Kerry Beal

The untempered chocolate you add to it can be quite warm - just make sure that you don't go well over the working temperature when you add it. When added to over tempered chocolate you can take milk up as high as 32.5 and dark as high as 34.5

Should be dames who dine I guess - since it was dinner not lunch. But hey - this thread is looking a little lonely since @Anna N left us. Last evening I headed down to visit @patris and go the the RCI (Retail Confectioners International) which was being held in Buffalo this year. I haven't seen most of these folks since 2019 or before and it was a treat to reconnect. Made me realize just how many people I know in the industry. After the trade show today @patris and I headed out to The Dapper Goose in Black Rock Buffalo - a place we ate once before in 2017 and very much enjoyed. We opted for a few small plates instead of mains. Cheese plate - I've left the list with the cheeses on it in the other room - but one was the Barn First Creamery's Quinby (it's the brie like cheese). The one with the herbs on it is Good Mood Franz Berchtold - a very stinky but quite delightful cheese we enjoyed very much - (Ingredients: pasteurized cow's milk, salt, garlic, ramps, basil. oregano, marigold, rosemary, thyme, rose, cornflowers, cultures, vegetarian rennet). The third we recall was ash rubbed but beyond that... Blackened green beans with a very garlicy sauce - had quite a bite to them. Cauliflower with green goddess dressing Mushrooms with cheese sauce on polenta.

I freeze stuff in big yogurt containers - then put it in to the pacojet containers - so it's not fixed on the bottom - but it still seems to work fine.

Is it a pet hedgehog? If so - then I might not put it there.

While I'm thinking of it - one thing I'd like to feature next year is decorating techniques using coloured cocoa butter etc that don't require an airbrush.

Keep the dates. We are planning on the weekend of May 16, 17, 18 and we will be at the very brand new (not even built yet) TCF Sales facility in Cedar Park, Texas. This is a suburb of Austin. No shortage of hotels within walking distance - and I believe Tom has some sort of a deal with one of the favoured ones. But I'm sure @Chocolot will make it her mission to find us the best one! Airport 23 miles from Cedar Park. I see Tex-mex and smoked meat in our future. What do they smoke for vegetarians?

Back when I was using the iCreami instead of the Pacojet I found running one of my bone handled knives around the edge after the first spin solved that problem.

It’s an interesting development - taking the sugars out of the pulp! Some of the issues I’ve heard related to it - the pulp is an integral part of the fermentation of the beans - so this can get short circuited when the pulp is removed immediately. Then there’s the nebulous claims that it’s low sugar - but it’s still carbs just a different source than cane or beet sugar. And so far those I’ve tasted - taste like ass.

It would heat and stir!

Might want to fiddle with the chocolate you use for the ganache as well - some are better with bitter than others. Another thought - a liquid caramel made with the beer as the liquid component in the ganache. Bonus would be a nice long shelf life.

But I do understand the need to make it just once to prove it can be done! Why don't you make the really high viscosity solution, bung it in the sous vide at 80 degrees for the time required - taking it out and squeezing once in a while?

I will never reach that level! Curious to know what you will use to hydrolyse the solution and what determines when you stop it?

When you freeze an alcoholic beverage in order to jack up the alcohol content. Hence applejack. You take alcoholic cider and freeze it to remove the water. AKA freeze distilling.

Sounds like some fun experiments. Thought jacking was illegal in NA though! Would you consider just making a water ganache using it as is?

@Jim D. - I've found that the numbers I get from ProChoc seem to align quite well with those I measure with my Aw meter. The weakness I find with ProChoc is the caramel - I think it's in there but I'm not sure how to account for it. I'd love to be able to put in something like - "X grams of sugar, X grams of cream cooked to X degrees" - without actually having to know the amount of caramel that would result.

@ChristianD - I for one would love to play with it and compare it to ProChoc which I have access to in my role as tutor for the Chocolate Quality and Shelf Life for Ecole Chocolat. I have (or did have - not sure anymore) Ganache Solution but never really got into it. So let us know when you return from holiday and we can start a new thread and all work together to help you make this a success. Here is my whirlwind visit to @schneich in 2008 on my way to visit Michael Wolf and family in Germany.

@ChristianD - welcome to eG! I notice you posted back in March and no one welcomed you. We'd love it if you would introduce yourself to the group. It would be nice to learn about you, what you are doing and what prompted you to develop this ganache calculator. That's a pretty complex looking calculator you have developed and I'm sure we'd all love to take it for a spin. You'll find lots of beta testers here. Perhaps you could start a separate thread for it so it doesn't get lost in the middle of this thread that started 10 years ago.

Chocolates and Confections I believe talks about the percentage of either white, milk or dark to use with liquefiers depending on whether you are making a piped vs a cut piece. Adjustments generally will have to be made on the fly to allow for some chocolates that have different fat percentages - but I'd start by reading there and get the basic numbers.

It's the Quebec liquor store - just like the LCBO is in Ontario. There are lots of them around. You could ship it when you get back.

How well do you know @weinoo? It appears he's in Quebec right now - and it seems green Chartreuse is available at the SAQ.

Did you buy it?

The word is liberate!

And a few more from Irene!

Irene's pictures this time. Iren

One of these?