Sebastian

It's an FDA approved colorant, approved for safe food use (it's GRAS). Since in it's pure form it's an oxidized metal, there's zero chance for allergeic reaction (you can only be allergic to proteins). Given K8's comments above as well as the ebay material, it could well be that the material previously used really isn't of appropriate purity for food, and may have been tainted with other components (there are varying grades, ranging from pharmaceutical (the highest grade) to non food use - typically cosmetic applications don't use food grade ingredients). Many compound coatings use it, and it's the white color in all your white cocoa butters (actually, come to think of it, it's the only white color I know of in any food product...)

I second that. Whenever i work with dusts, i simply brush them into the moulds. If you're having problems with large clumps (from techniques other than brushing), you might wantt o consider rubbing in a thin layer of cocoa butter into the mould with your fingertip and letting that solidify prior to adding the dusts. Usually when you get partial demoulding, it's due to the moulds not being clean or the chocolate not being in temper.

Actually, milk fat is and isn't compatible with cocoa butter. How's that for covering my bases 8-) mlk fat will be compatable with ccb up to a level of about 6% in the total fat, after which you loose the ability to temper the chocolate. In a ganache, you've typically got far more than 6% milk fat, so compatilibity is no longer an issue, as no ganaches are ever tempered. A surface coating of a non lauric vegetable oil isn't going to be any more incompatible with chocolate at this point than milk fat is (milk fat is nonlauric as well). Many smaller confectioners (usually the bigger guys who are concerned about $ and extending shelf life) use vegetable fats to make 'ganache like' centers (peanut butter meltaways, for example) where they replace the cream with something such as soybean oil or coconut oil. Any time you're talking ganache, you've got incompatible levels of oils - this is usually undesireable for solid applications, but it's exactly what you want for a ganache (the interplay between the incompatible oils is technically referred to as eutectics).

mm.. if you put a non stick spray down, it might work, or if you lines the moulds with saran wrap to help 'pull' them out. i've never tried moulding pure ganache, but i think it might be difficult...

Sure, I think it's aasted mikroverk that makes it - i'm sure they'd be willing to make you a bench top unit - it's all a question of money, right? 8-)

Actually, what happens if you put chocolate in the freezer is you run the risk of 'shocking' it - that is, you force extremely rapid crystallization on the very outer surfaces, which effectively acts as an insulator for all the residual heat that's trapped inside. You may likely get a product that looks nice initially, but 6 hours later as that heats worked itself out, you're in trouble. There's some commercial high speed moulding equipment that exploits this phenemenon, one of the names given to it is cold cone technology. The idea is the create your shell thin enough and your equipment cold enough so that the chocolate is essentially 'shocked' all the way through, leaving negligible residual trapped heat. Pretty interesting stuff.

I tried this just last week, borrowing a stamp from my daughters collection - while it worked ok, i didn't have great consistent results. I've been thinking about it, and I think if there was more 'depth' in the relief of the stamp, I might get better results (ie, there's more distance between the 'highs' and the 'lows' of the stamp). I think i was getting pooling in the crevaces of the stamp - while i could blot that out prior to stamping, it never quite got to where i wanted it to be...

Macyntires are grinder/conches. The concept is you throw all your materials into it (coarse sugar, milk, liquor, etc) turn it on, and come back in 20 hours to have a chocolate that's ground to the appropriate fineness and conched. In my opinion, it's not the best conching system out there, but it does work very well from a grinding/emulsification standpoint. It's not to say you won't get some conching out of it (conching is done for many, many reasons, not just flavor development), because you will. This equipment needs to be maintained as does any equipment, the most critical things to keep on top of are approprate gap between the mixing paddles and the vessel wall, keeping an appropriate coating on the vessel internal wall, and maintaining appropriate condition of the mixing paddles. If you're concerned about metals content, there's a few things you can do. Ask your supplier about his qualiity control systems and HACCP procedures. Ask if there are any internal specifications on metals content, and how that's monitored. Obtain a few samples from them as well as from his competitors, and have them sent for metals analysis (I prefer ICP, many places use AA which is ok too). Ask about their screens and magnets, and ask if you can see documentation regarding their quality check, action levels, and disposition procedures. If they're a small producer (bean to chocolate), you might want to spend some time going over their entire quality system, from salmonella and micro to comprehensive HACCP and their critical control points. I'm more than happy to go over the results with you if you have any questions on what you're seeing from them. Oh, and I'd want to know if it's indeed a Macintyre (Macintyre's a brand name - not all flying disks are frisbees, although everyone calls them that. it's the same with grinder/conches) - everything else being the same, I'd be more inclined to have a better 'gut' feel about a true Macintyre vs a knockoff. As to other types, since he didn't elaborate on what they were using, i'll very likely hit on what he's using - there's frisse's, thouets, continous systems, melangeurs, and a few others.

