fred
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Post by fred on Feb 28, 2020 17:42:07 GMT -5
So I think I didn't realize how much impact time has on the resulting chocolate. The rule of thumb I used to follow was 14 hours or so for Mllk chocolate and 24 hours or so for dark chocolate. Ben suggested using 24 hours for milk and 48 hours for dark. Both of those changes had a very noticeable (if not drastic) effect on the out come - that is the extended melanging time really improved things!
It's pretty silly that I didn't think of this before, but tasting the batch at different times during the melanging processing makes it much easier to figure out what's going on.
So for the batch I just made (Guatemalan Lachua roasted nibs from chocolate alchemy), I ran the melanger for 48 hours and if anything the flavor was maybe a little too subdued. It's possible that 36 hours was the sweet spot. When I tasted at 24 hours it was definitely a little too "astringent" (I could feel it on the back of my throat).
So now for my question: does anyone have any thoughts or insight into how long one should melange for?
Thanks!
-Fred
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Post by Chip on Feb 28, 2020 17:56:51 GMT -5
fred, I generally follow those two timelines, but your suggestion of tasting at different intervals is spot on. I always taste every 8 hours or so, when I can, to see the progress of the chocolate and to see how some of what I call the "free radicals" are being cast off. Astringency can also be caused by not enough butter or sugar in dark, and sometimes not quite the right fat content in milk. I generally end up running my dark from 36-48 hours, and one batch of beans I got from Viet Nam I ran for 56 hours and it was still pretty strong. Wasn't impressed with those beans at all. I have this new melange and have done one batch, but I left it in too long I think and it was a little "eh." I think that the size and professionalism of the melange will cut down my time needed.
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fred
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Post by fred on Feb 29, 2020 15:06:30 GMT -5
Wow, Chip you are a fountain of great information! Are there any good books you recommend on this? I better start working on my research LOL! Dandelion has a book and there are a few others on Amazon - but if you have a recommendation I'm all ears! That is really interesting about the professional melanger! I wonder if it can get a lot more pressure on the stone wheels which I'm guessing are a bit heavier as well. Would be really interested in hearing about your experiences with that! I've started a "club" at work to try and subsidize my hobby. I can realistically only do about 1 chocolate every few months, but my goal is to try each of the nibs on the Chocolate Alchemy site. It works out to about $40 including shipping for 2lbs of roasted nibs so with a few people pitching in (and willing to except occasional failures LOL) this is manageable. I've found a few single origin "true believers" and I'm pretty sure I can find more. [[ I also have to keep my own milk chocolate supply going which is why the dark chocolate is a bit lower priority =D ]] I'm really glad you mention Vietnamese beans. We (me and my charter members LOL) were drawn to the Vietnamese beans on the Chocolate Alchemy site because they seem really different. Now, since my last batch was quite acceptable I could potentially afford a more challenging batch. Or I could play it safe and pick a pretty safe chocolate to establish myself a bit more... It would be kind of nice if the Chocolate Alchemy site had reviews for the nibs offered. I really like John's descriptions of the nibs, but more perspectives would be great. I can also see why he might not want to deal with spam and moderating something like that... Come to think of it, is there a good place to read reviews for these different bean types outside of Chocolate Alchemy? Thanks again Chip and sorry for the long post!!!
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Jim B.
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Post by Jim B. on Mar 2, 2020 8:34:59 GMT -5
Fred, I make small batches for personal consumption (sugar-free) with a few made (with sugar) for my wife and friends. I've been thinking about the grinder and what you asked about the weight and/or pressure of the wheels in the process. The weight of the wheels would make a difference if not for the tensioning spring in the knob. That would provide more force than the weight alone and while heavier wheels might allow some increase in force, I think the difference would either be minimal or insignificant due to what might be called overengineering (or over-kill)! Think of it this way: the force needed to crush and grind a nib is relatively constant; what is needed are surfaces that are "smooth" enough when paired together to get the particles down to the required size. (You can't use 40 grit sandpaper to get a super-smooth finish no matter how hard you press down!) There are a couple of factors, in my very limited experience (in no way do I claim to be an expert), that I have noticed which might come into play. The first is the obvious thing that many have mentioned elsewhere: TIME. It takes time to get the result you want. (And some have stated that the chocolate flavor can become "flat" if you can grind too long.) I think there is a point-of-no-return as the technology of the grinder can only get you so far. The second thing is my own observation of the flow while grinding: there seem to be "eddies" in the flow where the chocolate mass just "rolls" around in front of the grinding wheels. It makes me wonder if this is ever getting under the wheels at all! (I'm sure it does - with enough time!) But it makes me think that too much pressure early on makes lt difficult for larger particles to get between the wheels and the base. For this reason I start with lighter pressure early and increase over time. (Again, using the sandpaper analogy, you can't get a smooth surface if you start with 600 grit, you need to work from rougher paper to smoother paper.) The grinding wheels work a little differently because you are dealing with the mass going between two contact surfaces; eventually they will be ground between the tightest space. Because of the eddies, I try to disrupt the flow from time to time as I scrape the sides. I'm not sure it really does anything, but it can't hurt! - and it makes me feel like it was worth something! Just my thoughts - if anyone with real experience can add to, or correct this, I'd love to hear your thoughts!
