YetiChocolates

Thank you for your kind words! I will definitely report back on how all the chocolates are received at the tasting tonight. As for the S'mores piece, it's been a chocolate I've been wanting to make for YEARS! Finally took the time to do it! Still needs a little work (the milk chocolate ganache is a touch soft and the graham cracker is a bit too sweet) but overall I'm very pleased with it. It may not be as classy as my other chocolates, but hey, you gotta have some fun with it as well!

Well here are the final products from my experimentation These are the milk chocolates (I know I'm expanding out of just dark shells...) From the top down it's strawberry cheesecake, poached pear, s'mores, and mango thai chili. These are the darks (minus one that I haven't finished yet). From the top down, fig jam and fig balsamic, apple balsamic, raspberry lavender, margarita, and root beer float. I'm hosting a tasting party tomorrow with a bunch of friends to get their feedback on the new flavors, should be a very fun evening!

Well if more business owners want to go to the demo then there are spots, I'll give up my place as I technically am not officially in business yet and I don't want to take away from someone who is...

If the time of the demo hasn't changed I'm in!

Yep, (at least the smaller one can, haven't tried the larger gun, and don't really feel the need to) my air compressor is only 1 gallon... http://www.amazon.com/Campbell-Hausfeld-FP2028-Compressor-Accessory/dp/B000BOCBAM/ref=sr_1_8?s=hi&ie=UTF8&qid=1455774925&sr=1-8&keywords=pancake+air+compressor This is the model I have, but it generates enough pressure to keep it going, for the most part...if I'm spraying at full pressure to coat the inside of the mold it will sometimes have a lag on the color coming out, but it's not enough to slow me down. Can still spray the mold (a full coating of the shell) in a minute or two.

There is still a small amount of overspray, but nothing like there is with my badger or when we watched Melissa down in LV.

Hello Jim, So the airbrush I picked up is nothing special, it's a Powermate and I bought it from Home Depot online. Came in a 2 pack set for $60. I'm currently using the smaller of the two guns, with a 0.8mm nozzle. I've provided some pics below of what it looks like. Why I like it so much it that it doesn't create such a cloud of cocoa butter that my badger did, and more importantly, it has a pressure regulator, so you can dial down how much air is coming through the gun, which allows you to splatter, which I could not do with my badger either. I would have to use a toothbrush, and that got real old, real fast. I used to have to clean up the badger after I used it, due to the tubes that pulled up the cocoa butter, and that got old after awhile. This is a gravity feed, so I can just pour out what I don't use, spray out what's leftover in the gun, and I'm done. I'll generally wipe down the cup after use as well so there isn't a bunch of color mixing, but that's about it. It did take a little adjusting to get it exactly where I wanted it, but so far has been the easiest gun to use for what I want to use it for. I do think that badger is a good introductory airbrush, and what's taken me so long to upgrade to the HVLP is that I was worried my tiny little pancake air compressor was not going to be able to keep up with the pressure needs of this larger airbrush, but it does just fine, so I'm stoked As for the swirly ones, you are correct, I did finger-paint those, but then with some back sprayed with the gun. I hope this helps Jim!

Well I've finally taken some time to do some much needed R&D as I decided not to make Valentine's chocolates this year. I picked up a new HVLP air brush, and I just love the thing, makes airbrushing SO MUCH FUN! Here's what I've been playing with so far... These were the first round I thought of using for the margarita chocolate I'm working on, but then decided to scrap These were the first experiments, clockwise from top left is strawberry cheesecake, fig jam and mission fig balsamic, and lime marmarita. The fig and marmarita were not successful so I went back to the drawing board, but the strawberry cheesecake was pretty good. The decoration is white chocolate with strawberry freeze-dried powder mixed in. Here are all the chocolate airbrush and cocoa butter painting experiments thus far... I took my lime chocolate and morphed it into the margarita chocolate with lime salt and tequila added in...these are the two decorations I'm considering for it. These are the two decorations I'm considering for the honey-bourbon poached pear...although the flavor still isn't where I want it, so I may just scratch it for a straight poached pear chocolate instead...we'll see. And I might still play around with the decoration, not sold on either of these (I like the right better than the left) These are the two deco contenders for the mango thai chili. I think I like the right better for the chocolate itself, although I love the look of the left one. These are the two options for the fig/balsamic (which I'm thinking of calling figjammin' ). Changed the formula completely, now it has fig jam by itself, and an alteration of Andrew Schotts balsamic ganache. The main reason for this was because this is a chocolate I've been asked to make for the olive oil/balsamic shop I sell the chocolates in, so I wanted to get a bolder balsamic flavor. Haven't tried the finished product yet, but the ganache itself was pretty delicious, a nice bold balsamic flavor. I think I like the left over the right for this one. And here's a close up of the strawberry cheesecake. I had a couple friends try it and said they were missing the crunch of the "crust", so I ground up some homemade graham crackers I'm going to be using for the smores chocolate I'm working on and put it on top (as I hadn't dipped the milk chocolate ones yet). Made shells in both milk and dark for all the flavors (except the margarita) to see which one works better with the flavors. Haven't tried them all yet, but so far I think I like the cheesecake and poached pear in milk better than dark (which is quite unusual for me ). I'm planning on doing a tasting for friends at the beginning of March to get feedback, but so far this was exactly what I needed to do this spring to revive my love for the craft, as it's been super fun playing around so far!

