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Chocolate Melter/Holder


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I have no difficulty tempering chocolate, but I do have a hard time keeping it at optimal dipping temperature for long periods of time. Can I buy a temperature-controlled melter, into which I can pour my tempered chocolate, for significantly less than I can buy a home tempering machine? If so, what model should I look for?

Thanks,

Jonathan

Formerly known as "Melange"

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I have no difficulty tempering chocolate, but I do have a hard time keeping it at optimal dipping temperature for long periods of time. Can I buy a temperature-controlled melter, into which I can pour my tempered chocolate, for significantly less than I can buy a home tempering machine? If so, what model should I look for?

Thanks,

Jonathan

A mol d'art melter can be had in 3 sizes 3 kg, 6 kg and 12 kg. Prices are about $450 for 3 kg to about $829 for the 12 kg. I have the 6 kg size. You can actually temper in it by seeding. Given the big open surface area the chocolate does tend to thicken considerably over time.

I tested out a food warmer called a Grande Chef CW11. It is made by a company in Orangeville, Ontario. It costs around $300 CDN as I recall. It was no good for tempering, because if you tried to adjust the temperature it would turn itself off, but it could hold the same low temperature forever. It would made a great unit to hold your chocolate at the working temperature for a long period. Again the chocolate does thicken over time. I can't find an internet link to the company but they can be reached at (519) 942-4470.

I just keep my tempered chocolate in an pyrex 8 cup measure and I use my heat gun to bring the temperature of my chocolate up to the working temperature as it cools, or I add untempered warm chocolate to bring the temperature up if I need more tempered chocolate. The cooler tempered chocolate tempers the untempered warmer chocolate.

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Kerry

I have a Chocovision X tempering machine, the chocolate tends to thicken over several hours. According to your post, you said this is a function of the surface area? I have used other machines that have a large surface area like the mol d'art and this was never a problem.

Mark

Mark

www.roseconfections.com

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Kerry

I have a Chocovision X tempering machine, the chocolate tends to thicken over several hours. According to your post, you said this is a function of the surface area? I have used other machines that have a large surface area like the mol d'art and this was never a problem.

Mark

Mark,

I guess I have made the assumption that it is related to surface area because the chocolate seems to thicken more quickly in the mol d'art compared to anything else I have used and it has the largest surface area. You know what they say about assuming.

Kerry

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Kerry

I have a Chocovision X tempering machine, the chocolate tends to thicken over several hours. According to your post, you said this is a function of the surface area? I have used other machines that have a large surface area like the mol d'art and this was never a problem.

Mark

it could be if the ambient room temperature is very cool. but i think overall it is a function of what crystalline formation you have in your chocolate. it might just be at the right point where all the crystals just go nuts and congeal!

i use the heating pad in a bowl method and it isn't ideal either. i think one of the keys is to stir pretty frequently while dipping in order to bring some of the warmer chocolate which is nearer to the heat source up to the surface. stirring is good for chocolate!

Edited by alanamoana (log)
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My understanding (which may be flawed) is that the temp at which we are working with the choc is the temp at which it is going to start setting up, which makes it normal that the 'source' choc can't be kept liquid and in perfect temper over long periods of time. Some method wuch as the heating pad in a bowl or the heat gun and stirring is therefore a necessity, not an abnormality, to keeping the source chocolate liquid.

I also use a mol d'art 6kg and must occasionally use a heat gun in addition, and I use a Little Dipper (at about twice the price) which must be 'added to' (choc) and re-tempered throughout the day. Neither is the solution, so I guess what I am saying is that there is no 'smallish' machine to my knowledge which will do what you want.

Hope this helps.

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the primary reasons for thickening of chocolate are threefold

1) temperature

2) crystalline formation

3) moisture

if you're temperature is too cold, obviously things will begin to firm up. However, most of us can rather quickly rule that out, and for the seasoned worker, that's likely not the issue. The more likely culprit is that since most of these 'temperers' (weather or not they're actual temperers or just controlled melters) have rotating bowls, there's a good bit of shear and agitation at the interface of the chocolate and the bowl - this is one of the drivers to create addtional solid crystals out of the fluid cocoa butter. as you increase the ratio of solid crystals to fluid butter, your surface area increases and you've less cocoa butter to keep things fluid. viola, viscosity increases. many large scale tempering units (talking industrial here) use both temperature control and agitation of one sort or another in their tempering profiles.

