Kerry Beal

The elusive almond eggs. Rarely seen beyond April.

The fix I'm interested in considering is a diaphragm pump in place of the oil filled pump so that moisture isn't an issue. Anyone know if you can get a diaphragm pump that can achieve the vacuum required for the freeze dryer?

No and no.

You are in the land of IBC and PCB - those are some of the ones I'd be looking for. Here's one, another, I've purchased from these guys before.

Ok - crushed up bug spit in alcohol then!

Too bumpy = too cold. I don't always use the cool air - sometimes I throw in dry ice directly with the product. Chocolate is something above 35 C - can be much warmer. Found the coconut at the local bulk shop - I know trader joes has some nice big pieces of coconut that could be cut into cubes if one had the patience.

Yeah it is - crushed up bug bodies in alcohol.

Spice mill - I've used it to make powdered sugar from regular sugar and chocolate liquor from nibs.

Like a coffee grinder on steroids. Mine will grind 2 inch saigon cinnamon to a powder.

Sumeet should be available again soon - apparently there were some family issues that resulted in stopping production - however those have been sorted and production has again started.

Some fillings match a thin shell, others a thicker shell - so it really varies with what you are making. I like a thin shell with a flowing caramel filling and a thicker one with something like a gianduja.

24 hours

Couple of nice meaty lamb shanks have been Anovaing for 24 hours at 80 C.

Here's what Matt said - The filter is very simple, but has been working great. You only need 4 things: Quilt BattingActivated Charcoal: Usually found in pet stores. You need the pellet kinda, not the powder2 liter soda bottle:Jar or bucket to catch the clean oil in: Steps to make:1. Cut 2 liter bottle in half2. Roll up pieces of the quilt batting as tightly as possible and put it in the neck of the bottle. Put more quilt batting in the bottle to create a bed for the activated charcoal.3. Pour activated charcoal on top of the quilt batting4. Add more quilt batting on top of the activated charcoal5. Put a bucket or jar underneath your filter to catch the oil.

Yup - but I think it's just a matter of some fine tuning with the left sided polish to get the same effect.

Matt at Harvest Right sent me some pictures of the way they are filtering oil for reuse - will post later.

Rehydrated the meatloaf today - added just short of a cup of water to 4 nice slices and left them in the fridge for the day. Able to sneak it past hubby without his knowledge! Next thing to try him on will be the rehydrated ragu.

Almonds with Callebaut 823 - added red and a tiny bit of blue colour to the last 500 grams. Comparing two types of polish and shellac on half a batch each. Almonds as above with yellow added to 500 grams. Gold powder after last polish. Coffee beans - really fat, crunchy, darkly roasted beans - much, much better than the last beans. I gave up trying to stop the doubles and drew the line at threesomes - that being said - there were a few clumps got by me. Ran a bit cold as you can tell by the pebbling of the surface.

I worked with that particular Cacoa Barry formulation at the Luxury Chocolate Show in November - was quite amazed at how fluid it remained even after a number of hours at temperature. Have a box of it in my chocolate room now thanks to Alleguede.

I may scrape more than once - quickly while the chocolate is still warm. I scrape with my Ateco first then the taping knife at the end.

These are little squares of dried coconut - engrossed in dark milk chocolate. Tasty!

Did some more raspberries - the dregs of a bag of frozen - there might be a few whole berries in there but the rest will be powdered. Black Cherry yogurt. Spiralized zucchini and swede - gotta say the turnip is darn tasty. There was also a tray with meatloaf and ragu - it would appear I forgot to take a picture.

I don't generally rub with cocoa butter - just polish the mold with a lint free cloth (if I'm going to bother). Shells still look a bit thin. Another thing to suggest - get a taping knife, polish the edge so there are no burrs, and give those molds another scrape. The amount of chocolate I can see on the surface is going to interfere with the unmolding.

I do generally finish things in one day. I use an infrared thermometer - I have quite a few of them. My least expensive ones I've picked up from Canadian Tire - they seem pretty reliable most of the time. I used to have a Sinsation - which was the same as the little Rev - it limited me so much with it's small capacity that I started tempering by hand in a bowl using the microwave. It was an awful lot quieter, allowed me to work with larger quantities and let me fill and dump the molds more easily. I ended up giving it away a few years later when I realized I wasn't ever going to use it again.