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Post by jdchocolate on Jun 22, 2022 8:56:29 GMT -5
Hello Fellow Chocolatiers! this is my first post in this forum. Let me start of by introducing myself my name is Judayle and I myself fell in love with chocolate making about 5yrs ago when I studied at the International Culinary Center in California and I have been fortunate enough to have worked with some of the master Chocolatiers. It is at ICC where I discovered my passion for working with chocolate. I worked as a software engineer in the Bay Area for over a decade but I always felt like there was something missing. I was passionate about food from a very young age and grew up watching Chef’s like Jacques Pépin, Wolfgang Puck, Bobby Flay and so many others. Their creativity has always inspired me.
After having all of these amazing experiences, I was looking for a way to combine my two passions, food and technology. I spent some time really trying to look back on my experiences and search for a way to bring them together. I always loved working with chocolate, because of the precision it demanded and the complexity of the medium. But, I also loved how it could be used as an expression of art and how easily it could bring joy to just about anyone, young or old. So, I decided to tackle the beast, that is chocolate! I looked for ways in which I could make a difference and create something that a chocolatier would find useful. All of this culminated in the creation of Beta Crystal and it’s first ever product CocoPix. Like many of you, I too was facing a difficult time keeping my Cocoa Butter colors at the right temperature and keeping it tempered. I remember crossing my fingers before every unmolding.
Hence the creation of CocpoPix, I have spent quite a lot of time and energy on this device, and it is my deepest hope that Chocolatiers everywhere will find it useful. We have all had those days when bonbons will not unmold or you don't get that shine that you hoped for. But with the CocoPix, you can get that perfect shine every time and no longer do you need to spend exorbitant amounts on money on Cocoa Butter colors. You can make your own, in the quantity you need and the shades you like. You can do this as and when you need it.
If you are a chocolatier or even someone just interested in working with chocolate, please check out the link below. I would love to hear your feedback on the product and how I can make your work a little bit lighter.
I would greatly appreciate any feedback on this product and I am always open to hearing about problems that chocolatiers face when working with chocolate. We are a company that is focused on solving problems that chocolatiers face. So, if there is an issue you are facing and you are having to MacGyver a solution we want to help solve those problems in a consistent and efficient way. if you would like to talk to me about this product or solving a problem that you are facing as a chocolatier my email judayle@betacrystal.com is always open and I try my best to respond to all queries.
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Post by Ben on Jun 22, 2022 9:56:27 GMT -5
Welcome to the forum! Can you provide more information about how exactly this works and how a chocolate maker would use it? Is this a competitor to the EzTemper or something else?
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Post by jdchocolate on Jun 22, 2022 11:01:18 GMT -5
Hi Ben, thank you!. So this device was created to allow the chocolatier to keep multiple colors of cocoa butter in temper simultaneously. Each of the chambers have an independent thermostat that would allow you to work with for example cocoa butter, white chocolate and cocoa butter silk simultaneously. Yes, you can also use the device to make cocoa butter silk as well and in that sense it could be compared to similar cocoa butter incubators. But the basic idea was to allow chocolatiers the freedom to use the device as they see fit to make their workflow easier. The basic premise is that we wanted a solution that would replace multiple devices like sous vide machines, warming cabinets and incubators with a simple solution that had a lot of flexibility. The major pain point that we have seen is that chocolatiers need to temper small batches of cocoa butter colors individually for each batch of bonbons and there were no real solutions to heat small batches of cocoa butter colors and keep them in temper. This device allows the chocolatier to do that, I hope that helps explain the idea behind the product a bit. As always all questions are welcomed
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Post by Ben on Jun 23, 2022 9:39:05 GMT -5
Thanks! A couple questions:
For tempering colored cocoa butter, how is it envisioned to be used? Would the idea be to use one chamber to melt the cb and then another to hold at temp after tempering? Since it doesn't have agitation I don't imagine it can temper itself. Is that right?
When I do bonbons, I'm generally working with 10 colors or so. My process is to melt them all in a warming cabinet and then temper them individually before painting or airbrushing on molds. What would be the recommended way to incorporate the cocopix into my process.
Is it required to use the included bottles or can you use the bottles that colored cocoa butter comes in?
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Post by jdchocolate on Jun 24, 2022 3:12:43 GMT -5
Hi Ben! Sure let me explain, this device allows you to warm the cocoa butter and hold it at temp without the need to re-temper this is the basic premise. If you want to use the device to make your own cocoa butter colors you can use either raw untampered cocoa butter or tempered cocoa butter callets. If you would like to make cocoa butter colors using tempered cocoa butter callets, the process is easy set the device to the temperature you need for your batch of tempered cocoa butter callets, measure out the amount of fat-soluble pigment you like, add it in and stir once it has melted. Your cocoa butter colors are ready to be used. Now for the second case where in you are using raw untempered cocoa butter, you could use some of it to make your own cocoa butter silk using the device and then use that to temper all later batches of cocoa butter colors in much the same way as you would use cocoa butter silk to temper chocolate. To answer the question about using your own bottles we cannot officially recommend bottles that are not manufactured by us as we do not know the properties of the plastic or the dimensions of the bottle, I hope you can understand. As for the number of cavities the idea is that most bonbons consist or a maximum of three colors and while you use one you could always start heating the next bottle. That being said we have received a lot of interest in being able to warm multiple colors simultaneously and we do have a solution where we are considering stack-able bottles but they are not in production yet. Some background on chocolate to help make sense of the process above. Once a chocolate product is tempered the beta crystals do not break down unless they are over heated. So, if you were able to accurately control the warming process you can get away with not having to re-temper, this is what the device allows you to do. The reason you need to re-temper when using warming cabinets is that the heat is not even and there may be temporary spikes in temperature which break down the existing crystals and get the cocoa butter out of temper (i.e. reducing the number of beta 5 crystals). To be fair this was not their intended purpose. Now, to answer your question on agitation, you need agitation to create nucleation sites, you can think of it as crystals locking on to other crystals forming larger crystals and increasing in number as you stir and move them around, ultimately forming a larger proportion of the crystals you want. Think of stirring as a catalyst to the formation of crystals. You can temper cocoa butter by just maintaining temperature without any agitation by increasing the time for which you keep it at a fixed temperature roughly 17 hours. This is how you get cocoa butter silk, which is a highly crystallized form of cocoa butter. Note: If you have worked with chocolate warmers you might notice that sometimes the chocolate thickens up to the point where it is difficult to work with. This is commonly due to over tempered chocolate. When the chocolate is not agitated for an extended period of times there are can be an excess build up in the number of crystals formed. Stirring can also help break up excessively large crystals in addition to dispersing them within the mixture. Tempering is not a binary operation, it is more a scale or degree of temper which means the proportions of the beta 5 variant of the crystal in the chocolate as compared to other crystalline forms. So, you could temper cocoa butter colors or I should say increase the number of desired beta 5 crystals by incubating it at a fixed temperature one at which that batch of cocoa butter forms crystals in that orientation. Please note that if you buy name brand cocoa butter the temperature is usually fixed and specified by the manufacturer. But if you are pressing your own or you are buying raw cocoa butter you need to do a little bit of a trial and error to find the sweet spot. John Nanci has a great video on making cocoa butter silk if someone else is reading this, and has not watched it. I hope that answers your question Ben, I truly appreciate your interest and as always all questions are welcomed
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