 2006 15:35:46 GMT -5
I wash it with hot water, no soap and let it dry a good day before I use it again.
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Post by Alan on Feb 9, 2006 15:43:48 GMT -5
Dear John,
Thanks for the help. Sounds like a plan.
Sincerely,
Alan
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Post by Alan on Feb 10, 2006 9:09:50 GMT -5
Dear all, One tip for cleaning out the Santha. It makes it a lot easier if you eat the excess chocolate stuck to the sides first. Just a thought. Alan
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Post by Brad on May 10, 2006 17:41:41 GMT -5
Some important tips:
1) do NOT put the bowl in the dishwasher. The heat of the dishwasher will cause problems with the glue and/or attachment of the granite bottom to the side. 2) do NOT immerse the bottom of the bowl in water. On the underside of the bowl is a bearing that will rust and sieze if water gets into it. (Learned this one the hard way). 3) Make sure if you wash the rollers, to either let them dry for a day or so, OR, unscrew the metal rods the rollers are fastened on with. Quite a bit of water can hide in the shaft for each roller.
When I clean mine, I put the roller assembly in the dishwasher because it cleans it will, and the heat evaporates a good part of the water in the roller shafts. I then fill the bowl with 1/3 hot water and use a gentle long handled scrub brush to get the chocolate off. I give it a final rinse and that's it. I don't use soap.
Hope this helps avoide a siezed bowl. ;D
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Post by sugaralchemy on May 13, 2006 3:26:18 GMT -5
My approach is that the machine must be cleaned as throughly as possible, every time. I do this for organoleptic reasons (taste, smell, color, etc) and practical - think about the potential microbiological issues that could develop, particularly if you use milk products. This equipment is not being used in a production environment, so while I take cleaning seriously, these recommendations are not intended to address government health requirements for products that are produced for sale. I do think they represent good cleaning practices for private use, but clearly it is ultimately your responsibility to maintain sanitation of your equipment.
I want a clean container, and I tend to run batches end to end, many at a time. As I explored a range of possibilities, I came up with an easy solution after some trials. After the chocolate is done, even if the container is pretty chocolate laden and cold and hard, I simply add hot water from the tap (~120-125° F) and dishwater detergent and turn it on. It melts all the remaining chocolate, and within a few minutes the chocolate is cleaned up. Then just rinse at least twice, either manually or by changing the water and turning the machine on. Dishwasher detergent is designed just for this sort of a purpose - cleaning food ware and being removed by rinsing alone. Dishwasher detergent does not foam like many soaps.
Washing with water alone using a similar technique is possible, but it simply doesn't clean as well. I think you can understand how fat and water just don't like to mix of their own accord. I work with a whole range of things in the wet grinder, not all of which are cocoa butter-based, so I find it particularly important to clean with a soap-type product. There's an incredible diversity of fats and oils out there that I work with, and it doesn't take a whole lot of residue of any of these to screw up chocolate.
Interestingly, I've found that certain food emulsifiers are actually more effective than soap and emulsifying the fat into water in applications like this... but they are not an effective overall cleaning system, as they tend to leave a residue, not to mention can be somewhat expensive. (Modern detergents actually represent an entire cleaning "system" from components that emulsify fats to components that help it rinse out more easily.)
If you're working on batches end to end, just toss the wet container and roller into the oven on low temperature. (See John's notes on heating the Santha, but think 120° F to be safe) Leave the container inverted, so that the moisture can drip down and evaporate. To expedite things, I usually take the roller out and dry it next to the container, being sure to "jiggle" the roller a little to drive off the last of the moisture from around the "axle" of the roller. This dries the container very quickly and warms it up for the next batch.
That's the workflow I've developed. It's very efficient, really. The drying might sound like a small hassle, but when you realize the equipment has to be warmed up for another batch anyhow, it's actually very little added work. And you have extremely dry, clean equipment for your next batch.
If you do not use heat to dry the container and roller, it takes quite a while given ambient conditions, but it will eventually dry itself. I would probably allocate a minimum of a day for this to happen. If you need to run another batch before it's dry, just warm it in the oven as described above - it'll pre-heat the container and dry it beautifully.
No matter how you dry the equipment, be ABSOLUTELY sure to get all the water out of the axle on the roller. There could be easily enough water in there to destroy an entire batch of chocolate if you're not careful.
