Alex of the North

We've had a couple of these, the main problem that we've had is with the electronics in the Blending Advance System and the Portion Blending System. In the future, I'll be avoiding these in favor of the simpler Drink Machine Advance (I recently picked one up cheaply at an auction, I'm going to keep it as backup). I have a coffeehouse and I use them mainly for smoothies and shakes that I make with fresh fruit and frozen yogurt. On a typical day we use it about 30 times for about 30 seconds, or for about fifteen minutes total, over a year that's 91 hours ice crushing. It's not a big part of our business, so that's probably the low end of commercial usage.

The thing with Sysco is that they're only as good as your individual food rep is... We recently went to one of their shows and realized the full extent of what's available: the ChefEx thing is an improvement that our rep had neglected to tell us about. We've more or less phased them out at this point, and only order once a month. But, there are certain things that we can get from them that we cannot get from our other guys: Maitake mushrooms for example, or the really good Italian pesto, etc.

Not that much! I've already investigated the recirculating water baths... perhaps down the road, I think I'd have to find about two more practical applications for it to make it worthwhile. Are there many vegetarian sous vides recipes? But for now, I'm going to try stockpots and adjusting conditions around them.

That's pretty much the conclusion that I've reached... I've discovered that setting a stainless steel pot on top of our commercial convection oven and beneath the oven hood, maintains a temperature of about 95 degrees, which is pretty good!

I've actually been using a Nissan Thermos French Press in my experiments at home, but I hadn't really considered this for the shop. Most of the airpots (we have quite a few) have very narrow openings, which would make them difficult to use for yogurt. Are there any 128 oz thermoses with wide mouths out there?

Both great suggestions! I'll have to look into that...

In our coffeehouse we go through about 2 gallons of yogurt a week, mostly in the form of yogurt parfaits (with berries and granola). We'd like to start producing our own yogurt, and I've been experimenting with this at home. I'm pretty satisfied with the quality of what I'm doing, but when it comes to doing it at work, I'd like a process that doesn't involve constantly monitoring the temperature, etc. I was wondering if anyone has any experience making larger quantities of yogurt in a restaurant setting, and whether anyone can point me to a durable appliance that makes more than a quart at a time. Thanks!

Baggage charge! I will use that, thank you! Nope, not in Jersey, we are in Wisconsin. Surely there's something in Teaneck?

As the owner of a coffeehouse that bothers to stock 10-12 premium, loose leaf teas (that are mostly fair-trade) at a time, each of which is probably of a higher quality than anything found in a tea bag, I'd have to say that generally speaking, I'm not cool with patrons bringing their own tea bags. I can see making exception though. Is the tea medicinal in some way? Did they offer to pay for the hot water? Is the person a regular patron? Are they buying food (we're a vegetarian restaurant) and/or bakery? If the person is trying to occupy our space without paying for anything, that's not acceptable. Just as coming into our coffeehouse and taking a table and not buying anything is not acceptable. In my experience, the majority of people who try to get away with this are younger people who think they can get away with something. The cost of having that person there goes far beyond the cost of the tea. There's our rent, our utility bills, cost of labor, cost of insurance, and on and on. If you're going to do this, I'd recommend offering to pay the same amount that you would pay for tea at that establishment. Tell them that it's a matter of preference. I can't see anyone having a problem with that. Some might choose to give you the hot water. Having a coffeehouse is a fairly marginal business at best, and personally, I feel a little disrespected when someone asks this. It's in the same category as people who feel entitled to bottomless brewed coffee because they purchased a latte. Would that person feel entitled to all-you-can-eat shrimp at Red Lobster because they had fish? UPDATE: I Hope that didn't sound too harsh. The people I'm thinking about are mostly trying to get away with something, not concerned about the quality of our tea. After all, we don't serve Lipton.

Desiderio, I just heated the cream to a slight boil and then I put it in a presspot with coffee grounds. Now that I read David's response, I probably should have reheated the cream afterwards. I really am new at this.. Will look for Greweling!

Thanks Desiderio & Kerry, I've already tossed my coffee ganache attempt, however I'm inclined to agree that it was broken in some respect. It didn't have the smoothness that the bittersweet ganaches I've done had. It seemed grainy and when I tilted it in different directions, I could see elements of it flowing at different rates. One thing that surprised me was that the ganache darkened considerably: the cream had been slightly darkened by being brewed with the coffee, but the entirety was much darker (almost cardboard colored) after I added it to the white chocolate.

Hello, I'm pretty new to making chocolates, so far I have done it just three times, making Shott's bittersweet truffles. These aren't too difficult, and they turned out well enough that I've been selling them at my coffeehouse. Today, however, I tried something new and it was a colossal failure. I bought a 5 kg bar of Callebaut White Chocolate, and I attempted to make a coffee ganache by adapting the recipe for the mint ganache. I left out all of the mint, extracts, etc. and instead I steeped the heavy cream in a press pot with Intelligentsia's Black Cat espresso. The flavor was great, however, the ganache never set, seemed a bit broken (wasn't smooth the way the bittersweet ganache was) and was always too liquidy to work with. I was wondering if any of you could help me find the right proportions to work with. Each of Shott's ganaches are a little different, x ounces of chocolate, y ounces of cream, etc. and I don't really understand the principles that underlay these differences. My question is how best to make a coffee ganache with white chocolate? My intention is to put it in a shell of bittersweet chocolate and have sort of a 'mocha truffle.' (This is my first post here, I'm kind of excited about it. My name is Alex and my wife and I have a vegetarian coffeehouse in Wisconsin in the US. I've read some of the threads here, and I'm happy to finally have joined up).