Well I had success, your advice worked perfectly Kerry, and now I have 5 more jelly jars full of cocoa butter just waiting to be turned into silk.

That helps a ton Kerry, going to give it a whirl and see what happens. Room temp solidifying I think is the key element I was leaving out. Will report back my findings. Other than crappy cocoa butter the unit itself is fabulous, definitely a worthwhile investment.

Okay, so I need some assistance from the group...I think I know what is going on here, but want to get feedback from others who are way smarter than me in this area. When I first started using the EZ Temper I was using callebaut cocoa butter that I'd had forever, in little callets, just threw it in the stainless container and put it in the machine, 12 hours later, that perfect silk Kerry tells everyone about. Awesome, works like magic. Unfortunately I didn't have that much left, so I wanted to buy a larger quantity since I knew I'd be using it. Shopped around and opted for Chef Rubber, they had 2.5kg for a reasonable price. Received it, not in a block, but busted up in chunks. At first I thought I could do what I did with the callebaut and just throw it in the container and put it in the unit. Wrong, didn't melt well at all, had tons of unmelted bits. So I heated the cocoa butter up to 120, cooled it, put it back in the unit at 33.6C. Now it didn't have unmelted bits in it, but it wasn't that creamy mayonnaise consistency either, it was more fluid than that. Still worked to temper the chocolate, but being the anal retentive person I am, I wanted the creamy mayonnaise, not the semi-fluid weirdness. Flash forward to this week. The cocoa butter I used over Christmas (the semi-fluid weirdness) I had heated up to 120F and cooled and left in the container in the cupboard, so it had sat untouched for about a month. Put it in the unit at 33.6C...next day, semi-fluid weirdness . Decided to lower the temp on the unit as reading previous posts stated that different cocoa butters might have different sweet spot temps and I melted a new batch of cocoa butter, put it in the fridge to cool and took it right from the fridge and put it in the unit, which was now at 33.2C. This is what I found the next morning... The top one was the cocoa butter I put into the unit immediately from the fridge, the bottom was previously the semi-fluid weirdness, now the creamy mayonnaise that we all want. After a couple days at 33.2C however, the bottom jar started getting firmer, so I bumped the unit back up to 33.6C. Now I tried re-heating the top one and cooling it in the fridge, but then letting it get back up to room temp before adding it back to the unit, and same thing happened, still had those unmelted bits (was still at 33.2C when I tried it the second time). Do you think that Chef Rubber sent me really old cocoa butter? Reading previous posts, that is what some believe to be the reason for the unmelted cocoa butter bits. And to rectify this should I melt down all my cocoa butter and add silk to it to temper it proper, or should I melt it all down, put it in jars, and let it sit for awhile so those crystals can get back on track. And do you think that the reason the semi-fluid weirdness turned into creamy mayonnaise was because of the initial shock of the cold container of the other cocoa butter being in the unit? That's the only thing that drastically changed to the cocoa butter before it went from semi-fluid weirdness to creamy mayonnaise. Thoughts? Hopefully this makes sense to everyone. And if I would have been thinking I would have taken a picture of the semi-fluid weirdness so you had a visual, but it looks pretty much like the top one without the unmelted bits...

Well it's official, I'm going to the conference! Just booked my flight . Luckily my training is later in May so it works out, already cleared it with my boss. So excited! Planning on getting there Thursday afternoon, so I should be able to make the Morato demo if it is indeed at 5:30.

So will have to check with my work schedule (we might be in shorthaul training that week), but if I can swing it there is a small chance I might be able to make it. Put me in the same category as Rob.

I just had a similar issue with my chocolate, but I used the immersion blender like gap suggested and it totally worked! No more lumps! It was like magic...you should definitely give it a shot

So played with the EZ temper for the first time tonight, wanted to check and make sure my transfer sheets survived the summer! Like Ruth I was a bit nervous when I added the silk, but it set right up...really fast! So awesome! Even though I watched Kerry for 3 days demoing this beast I needed to play with it myself to truly see the magic. So freakin' cool!