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Post by foodofthegods on Jan 31, 2007 15:35:58 GMT -5
When I have finished a batch of chocolate I add of quart of hot (from the tap) water to the bowl with the rollers in there and run the machine a couple minutes. I scrape the sides an bottom with a spatula to get all the chocolate in the water. I then put that chocolate water in the fridge for breakfast. If it is dark choclate add some powdered milk and sugar and heat it in the microwave to make real hot chocolate (not cocoa). This drink is very popular at my house.
After that I always wash the bowl and rollers with dishsoap and hot water and dry it well.
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Post by sharkman on Sept 21, 2007 1:50:42 GMT -5
Aloha! I ve been making chocolate pretty regularly here;cuz I have alot of beans. When I pour off a batch I take the bowl and the rolleres and put it in the freezer. next time I just let it run and the old melts and mixes in with the new. I clean it after 2-3 runs. I hate wasting chocolate. Later!!!
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Post by sharkman on Oct 15, 2007 3:27:12 GMT -5
Aloha again! Thought it best to rethink the freezer technique for the Santha. It picks up a bit of condensation from freezer. My next step is to put in my commercial dehydrator to cook off the moisture before starting again. Will let you know. Aloha Sharkman
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Post by seneca on Nov 3, 2007 18:45:57 GMT -5
A lot of cleaning in the industry is done with fats (cocoa butter), so one possibility is certainly just to run a quick cycle on the Santha with only cocoa butter and then discard before your next batch.
That said, I've also been using water for cleaning and then drying very VERY well before the next batch. I've been using a temperature-control system, so I usually just run the heater at about 120ºF for a while before anything goes into the bowl, which achieves both a nice dry environment for my next batch of chocolate and a good warm bowl for the cocoa mass and cocoa butter to start melting...
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Post by ripvanwinkle on Dec 26, 2007 14:19:13 GMT -5
I use a toothbrush to clean inside the roller hole. Lotsa gunk will pile up there, water too during cleanup. ................................................... Alchemist - how about posting prices of parts? I might be interested in spare ceramic parts. the rollers and what I call the "pot". That's in case those parts prove hard to clean in preparation for making white chocolate. I'm prolly crying wolf but am interested in knowing what parts for our machines cost.
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Post by Brad on Dec 27, 2007 20:56:50 GMT -5
Question:
If you are switching from real chocolate to White chocolate, I can see cleaning the santha.
Otherwise, why bother?
There's no water in the product, so it's not going to go bad. On top of that, if you use a good rubber spatula, the amount of chocolate left in the bin is negligible, and won't affect the taste of your dark chocolate if you are going from milk to dark. Going from Dark to milk, doesn't matter either.
On top of that, the bearings in the Santha will over time get water in them and sieze. I've now replaced the bearing in my Santha twice.
Brad.
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Post by reelchemist on Dec 28, 2007 5:21:20 GMT -5
I clean it each time as I am looking at the different flavours from the different beans that John stocks, also different roast times on the same cacao. Also my spatula technique isn't that good I find about 100g of chocolate remains on the rollers and grinder drum, this would effect the taste on 1/2 to 1 kg batches I do.
If I was churning out the same stuff or using the same bean to do a dark then a milk I would just adjust the recipie for the 100g of previous chocolate and not clean it. Infact that is what I am doing next, making a batch of 70% dark, then a 50% milk and then making a nutella all in succession - no cleaning as you are quite right I see no point. Besides in the desert like conditions here there is no chance of high humidity which could possibly effect subsequent batches of choc.
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Post by mistacandy on Apr 14, 2008 7:27:16 GMT -5
Clean it out with some water, then let it dry, after that put some sugar in it and have it run for an hour to get all the nooks and crannies. Then wash it out with water again. It sounds like alot but it works. I usually just take a brush or sponge and scrub with water. (the easy way out)
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Post by ripvanwinkle on Apr 14, 2008 15:58:09 GMT -5
Dear all, One tip for cleaning out the Santha. It makes it a lot easier if you eat the excess chocolate stuck to the sides first. Just a thought. Alan Alan, and the chocolate that you consume while cleaning the Santha doesnt count against your calorie intake either. Walter
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