cotovelo

I bought a large wine cooler for storing chocolate.....it now holds wine because of humidity issues. I'm in Florida and it just didn't work well...maybe in another location it would do better. Also, the temperature range on the cooler is lower than I'd like and it had a tendency to fluctuate into the 40-50 degree range. ← In my new shop I built a cold storage unit and used a wine cellar refrigeration unit to cool it. It is basically like a walk in closet that I insulated, sealed very well and installed a wine refrigerator through the wall. It is large enough to put a dehumidifier in for the summer time but so far it has done a good job of maintaining 59-60 degrees and relatively low humidity. The cooling unit is called a WhisperKool and I got it from an onlne wine cellar company. Chris

Art- You are doing some amazing chocolates and I can not wait to see what you have in store for the future. I will be a solid supporter of your company and products! Christopher

Thought I would chime in on this.... I think that molded pieces and enrobed pieces present two very different worlds of chocolate making. There are different skill sets that are used to produce a good molded piece and also for a good enrobed piece. I have seen/tasted lots of bad molded pieces (i.e. shell being too thick, air bubbles, cracked bottoms) so I don't really think that they are easier to make. Even though I am a "reluctant" business man, and I say that because I do need to make a profit to continue doing what I want to do, I don't let that make my decision on what I want to produce. Flat out, molded pieces offer something that enrobed pieces can't and that is the ability to use super soft caramels and creamy ganache fillings that you can't cut with a guitar.....they are different. Out of the 21 pieces in my collection I have either 11 or 12 molded pieces and 11 or 12 enrobed pieces. I like that balance. Which style your prefer, or think is more beautiful, is your choice and opinion. I actually prefer to eat enrobed pieces more. I tasted a few of Andrew Shotts bon bons last weekend when he was in town for an event and it reinforced my opinion that he is one of, if not the best, in the business. Remember, this is all very subjective, as with any food or art. Too me, seeing an expertly made enrobed piece is just as beautiful as seeing a brilliant molded piece. I know what it took to get to the end result of both pieces.....skill and talent. From production standpoints, it is faster to turn around molded pieces. It is generally a 2 day process instead of 4 days for enrobed (or 3 days if you have a cooling tunnel). There is more labor than enrobed but the process on a whole is faster and I find that after costing all of my bon bons out, surprisingly there is very little price difference between the two. And that is taking labor into account as well. And actually, if you take into the account the up front cost of an enrober, guitar, cooling tunnel, and other equipment needed to produce enrobed pieces, molded pieces are much less costly to get started with.....all you need is molds and chocolate! So for me, arguing that it is better business sense to make more enrobed pieces than molded is irrelevant....and I think as you get into your business that will become evident pretty quickly. In the meantime, eat whatever bon bons you think are the best! Christopher

This is Christopher Elbow....how are you Robert? I spent a half a day this past summer in Steve DeVries shop and it blew me away. He is getting more flavors out of Cacao than anyone. He is fanatical about everything including the growing fermenting and drying......he doesn't just buy dried beans to raost and make chocolate. He is working with the growers. He doesn't add any vanilla or additional cocoa butter so if it says 80%, it is 80% cacao and 20% pure cane sugar. He uses only enough sugar to balanace out the acids and highlight the flavors of the beans. I just finished up the last of 15lbs of his Costa Rican Trinitario 77%. It is my favorite so far of his, with great fruity notes to it. I was making a single bon bon with it for some of my collections. I now have his Dominican 80%, it is much more smokey and earthy, very interesting chocolate. I have not tried his Costa Rican 80% yet. To me, I feel like this is what chocolate was supposed to be. If you can get your hands on his stuff, it is well worth it. This is the chocolate that I eat. Chris