Moisture usually isn't the biggest driver (moisture as in high RH environments), as most of you are working with small batches. However, if you've got a piece of equipment that has a relative large top surface area exposed to the air (ie, very shallow bowl, but very wide) AND your RH is high (70% +), you likely will see viscosity increases over relatively short periods of time. Of course, if you're getting fluid moisture in there (water leak, spill, etc) you're going to see the chocolate thicken very, very quickly.

if you've ruled out temp and moisture, and you're seeing the chocolate thicken over time, simply heat it up a bit. it's a bit of an art to know how much to heat it - you don't want to break your temper compltely, but if you're in what's called an 'overseeded' state (ie too many see crystals present), you do have the ability to heat it higher than what you normally would think appropriate, and still have tempered chocolate. The trick is to know just how far you can push it..

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I use this chocolate melter

M1003.jpg

which is available for Euro 582.54 from Chocolate World.

It is basically a hot air bain marie with a standard 150mm deep gastronorm dish that holds 21kg (actually more like 15kg). Provided that you keep at least 6kg in the bottom it holds chocolate at a constant temperature for many hours.

Chocolate will thicken if it is not worked (or stirred). It will also thicken if it is stirred! Agitation encourages crystal formation.

Additionally, chocolate absorbs moisture from the air and thus thickens over time. The lower the humidity in your chocolate room the better.

I used to find that to be able to work with the same chocolate for six hours plus I need to either add untempered chocolate (preferably at 31 degrees celsius) from time to time, and/or also to increase the working temperature over time from an initial 31 degrees up to a maximum of 34.5 degrees. Incemements of half a degree are usually enough.

I have now found a useful trick that has almost negated these adjustments. I sandwich a heat pad between two thin stainless steel sheets and clamp these beside the chocolate melting/holding tank at a slight decline so that their lowest edge is just over the side of the chocolate tank. I use the heated sheet to wipe excess chocolate off my dipping fork (instead of using the side of the tank/bowl). The advantage of these heated sheets is that they collect and warm up (to about 36 degrees celsius) just enough chocolate to roll back into your tank to compensate for the increased crystalisation caused by the working of the chocolate.

The very latest refinement has been to use a VIBRATING heat pad. Now I no longer add additional cocoa butter to my couverture to achieve a really thin coating. Saving some money.

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escry, if it isn't too much of an imposition, can you post a picture of your set-up? i'm certainly not in the market for a melter/holder at the moment as the cost is prohibitive, but i'd love to see what your creativity has come up with.

for dipping, i set up my bowl with a wire wrapped around the outer rim. i made two loops in the wire on opposite sides of the bowl. then i take another piece of wire and thread it through the loops. that way, i tap and scrape the bottom of my chocolate on the wire as opposed to the edge of the bowl. there's a lot less buildup on the wire and 99% of the chocolate just falls back down into the bowl.

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Alanamoana, great idea. I have neither the space nor the money to invest in an enrober at the moment, so necessity is being the mother of invention.

My set up is similar to a Heath Robinson invention

torto2.gif

Allow me a couple of weeks and I'll share my latest version. It's going to a local stainless steel fabricator next week.

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escry,  if it isn't too much of an imposition, can you post a picture of your set-up?  i'm certainly not in the market for a melter/holder at the moment as the cost is prohibitive, but i'd love to see what your creativity has come up with.

for dipping, i set up my bowl with a wire wrapped around the outer rim.  i made two loops in the wire on opposite sides of the bowl.  then i take another piece of wire and thread it through the loops.  that way, i tap and scrape the bottom of my chocolate on the wire as opposed to the edge of the bowl.  there's a lot less buildup on the wire and 99% of the chocolate just falls back down into the bowl.

I second the request for a picture. I would also like to see a picture of your wire set up. When I used to use metal bowls I was able to use the wire pieces that are used to hold IV bags to the poles as a scraper. With my current setup I can't and would like to see how you have rigged it.

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I use a mol d'art and do not have problems keeping my chocolate in temper for long periods as long as I keep an eye on it. This means agitating it frequently as well as hitting it with a heat gun every now and then. I've only had it over-crystallize on me if I do not agitate it often enough.

Like alanamoana I do not use the edge of the bowl to scrape when dipping. I simply use a bent wire hanger that "clips" on the middle of the bowl. Works great.

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  • 1 year later...

There used to be a vendor on ebay that sold those belgian chocolate melter ( the one Wybauw uses ) I cant find them anymore, I think the store has changed and sell different type of melters/tempers machine , but not the same.

Do you guys have any idea on where to find those here in the states?Or alternatives, I need one more at least the 6 or 12 kg one.

Thank you

Vanessa

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Vanessa,

Here's one source: Pastry Chef Central : Mol'd'art Melters

With the beating that the $ has taken, the prices have really gone up!

John DePaula
formerly of DePaula Confections
Hand-crafted artisanal chocolates & gourmet confections - …Because Pleasure Matters…
--------------------
When asked “What are the secrets of good cooking? Escoffier replied, “There are three: butter, butter and butter.”