I love how many chest shots you got of me in these photos, and of course mid "stuff" with the chopsticks is probably the best one of the whole night

gfron1, on 20 Dec 2014 - 5:12 PM, said: Some food for thought, when I was in school they always had the chocolate/candy kitchens very cold, I would say around 60 degrees or below, enough that I would wear extra layers under my chef coat because it was always freezing (albeit I am always cold), but it was quite chilly in these rooms and it was because they wanted the chocolate and candy to cool much more rapidly than the baking kitchens. And my house is usually 62-64 when I work with chocolate because I'm a cheapskate and don't want to pay for extra heating. Although I'm sure that 68 degrees is fine, personally it seems a bit warm to me. I'd rather have a colder room when working with chocolate than a warmer one. With that said, I always put my molds in the fridge when shelling and finishing because my hands are so hot usually when I mold and cap that I can throw the shells that my hands touch out of temper just by the heat transfer. There is also the latent heat of crystallization to think about, so for me, to err on the side of caution, regardless of room temp, I pop the molds in the fridge when shelling and capping.

For me I stopped adding butter to my recipes because I was adding it in it's solid room temp form at the end and inevitably it would break my ganache. I've been discussing this with Chocolot this weekend and she adds the butter to her cream, doesn't affect the mouthfeel by adding the butter to the cream and melting it, so I might try adding butter back to my recipes. As for adding cocoa butter, have you thought about using mycryo instead of melting cocoa butter or trying to add cocoa butter chips to the ganache? And at what temp are you adding it to the ganache? It might be breaking because it's too cold when you add it?

I definitely would like to do that Ruth! Probably won't be until October, as I'm guessing I'll be needed for staffing until then, but would like to take some time off before I leave Jackson and head down, as the trip from Jackson to Ogden is much close then Wenatchee to Ogden. I think I'd like to get a fancy tempering machine eventually (obviously), but to cut down start up costs initially I think this might do the trick and speed up production time when it comes to ganaches as well, so it's a win win really. I'll probably start out with melters and then switch over to tempering machines once I start making $$ on the business.

I would love to go down and check out Ruth's sometime this fall after the season dies down (not here in WYO but everywhere else), but just seeing the results is making me lean towards an EZ temper in lieu of the auto tempering machine I was thinking about getting for the shop (and it would save me around 8k!) Super impressed Kerry!

Talked to the company on the phone, looks like they don't do refurbs anymore. Shucks! Hopefully I can continue to scan eBay and find one used on there...not sure that I want to dish out $2000+ on a new one just yet

Thanks Kerry, I just requested a quote asking about a refurbished unit, and just noticed that they are based in Pullman, WA, which is a short 3-4 hour drive from me...crazy!

Kerry, what aW meter do you have and where did you get it? Want to figure out best place to get one and the estimated cost for business plan purposes. Not essential obviously, but pretty "peace of mind" handy... So far the current contenders are the Pawkit and the Rotronic HP23AW, the Pawkit seems to be more economically priced, but most places you have to request for a quote which annoys me.

Just wanted to give you an update that I finally took the time to email Tom about the Dedy, and we spoke on the phone today. I also asked him about the Italian enrober, and I think that's what I'll end up going with. Just talking to him about it made a lot of sense. I think having the auto-tempering is going to be so handy, and if I wanted to get the Dedy capable of attaching the enrober eventually I would have to get the upgraded model which would cost only around $1000 less than the Prima, and the Prima comes with the vibrating table, where the Dedy you have to purchase separately for $1200. Given those variables it would be silly to get a batch temperer when I can get an auto temperer for pretty much the same price. And I can add the enrobing set up to the Prima later if I want pretty seamlessly. For now I'll just use my Mol d' Art for hand dipping, until it becomes more cost effective to add the enrober. The Prima also has a doser, so you can set the output for your shells and it will add just the right amount of chocolate to each cavity without all the mess of ladling the chocolate in the mold. It's amazing what they've come up with these days! Thanks for the advice on getting ahold of Tom Ruth, it was really helpful!

I'm with you there Ruth, I only use it for ganaches and some decoration for shells. I think I just had a terrible experience trying to shell with white a long time ago before I learned the beauty of thinning, and by the time I figured it out, I didn't really enjoy chocolates shelled in white anyway. The only one I currently have is the Yeti Ball, and it's more for aesthetics than anything. The only milk shell I have is for my salted caramel, as it is the first thing I've found that is better shelled in milk than in dark, which is a hard thing to admit I'll have to look into the 35% white though.