I just received some samples yesterday and they are very, very good. I am on my 3rd day of tasting and seem to find new aromas and flavor notes each time, the Ocumare being my favorite. The Madagascar has some intense citrus-tropical fruit flavors as well as the red berry fruits that are expected. The only thing that I would comment on is that it is a little more heavy on the vanilla than I would prefer. I feel this masks the flavor a bit. That is not keeping me from saying that Amano is one of my top favorite chocolate makers at this time...up there with Steve DeVries! Chris

Another alternative to the Kitchen Aid model are these from Union Confectionery Machinery www.unionmachinery.com/Product.asp?pid=7792 They have there own variable speed motor and work very well. I used the Kitchen Aid model at my last job and like these much more. They are a bit more expensive but I can produce a lot more with this one. They have three sizes (12", 16". 24"). I got the 16". By the way....I have panned ganache. I cut with a guitar and pan them...they kind of round out then I hit them with cocoa powder to get truffles. Make sure temperatures of the chocolate and air are cool though or they stick. Christopher

hi christopher, do you charge one price regardless of piece, or does each piece cost a different amount? how did you go about doing an analysis? did you hire someone or did it on your own? I've heard good things about your chocolate. I will be making a trip on sunday to cocoa bella in san francisco, which i understand sells some of your chocolates. Any recommondations on your favorite ones? ← I do charge one price regardless of piece. I did a cost analysis on about 10 of my pieces so I could get a good idea on a range. All of my pieces are relatively close in size but there are a few that are a bit smaller. I figured out the cost of the ingredients but also figured out labor as well. I did this by getting a timer and timing all of the steps that went into production. It is a pain, but I did it for all of the different types (caramels, molded, enrobed, multi layer, marzipans etc...). I added a fixed percentage for utilities, rent, and General Expenses (office supplies, postage). Then I was able to get a fairly accurate per piece price. Once you have this formula, you can change it, for example I am building a new shop and my rent is going to basically triple so I can plug that into the equation. Or if you hire someone at $9.00 and hour instead of $10.00 an hour you can change that as well. I am going to be at CocoaBella next week doing a sampling of some things ( I am not sure what day it is scheduled for yet, probably Friday or Saturday the 2nd or 3rd. You could find out from CocaoBella for sure. Hope this helps, Christopher ← christopher, I checked with cocoabella and they said you are scheduled for friday 6-8pm. ← Would love to meet any fellow eGullet members if you are in the area at that time!

hi christopher, do you charge one price regardless of piece, or does each piece cost a different amount? how did you go about doing an analysis? did you hire someone or did it on your own? I've heard good things about your chocolate. I will be making a trip on sunday to cocoa bella in san francisco, which i understand sells some of your chocolates. Any recommondations on your favorite ones? ← I do charge one price regardless of piece. I did a cost analysis on about 10 of my pieces so I could get a good idea on a range. All of my pieces are relatively close in size but there are a few that are a bit smaller. I figured out the cost of the ingredients but also figured out labor as well. I did this by getting a timer and timing all of the steps that went into production. It is a pain, but I did it for all of the different types (caramels, molded, enrobed, multi layer, marzipans etc...). I added a fixed percentage for utilities, rent, and General Expenses (office supplies, postage). Then I was able to get a fairly accurate per piece price. Once you have this formula, you can change it, for example I am building a new shop and my rent is going to basically triple so I can plug that into the equation. Or if you hire someone at $9.00 and hour instead of $10.00 an hour you can change that as well. I am going to be at CocoaBella next week doing a sampling of some things ( I am not sure what day it is scheduled for yet, probably Friday or Saturday the 2nd or 3rd. You could find out from CocaoBella for sure. Hope this helps, Christopher