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Chef Rubber has them too:

https://www.shopchefrubber.com/home.php?cat=926

I have a 3kilo round one, and I borrowed a 6 kilo from David J for my Easter production. So much nicer! Now I just need to save up my pennies for one of my very own.

Tammy's Tastings

Creating unique food and drink experiences

eGullet Foodblogs #1 and #2
Dinner for 40

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Yes, I believe the technical term is indeed "super sensitive fancy pants thermostats"! :biggrin:

Once you get the chocolate into temper, they will hold it there, because their thermostats do have a very tight range. But even knowing that, I still ask myself this same question all the time! I think the other answer is that the market is small, so they're not being mass produced and driving the price down.

Tempering machines are even more expensive. The lowest end model is the Chocosphere X3210, and its list price is $1600. http://www.chocovision.com/choco/site/x23_spec.htm

Tammy's Tastings

Creating unique food and drink experiences

eGullet Foodblogs #1 and #2
Dinner for 40

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Once you get the chocolate into temper, they will hold it there, because their thermostats do have a very tight range.

Well that's good to know! I saw the big hotel pan size melters in use on one of the Food Network chocolate challenges; I had wondered if those things held the chocolate in temper.....now I know!

Sigh.......boy would I like to have one of those...........

I bought a Chocovision Revolation 2 off of eBay. $250. It's ok, but only for home use. It only melts and tempers up to 1.5 lbs of chocolate, and when you're working with chocolate, you know that's not much at all!

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Once you get the chocolate into temper, they will hold it there, because their thermostats do have a very tight range.

Well that's good to know! I saw the big hotel pan size melters in use on one of the Food Network chocolate challenges; I had wondered if those things held the chocolate in temper.....now I know!

Sigh.......boy would I like to have one of those...........

I bought a Chocovision Revolation 2 off of eBay. $250. It's ok, but only for home use. It only melts and tempers up to 1.5 lbs of chocolate, and when you're working with chocolate, you know that's not much at all!

oh, another thing that sucks about them (aside from price) is that standard hotel pans don't fit in them (i'm pretty sure about this, but i could be wrong). just another way to get you to spend more money by buying an extra pan!

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Once you get the chocolate into temper, they will hold it there, because their thermostats do have a very tight range.

Well that's good to know! I saw the big hotel pan size melters in use on one of the Food Network chocolate challenges; I had wondered if those things held the chocolate in temper.....now I know!

Sigh.......boy would I like to have one of those...........

I bought a Chocovision Revolation 2 off of eBay. $250. It's ok, but only for home use. It only melts and tempers up to 1.5 lbs of chocolate, and when you're working with chocolate, you know that's not much at all!

Yeah, the Rev2 would be okay for small amounts of dipping, but is really useless for any significant molding.

One caveat on the melters, which you can read about in depth in other threads, is that while they will hold the chocolate at the right temperature, the chocolate will eventually begin to thicken anyway as it overcrystallizes. So some continued attention is needed - adjusting the temperature on the thermostat (once it's overcrystallized, you can go up a couple degrees without taking it out of temper), or using a heat gun to take some of the chocolate out of temper and thus dilute the crystals.

Tammy's Tastings

Creating unique food and drink experiences

eGullet Foodblogs #1 and #2
Dinner for 40

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Once you get the chocolate into temper, they will hold it there, because their thermostats do have a very tight range.

Well that's good to know! I saw the big hotel pan size melters in use on one of the Food Network chocolate challenges; I had wondered if those things held the chocolate in temper.....now I know!

Sigh.......boy would I like to have one of those...........

I bought a Chocovision Revolation 2 off of eBay. $250. It's ok, but only for home use. It only melts and tempers up to 1.5 lbs of chocolate, and when you're working with chocolate, you know that's not much at all!

oh, another thing that sucks about them (aside from price) is that standard hotel pans don't fit in them (i'm pretty sure about this, but i could be wrong). just another way to get you to spend more money by buying an extra pan!

You are not wrong. After I got the 6 kg melter I ran out and bought two half sized hotel pans cause 'wouldn't it be great to have milk and white tempered at the same time?' - looked like they should fit - don't fit!.

I had one of the Sinsation machines (the original version of the Chocovision Revolation), way too little chocolate and way to noisy to have going in the kitchen for 3 or 4 hours at a stretch. It went to a good home.

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I'll second the 'standard hotel pans don't fit in them' thing. Tried...deceivingly close, but not quite. You can, of course, order them from Mol d'Art.

Otherwise...they are indeed excellent at the narrow but significant task they perform.

Randall Raaflaub, chocolatier

rr chocolats

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