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Post by Chip on Mar 2, 2020 10:12:59 GMT -5
jim B. and fred, The melange with the tension removed is basically just stirring the mixture. If you leave the tension knob off at the beginning you will notice that the sugar does not get ground at all. With full tension the melange is supposed to grind to less than 20 microns (I have never tested this). So if you are trying to hold a batch you can remove the tensioning knob and it becomes a stirrer. If you don't want any grinding action just remove the wheels and put the tensioning knob back on to keep the wheel assembly in place and the scrapers will mix the chocolate. Jim, all of the chocolate does get mixed/ground. It is the nature of the stones to form "eddies," this is the normal flow of the material but it all, eventually, gets evened out and completely mixed and ground.
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Jim B.
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Post by Jim B. on Mar 2, 2020 12:32:40 GMT -5
Chip, Thanks for the clarification especially on the "eddies" - it really looks like it's going nowhere! 😄
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Post by Chip on Mar 2, 2020 12:35:05 GMT -5
jim B., I know!! LOL. And sometimes those eddies get these big bubbles that just don't burst. HAHAHA. So I burst 'em with a little wooden skewer.
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Post by Ben on Mar 2, 2020 16:33:58 GMT -5
I don't remember suggesting 24 hours for milk and 48 hours for dark. If I did, I apologize. There's no hard and fast rule for how long you need to refine, other than that you need to refine until it's at the texture and flavor you want. This is more dependent on the size of the batch than anything. For the record, I haven't noticed any real difference for the time needed to refine milk and dark.
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fred
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Post by fred on Mar 2, 2020 16:52:25 GMT -5
Woop, sorry Ben - I meant to say Chip! I've had trouble with dark chocolate, but my last batch was better than most - definitely less "harsh". If anything I may have over-melanged (there isn't a lot of "depth" to the flavor). I think though there are a few factors though so I'll have to keep an eye out: I used the 70/30/20 cacao/cbutter/sugar ratio, but I would like to try 70/5/25 next time which may be a bit more bitter. I used to always melange to 24 hours - I didn't realize the taste changes over time LOL - 36 hours may have been the "sweet spot" for this last batch. I did crank the nob on top of the melanger down pretty close to maximum once the mix was a liquid. This might also have had in impact (I'm not sure what I did in the past). Chip - did you say you generally don't crank down the top knob all the way? I will say my last batch was nice and smooth after 48 hours but I'm not sure if that made a difference or not.
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Post by Ben on Mar 3, 2020 7:43:10 GMT -5
In my experience, most chocolates aren't particularly complex straight out of the grinder--requiring a few days or so before the flavors can really be judged. These machines are pretty terrible at conching, so I wouldn't worry that cranking the knob all the way will cause issues. I don't understand 70/30/20. Isn't that 120%?
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Jim B.
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Post by Jim B. on Mar 3, 2020 7:55:19 GMT -5
Ben, Maybe it's new math - base 12 ! (LOL) 🤣🤣🤣 (sorry, Fred, couldn't resist!)
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Post by Chip on Mar 3, 2020 10:53:57 GMT -5
But most small craft chocolate is 120% great!
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fred
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Post by fred on Mar 4, 2020 1:18:41 GMT -5
ROFL! Yeah, hope none of my colleagues are chocolate makers or I'll never hear the end of it! Sorry, that should be 60/10/30 vs 70/5/25 (cacao/cbutter/sugar). I haven't tried the second one yet. Ben, what differentiates a conching machine from a melanger?