I thought I would put in my 2 cents here because I have made many mistakes while starting my company. One mistake I made was looking at the chocolatiers that have products at this level and trying to mimic their prices, or at least get close. But not all cirumstances are the same, (.e location, market, etc...). I just got back from New York and couldn't believe that I was paying $2.25 to $2.50 for a single piece of chocolate, granted some of them were good. But you have to think about what kind of rent they pay, how much their labor is and just doing business in market like that. It makes me love Kansas city because cost of living is very reasonable. I couldn't get away with charging that much here, even if I felt my products was just as good. I still think that we are one of the better values among this market. I have wholsale customers who sell my chocolates for much more than I do! Here is the catch though, people look at price and make a judgement before they even consume the product, "If something is more expensive, then it must be better". The psychology behind marketing and pricing can be very tricky. Hopefully after time the consumer will become more educated and be able to filter through all the marketing and packaging and judge what is inside. I sell mine by the piece instead of by weight. We have some pieces that are smaller but they take just as much time to produce as the larger pieces, and labor is the most expensive part of a piece of chocolate no matter where it is produced. It is true also that raising your price is difficult after you get started, I went through that so give this a lot of though before you set your price point. Do a thorough cost analysis, taking into account every expense. Like was said before, this is not a charity, you do need to make a living. Sorry for the rambling email but this is a very challenging aspect of the business and hope I have helped a little. Christopher

I use a ladle, this is the quickest way to get production done. You are right about a squeeze bottle taking too long, the chocolate would be set by the time you get finished. Also, the more that you do, the more ways you learn how not to make a mess. Scrapers come are very useful for this. I do use a squeeze bottle to fill the cavities with the ganache though as it shows on the back of the Fine Cooking magazine. Christopher Elbow

Christopher, I'm sure you are much too busy most of the time, but do you or have you ever thought of offering classes on how to make chocolates, caramels, etc.? I would be the first to sign up if you did! Thanks, Katie ← As for the classes, I got a new building this past summer that I have been working on and hopefully it will be big enough to hold classes. We will be going from about 800 square feet to 3000 square feet, plus an additional 700 square feet for a new retail shop. Once we get up and running in that space, which should be this summer sometime, then I can start planning some classes or events. I will keep everyone here posted for sure. Christopher

Thank you for all of the nice comments....I apologize I have been so quite lately as I am working about 15-18 hours a day seven days a week to keep up with demand, all the while working on a new production facility. As soon as the holidays are over I promise I will participate more. Thank and Happy Holidays to all! Christopher Elbow

Someone told me about frying a Krispy Kreme glazed donut in clarified butter until it got a caramelized crispy crust.....I must say, that I love trying weird things like this so I gave it a shot. Not that I would eat this everyday (or ever really), but it wasn't that bad.

I currently use apple pectin which produces a very nice Pate de Fruit and is readily available. I wanted to experiment with Vitpris because where I saw it applied was to make a softer pate de fruit, suitable for using as a layer in a bon bon. The apple pectin works just fine though.

I have been searching for this for a long time as well.

This question of "if it can be produced in volume" is it still art, is something that I have asked myself over and over. I had this conversation with someone and we were trying to define what an "artisan" is with respect to chocolate. The conversation kept focusing on trying to find a specific volume, where once you venture over that capacity, then you are no longer an artisan but a manufacturer. I don't think such a number exists. I think that it needs to be defined more along the lines of what the person is doing to get to that capacity. Have they switched to one shot molding lines, do they use preservatives etc. To me, these move one to the category of a manufacturer. If I could use the same techniques that I use now and the same ingredients, and still produce as much as some manufaturers, then is my product a manufactured one? From the standpoint of wanting to have a profitable business, I need to figure out how to increase production while maintaining my current level of quality. As far as the analogy of the car, maybe it wasn't a good choice but I wanted to convey that I strive to produce each chocolate to be very consistant with respect to appearance. No, each one is not the same but The challange of trying to me is part of the art form. If it has a crack, an air bubble, a cooling spot then we don't sell it. I really am glad that this topic has been touched upon, thank you to everyone for their input.

