YetiChocolates

Alright...I give in. Sign me up for the afternoon bars master class. Might have to work an extra two weeks contracting with the Forest Service to pay for it, but it'll be worth it. And of course I'm in for the dinner. And I looked at those Diamond machines, on their website seems like they are primarily used for bean to bar melanging, but I'm assuming you could also use them for nut paste grinding (which is what I would be interested in using them for...). Do you have one Kerry?

The very important reason to warm your shells with heat before sealing

Well I took the plunge! Kerry put in the confirmed category, because I just booked my plane ticket! Niagara 2018 here I come! I will have lots of questions for all you chocolate business owners, so get ready Woot Woot! I'm pumped!

Put me down as a very big maybe...as many of you know there's a strong chance I'll actually be giving the biz a real go this winter. That means more flexibility to travel and the option to use it as a tax write off, the downside is that I will be counting pennies a little more stringently than in the past. I'd of course love to come, and will work my darnedest to make it work, but will have to be tentative at this point.

I just paid $83 for 50 Grade A Madagascar Bourbon Vanilla beans on eBay. I remember paying $20-$30 for 1/2 lb. of the same quality a couple years ago. But pricing it out, I'm only paying $1.66 per bean, which compared at $10/bean at the store, so I'll take it. I guess when it's something you need/want for your operation, you'll bite the bullet and pay for it...

Here's my report...I notice from my pics that I guess I don't like talking pictures of people , so here are all my foodie photos! Green curry from Mengrai Thai. Finally caught the group after a 3 hour delay in Denver and a missed Morato demo Bloomed chocolate dipped marshmallow from Cacao 70 in the distillery district...we had many ideas as to why it bloomed, but forgot to ask Kerry her opinion (and no, I did not buy it!) My "make your own" pizza and salad of Friday night...both were fabulous. Rodney and Kat did a spectacular job keeping us fat and happy over the weekend! A couple of Saturday morning delicacies, I sure do love French pastries! My progressive pics of the panning we did between Saturday and Sunday...cocoa puffs pre-panned, after panning the first day with a finished product for contrast, and Sunday's final product. Learned a lot and have a much better appreciation of panned items than I did before! A few highlights from Saturday night dinner, the caprese salad was to die for, even if tomatoes are not in season in Toronto right now. Everything was amazing, a truly delightful dinner, worth every penny! I loved the blue crock the chicken dish was in and of course dessert! Kat outdid herself on that ice cream . And I guess I should've taken a picture of wine, as I might have overindulged a bit on the red wine selection As per a recommendation from Matt and Matt, Gaylene and I went on a public transit adventure in the blustery cold weather Sunday night to enjoy some lovely Pho and salad rolls from the Golden Turtle. A nice little cleanse after eating all those darn lovely French pastries! This was probably the highlight of the weekend, the official "winner" of the fuji airbrush. It will have to wait until next fall to get utilized, but I cannot wait to start working with it. We'll see how much of a pain it will be getting it through customs and onto the plane Other than panning I did work on a couple chocolates, just didn't get pictures of them, or of the spread of amazing products that everyone worked on throughout the weekend or what was brought to the social...so it's a good thing that others are better at taking photos than me or we'd have a piss poor report As always, Kerry outdid herself in another fantastically successful workshop. The weekend went way too fast, but it was so great to spend the time that I did with like-minded folks playing with chocolate!

Hey Kerry does Rodney have a panning machine at his shop? If so would it be something we could play around with during the course of the weekend? And you have me right, I'm in for everything but the masters class. And I have limited internet in Jackson other than the weekends to reply on here, so if you don't get an immediate response from me about something, