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Post by nuage9 on Oct 5, 2023 4:16:58 GMT -5
I’m keeping a low fat diet due to some gut issues and i seem to be fine with pulverizing cacao nibs with some date powder and vanilla powder. I eat the powder with a spoon and i love it lol. I saw a Youtube video using a device called Nutramilk to make “chocolate” by just processing these ingredients. It takes 20 mins and the result is a chocolate bar. Would this be possible with a Premier refiner? Now i realize the end result wouldn’t be chocolate in the traditional sense but i’m not fussed Cheers!
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Post by Chip on Oct 5, 2023 8:25:03 GMT -5
After taking a look at it online and reading some of the reviews, I would have my doubts about trying to process nibs in that machine. The Premier grinder is the same price (the non-stainless version is less expensive) and I would trust that before the Nutramilk. I could be way off though. .
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Post by nuage9 on Oct 5, 2023 14:47:33 GMT -5
Yeah i had a look at Nutramilk and while it looks promising, most of the reviews complain about it overheating and its parts melting. So i won’t be buying that hahah. But you’re saying if that machine can do it surely the Premier can too then?
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Post by Ben on Oct 5, 2023 16:35:09 GMT -5
Hello! What you're describing is just grinding chocolate, which is what the premier refiner is intended for. So it can definitely do it. If you want it to be smooth, it will take longer than 20 minutes, though.
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Post by nuage9 on Oct 7, 2023 6:11:40 GMT -5
Thanks guys! I have the cacao nibs going in the refiner right now haha
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Post by nuage9 on Oct 8, 2023 2:07:23 GMT -5
So i used about 750 grans raw cacao nibs and used about 3 cups of date powder as sweetener, and about 3 cups of almond protein as a “vegan milk powder” sub (basically the almond equivalent of PB2 but with no sugar)
The end result was nice but it was dark chocolate despite my best efforts. (I really wanted milk chocolate)
Any advice for me please? I guess i could add more of the almond protein and date powder but the mixture was already super thick cause the date powder doesn’t melt like sugar does.
I also don’t wanna add extra cacao butter to keep it gut friendly 😅
Just for some context, i used both date powder and almond protein along with cacao nibs to make raw vegan bliss balls and it tasted incredible… but i guess that could be because the cacao content was pretty low in comparison.
Sorry i know i’m not making this easy haha
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Post by nuage9 on Oct 8, 2023 2:11:12 GMT -5
Also wanted to attach an image to show consistency of final product.. Would grinding it even further help it get thinner so i can add more of the powders? This is about 5-6 hours of grinding. ibb.co/2sbYydDibb.co/wgsbSQ1Also i’m not tempering this chocolate. It’s just for me so i just want it to taste good, not fussed about the sheen/snap etc haha Forgot to mention i even added some monkfruit powder to give it more sweetness but stillll it’s quite dark chocolate.
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Post by nuage9 on Oct 8, 2023 2:22:48 GMT -5
Sorry for the spam, kind of using this as a sounding board at this point haha.
But maybe i can omit date powder, use monkfruit sweetener only (cause you only need tiny amounts) and use the dry powder “allowance” entirely on vegan milk powder. I’d appreciate any input 😇
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Post by Ben on Oct 9, 2023 11:01:21 GMT -5
There's a lot going on here. I'll try to answer some of the questions and provide some suggestions. First, how much does 3 cups of date powder and 3 cups of almond protein weigh? It's difficult to know what your actual formulation is without the weights. I would highly recommend measuring only using weight. Also, how long did you refine this for? Viscosity of chocolate is essentially determined by the ratio of cocoa butter to solids. Your current formulation almost certainly doesn't have enough cocoa butter to produce the viscosity you're looking for. Basically, there's too many solids and not enough fat. If you don't want to add cocoa butter, the only other option is to add more nibs relative to the other ingredients. This will make a stronger/darker chocolate, however. Note that sugar doesn't melt or dissolve in chocolate since chocolate is fat-based and has no water. So, the sugar is refined by being crushed by the stones. Date sugar will also be refined by the stones, so just having date sugar won't necessarily make your chocolate thicker than if you had used regular sugar. I'm assuming that what you mean when you say that your formulation made a 'dark' chocolate is that the chocolate was stronger or darker than you had hoped, and that you're trying to make something sweeter and lighter. This again, is due to formulation. To make something sweeter and/or lighter, you need to add more of the sweetener and/or milk alternative. The problem with this, of course, is that your chocolate is already too thick with your current formulation. Essentially, you've got to decide which compromise you're willing to make. Either you can have a darker chocolate with a lower viscosity, a lighter chocolate with a thicker viscosity, or a chocolate with added cocoa butter. My guess is that added cocoa butter isn't really the problem as much as too much cocoa butter overall. So, you could probably lower the amount of nibs and add some cocoa butter to get a lighter and less viscous chocolate. You could try your monkfruit idea, but it's going to have the same issues as your current chocolate unless you somehow adjust the fat to solids ratio. Hope this helps!
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Post by nuage9 on Oct 9, 2023 21:04:47 GMT -5
Thanks for the suggestions Ben!
I ground the mixture for about 6 hours in my Premier refiner.
I was also wondering if a bit of lecithin would help achieve less viscosity without adding too much fat? I haven’t worked with it before but I was hoping to buy some sunflower lecithin to test with.
I’ll definitely weigh the ingredients next time. This experiment was a mess, tasting and adding more stuff as I went the entire time 😅
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Post by Ben on Oct 10, 2023 8:51:37 GMT -5
You're welcome! 6 hours is probably not going to be long enough for a batch this size. I'd either reduce the batch size or extend the grind. Lecithin would help to reduce the viscosity. I don't use it so I never think to suggest it. There's a lot of discussions about it here in these forums, so you should be able to get a good idea for quantities, when to add it, etc.
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