I deal with that on a daily basis. With the demand so high for our product, I have struggled with the decision on how big I want my business to become. We actually dropped one of our big wholesale accounts last December because we could not make enough to keep them happy, and have chocolates left to sell at our shop. While I really needed that income from that account, it turned out to be the best business decision that I have made. As I was working 18 hours a day 7 days a week, I was wondering what I could do to produce more. It seemed like an easy path to take shortcuts or use preservatives, but that was not an option. As for right now, we turn away sales and wholesale accounts all the time because we can't produce enough and still maintain quality. I don't need to be a millionare at the expense of the integrity of my product, because for the first time since in the 12 years that I have been in the industry, I am so happy with what I am doing. Hopefully the consumer is getting educated enough that they can appreciate what we do and don't mind spending the extra money for a superior product.

Josh, I actually grow lemon verbena during the summer here in KC and I use it to infuse a ganache with. It is actually a very popular flavor for us. I have had very good luck growing it just in my herb garden at home. Chris

Just to add my view on this topic, because I deal with this on a daily basis in my shop. When I started my shop, I hand dipped my pieces because I could not afford an enrober. Right away I realized that if I wanted to try to make a living doing this, then I would need to use an enrober to produce the quantity needed. I have to say that you could not tell a difference between the pieces I used to hand dip or the ones that I enrobe. I take just as much care and time to get a uniform thickness and a clean perfectly placed transfer sheet as I did before. I still make and pour all my ganache by hand, just as I did before. As for the molded pieces that we make, everything is done by hand. If a piece has an airbubble or a cooling spot or and kind of imperfection, we don't use it. I guess we are not neccesarily going for that "handmade irregular" look that has been discussed. My view is that we are charging a premium and we are using the best ingredients we can find so they need to look and taste as perfect as we can get them. We actually strive to make our pieces look the same, even the completely hand made ones. Maybe not a good example, but would you buy a new car if the windshield was cracked or it had a scratch in it? There is a technique to apply a transfer sheet so that it is even and not overhanging, or not going all the way to the edge. When I see a piece of chocolate where that is not the case, then my first thought is not wondering if it is handmade or not, but that the time and care was not taken during the production process. As for producing your own unique transfer sheets and molds....it is very costly and not always an option for someone starting out. We are in the process of creating all of our own transfer sheets so we have a more unique product, but this was not an option for us starting out. Chocolates have come a long way over the years. I love the experience of eating a good classic truffle, rolled in cocoa powder, I also love the experience of eating an enrobed square of ganache that is decorated with a transfer sheet, and I also love the experience of eating a Belgian style molded piece that is perfectly executed and shiny. These are all very different products but all should still be made with the same care and love, most of all they should taste good. Any way, for what it's worth, this is how I approach some of the issues discussed in this thread.

I just ordered a 1/2 lb from them to try out. That is the cheapest that I have ever seen. My distributor is currently selling Tahitian beans for $89.95 for a 1/2 lb! I hope this is not too good to be true. Thanks for the website. Chris

I melt the cocoa butter in the microwave, paying careful attention as to not get them too hot. Other than storing them like you would chocolate, they should last you awhile. You can re-melt as neccesary.

There is a company called EuroGourmet out of st. Louis that is a rep for them. They are a great company to work with. I am sure they would ship to you, if not I could get what you need and ship it on to you. The number for them is 1-877-849-3030. Ask for Stacy or Didier.

It is at the endof an aisle on a big roll that a Home Depot worker has to cut off. In the store here it is by the showers/tubs.

The neoprene sheeting looks like it would be very good for the purposes that you are wanting it for. A cheaper alternative, and one that I use often, is a material I get from Home Depot. It is called shower pan liner and comes by the foot. It is very easy to cut with an exacto knife. Sometimes it can be hard to find in the store, although usually you could ask and they would find it. Chris

Lysbeth, I did a lot of research on this before I settled on a company. The company that I use is Benjamin Box out of Providence RI. They can produce a good box at a reasonable price. They have a toll free number 1-877-280-2500.My Webpage Chris