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Post by Ben on Mar 6, 2020 11:42:21 GMT -5
A stone grinder (aka melanger, although I prefer stone grinder for pointless reasons) is really just a refiner. A conche, uh, conches. I built and designed a couple of different conches a few years ago. Here's a bit from an email I sent someone interested in buying one from me that discusses conches vs stone grinders: I completed the construction of a conche of my own design in the summer of 2015, and used it on almost every batch of chocolate I made until I started using an updated version built with a metal shop in Washington, DC. I had several reasons for building it, but my main reason was to improve the viscosity and melt of my chocolate. While I've been mostly happy with the flavor development I get from using a melanger for the dual-purposes of refining and conching, I've felt that there was a lot of room for improvement in the melt. Specifically, I felt there was a thickness or fudginess to the melt that wasn't 'bad', but could've been better. As I've probably mentioned to everyone who is receiving this email, in my opinion, you can almost always tell a melanger-only chocolate by this fudginess. In addition to the viscosity, of course, I was interested in whether a separate conche could achieve better flavor development, and how I could increase my production level. My hope was that I could increase both the quality and quantity of my chocolate. In preparation for building a conche, I did a ton of research into what exactly conching was, the forces at work, as well as comparing the various types of conches available. They can roughly be broken down into vertically-stirred rotary conches, horizontally stirred rotary conches, and longitudinal conches. This is a simplification, of course, but the main forces at work, are shear, aeration, and the strategic application of heat. Heat and aeration help with removing moisture and volatiles, and shear stress helps to lower the viscosity of the chocolate. Essentially, the more shear stress/energy you can put into the chocolate, the more you can improve the viscosity. More intense shear stress can improve the viscosity better than less intense shear over a longer time. Also, the more moisture you can remove, the better the viscosity. With this information in hand, it's easy to see why a melanger is not a great conche. While the heat is fine, and can be easily increased, there is very little shear stress being applied to the chocolate, minimal aeration, and as the chocolate is mostly just in one big mass, relatively little surface area for moisture and volatile reduction. I ended up building a vertically-stirred rotary conche as I decided that it applied those forces in the most efficient way, and in a way that didn't require complex machinery (or hackery) to produce. The simple action of the scrapers produce a lot more shear stress than the other varieties, while also aerating the chocolate very effectively. The aeration (and the way the chocolate is pulled into long thin sheets and thrown about at the top of the scrapers rotation) creates a lot of surface area for moisture and volatiles to evaporate. The only other thing that needs to be added is heat--although I've found after using it for 7 or 8 months, that I get the best viscosity reduction by running my conche for 12-24 hours with no heat other than what is created by the action of the scrapers. I call this 'psuedo-dry stage conching', as the chocolate is thicker at the lower temperature and so requires more energy be put into it to conche. I'm happy to say that that original conche was a great success. I was very pleased with the viscosity reduction, and the flavor development is improved as well. It also allowed me to double my output, as I can do two batches in the same time it used to take to do one. If the melanger were a better refiner, I could do even more. While the conching action of the original conche worked very well, having used it for a good while, I identified several places where it could be improved. The only thing actually related to conching was to improve the spacing between the scrapers and the walls of the tank. The tanks of the original conche, being fashioned from two meat mixers, are not perfect semi-circles at the bottom. Instead they're a touch deeper at the bottom than the sides, which reduces the amount of shear stress. Other than that, the areas of improvement are in the complexity that having two tanks introduces--both to the construction and the drive train required to rotate two scrapers in counter-rotation--and usability issues (it's not very easy to empty). Also, the original conche could only handle 50 lbs, while I wanted something that could handle at least a full batch from a 65 lb melanger. For the second version, these issues have been addressed. As you can see in the specs, the design has been simplified to a single tank, which greatly simplifies construction and the drive train issues, while retaining all of the benefits of a vertically-stirred rotary conche: lots of shear stress from the 4 scrapers, aeration from the action of the scrapers, etc. Heating is accomplished by a silicone rubber heater affixed to the bottom of the tank. My goal with this design was to produce a simple, no frills, down-to-basics conche, that gives chocolate makers the ability to control the core elements of the conching process (speed/shear/aeration and temperature), while staying reasonably within reach cost-wise of smaller makers like myself. I also wanted to avoid the over-promise-under-deliver situation that I feel happens with a lot of the chocolate equipment targeted at us smaller makers.
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fred
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Post by fred on Mar 6, 2020 18:11:32 GMT -5
Ben - wow! Thank you for that! I definitely was under the misapprehension that melangers were the beginning and end of the story. I didn't realize that there is a lot of room for perfection in the process. I will have to look for that fudginess you mentioned. Do you think more aeration could be done in the small melanger? Maybe I could add a paddle wheel to my melanger? XD
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