Actually, your guide wasn't quite accurate. There are still places that do traditional extended conching, and there are more types of conches available than he's indicating. The Macyntire type conches are not all bad, but there are less expensive Chinese Macyntire type pieces of equipment that do result in more metal (their liquor ball mills likely produce much higher metal lvls. Or their winnowing machines if the beans are not properly cleaned prior to entering the equipment). As with all equipment, a good Macyntire and regular maintainence, you'll be alright.

Actually, US law is harmonized with EU and Canadian laws regarding the amount of liquor that must be present to be called semisweet or bittersweet - all of which require a minimum of 35% liquor. On an interesting note, there is no legal distinction between bittersweet and semisweet - however when reduced to practice, industry has sort of self policed itself such that bittersweet refers to a minimum of 50% liquor. Alan - i'm afraid I can't direct you to any place specific regarding different grades of lecithin, and my gut feel is that most small distributors are going to look at you like you've grown antennae if you ask them about the HLB. You might want to try an industrial producer such as Cargill, ADM, Degussa, etc and ask for samples or a distributor list w/a listing of products sold to those distributors so you can then ask for spec sheets on those specific products.

I think you're on John's mailing list for alchemy, no? When you're talking fat level of the chocolate, you're talking total fat, not just fat added in the form of cocoa butter. Example - if your chocolate is 32% fat, a good portion of that is from the liquor, as well as any milk fat that might be present. There really is no legal definition of couverature - it's jsut a french word that means coating. Traditionally, however, couveratures are those chocolates which are higher in total fat than other types of chocolate coatings. As noted in the mail list, there's no hard and fast rule to lecithin usage. If you're looking for a coating that's very high in total fat, you're likely to require less lecithin to obtain the appropriate viscosity you're after - in fact, you may not require any, if you're cocoa solids are high enough. I've never seen any chocolate formulation require more than 0.6% lecithin, and would absolutely never, ever formulate a chocolate with lecithin as high as 1% (the US rules don't specify a limit of 1% lecithin, but rather total emulsifiers. The only other emulsifer in use for chocolate in the US is PGPR, but usually on a smaller scale for very industrial mass mfrs). And of course this doesn't take into account the different grades of lecithin, or HLB values.

Could be. Point is that you don't know until you ask. Look at a Hershey Pa phone book sometime and see how many different business types have the name "hershey" 8-) Nothing ventured, nothing gained!

You may wish to contact the original TM owner and ask them for rights to use the name. You are geographically very separated from one another (very little liklihood of competition between one another), and may have very different businesses (in fact, if so different, the trade mark may not be m eaningful. For example, Hershey's is obviously trademarked, and most people associate it with chocolate. There are, however, Hershey's dairy, Hershey's Ice Cream, Hershey's construction, etc - all w/in a short distance of the chocolate company.) Don't give up so readily - you may have other options 8-)

Well, it can, but not necessarily. Cocoa beans by default don' t have much caffeine present (they do, however, have lots of theobromine, which is chemically very similiar to caffeine). When cocoa powder is made, you essentially concentrate the cocoa bean, so if that were the only concern, the powder would certainly have a higher level of caffeine than the liqour it was pressed from. However, caffeine is a water soluable chemical, and most of your powders are going to be alkalized, which means that at some phase of their processing, they've been doused, soaked, or sprayed with a water solution of alkalizing agents. This can have the effect of reducing the levels of caffeine, but wether or not it actually does depends greatly on the processing conditions and techniques used by your manufacturer. General rule? natural powders will always have higher levels than natural chocolates. Alkalized powders (which constitute the majority of the powders) and your mileage may vary quite a bit... however, let me stress that chocolate and chocolate products have a very, very low level of caffeine to begin witih.

You're not going to be able to de-scent it, not w/o destroying it anyway. I agree with JDP - exchange it, but perhaps this is an opportunity to educate whichever store you're obtaining them from - you wouldn't believe how many people i routinely come across that have no idea regarding the things we consider the most elementary of principles...

Certainly you can temper Hershey's chocolate. They do it, don't they? I don't think anyone will argue that it's not a fine couverature - that's probably an understatement 8-) It will only oil out and separate if you hold it at 113 degrees for a few days w/o agitation (pretty much any chocolate will do this, by the way) - that said, if this does occur, it's simply a matter of agitating it to resuspend the solids in the oil. If the chocolate thickens upon melting, that suggests it's a fairly old bar, and has picked up moisture. Again, any chocolate (especially while and milk) if old will absorb ambient moisture and thicken upon melting. Usually this can be resolved with the addition of a drop of fluid lecithin or adding add'l cocoa butter, but obviously best to work with fresh materials to avoid the whole mess altogether. Keep in mind that because it's not a fine couverature, if you're accustomed to working with fine coatings, this will appear thicker than you're used to (it is an economical kids everyday eating product, after all, meaning it's going to be relatively low in liquor and total cocoa butter, but fairly high in emulsifiers to help compensate). It will by no means be thick to the point of being unworkable, however - unless it's an old bar with moisture issues or has been improperly stored. Now, if the hersheys chocolate in question is a nut bar, that's a whole 'nother story. The oils in the nuts will migrate into the chocolate, and trying to retemper that, while it *may* be possible depending on the age of the bar and the amount of nuts present, is likely going to be nigh impossible

Milk chocolates with large amounts of milk fat typically require you to go to a lower temperature during tempering to account for the presence of the high number of short chain fatty acids in anhydrous milk fat. Many dark chocolates also have milk fat present at 3-5% levels as milk fat is a bloom inhibitor (the presence of it makes the process of tempering a little more difficult, but once you've achieved temper, it's harder to break temper). Adding dark chocolate seed to a milk chocolate won't complicate the process in any fashion whatsoever, and most folks probably won't even discern a color or flavor change as seed is used at such low levels. Almost all of the commercially available seed product (targeted to the RCI businesses) is semisweet chocolate seed, and is utilized for seeding both milk and dark product. As long as your seed is tempered, you can really use any type of seed you wish, even white chocolate (I've never, ever seen a white chocolate seed commercially available, but there's nothing stopping you from making your own.... don't really know why you'd want to tho 8-) )

Sure on both accounts, but for the second, you need to make sure your dark chocolate is already in temper for it to work (actually, that's true for the first part too)

WTG - yes, at first glance that seems to make sense (but i only got 2 hours of sleep in the last 2 days, and i may not be thinking straight 8-) ). It appears you're essentially increasing your fat by 1/3, which should take it from what is essentially a chocolate made for cookies (low fat, very high viscosity at 26%) to a coating chocolate. You may need to adjust slightly to compensate for difference in emsulifier, but you'll get the hang of it quickly i'm sure. The chocolate you have at 26% fat is really meant to be used for baking, but you can easily adjust it to something else, as you've already done the math for it! K8 - yes, over lecithinating will lead to something called 'bridging' where the lecithin begins to bind to itself. Lecithin is ampiphillic, meaning it's got an end that loves water, and and end that loves fat. Chocolate is essentially a suspension of water loving materials (sugar, milk) in fat - lecithin helps to reduce the surface tension created between them. However, if too much is present, it begins to bind to itself and tension (and hence viscosity) increases. For fountains, you can add pretty much any type of oiil that's liquid at room temperature to thin it out. It should also be noted that some chocolate suppliers (peters, wilbur) are producing chocolates meant especially for fountains, and do not require additional fats to thin them out.

You'll be just fine with adding more cocoa butter WTG - of course you'll still have to temper the whole shebang after you've added it. How much to add? Good question - a bit hard to answer tho w/o knowing what it is you're adding it to 8-) I'd add a little bit at a time until the consistency 'feels' and 'looks' right...you can also add a little bit (and i do stress little) of soy lecithin to the product (fluid - i'm talking like 0.1%) which will help thin it out a great deal. if you add too much, however, it'll actually begin to thicken the product.

I'm also fairly sure Qzina has an outlet out your way as well...

There are a number of places that offer powdered, spray dried (or plated) vanilla powders, be it powdered vanilla extract or commercially available vanilla sugar. Vanillin is an option as someone mentioned, but you should also keep in mind your customer - if it's an unlabelled product, there is no issue as pure vanilla is 90some % vanillin anyway. However, and i'm only using this as an example, some of the folks over at seventypercent.com forums are convinced that vanillin in pure evil, and should in absolutely no circumstances be given any consideration. Now, I truely doubt that they're able to taste the difference between vanillin and vanilla at the levels they're being used, but it does indicate that at some level, there is a perception difference. Just something to keep in mind. There are also vanilla oleoresins available, but they're pretty expensive (and very strong).

Wendy - i took her problem to mean that she was having difficulties physically melting the chocolate in a smooth fashion, not that she was having difficulties getting the chocolate and the cream to mix together in a smooth fashion. If the issue was not that the chocolate wouldn't physically melt smoothly, but rather that it was being problematic only after the ccream was added, then i'd agree that not sufficient cream was being added - but my gut feel is that this is unlikely, as chocolate will 'glop' with the addition of the first few % of water, then this significantly reduces as more water is added. I've yet to see any one add so little cream that only a few % of water was present.... Scott - there are a few reasons for this. One is indeed the elevated levels of lactose, and part of the problem has to do with how lactose behaves as it transitions from a crystallline product to an amorphous product, and vice verse. Part of it has to do with how it attracts moisture, how it releases moisture (some of the lactose will be present as a mono and di-hydrate), vs how it holds onto moisture. Some of it has to do with the physical formulation of the white chocolate - if nonfat dried milk and anhydrous milk fat are used (essentially reconstituting dried whole milk, if you will), the product is much more stable over time. If high levels of whole milk powder are used, the product can exhibit difficulties in melting very, very quickly. Some of that is due to the presence of higher free fat in the NFDM version (if both products are formulated to say 35% total fat, the NFDM product has more 'free' fat from the anhydrous mlk fat than does the dried WMP, which has approximately 25% of it's fat 'bound' in the amorphous structure of the milk particulates). However, there's something else occurring there that i've not quite put my finger on yet, and I've not seen any technical papers that identify it. It may have to do with the levels of casein present (casein can act as a decent emulsifier), as well as the physical form of the casein (is it denatured, partially denatured, intact? likely some ratio of the three). Almost all of the water present in sucrose will be surface bound - via electric double layers or adhesion. As choux notes, it's likely that the higher sucrose levels may be adding to this problem, but i'm not conviced that's the cause of the problem. Interestingly, it's very very rare to see this type of behaviour in products that contain cocoa solids, but it milk, dark,or compound products - suggesting that there's a protective element to the cocoa solids - but again, i've not been able to quite put my finger on just what that mechanism is yet. I'd think that the interactions of milk proteins and cocoa proteins vs rheological aspects would make for a very interesting research topic for the aspiring higher ed student... Edit - i should also point out that overheating the product during melting will cause significant problems with the melting process as well, as you're going to denature milk protiens, and once you do this, there's no fixing it.

The yellowness could be from a number of things 1) overheating, as previously suggested 2) separation of the cocoa butter (it's got a yellow tint) 3) the milk source used (however, lindt typically uses a very good dairy source) 4) aged product - as white chocolate gets older, it gets yellower. also if exposed to light for extended periods of time, it's gonna change color (especially when exposed to florescent lights) as for the glopping on melting, it's a sure sign that you've either inadvertantly got water in somehow, it's old product (white chocolate is notorious for absorbing ambient moiture from it's environment) or you've overheated it. You may be able to make it easier to work with by adding a drop of fluid lecithin to it and mixing vigorously.

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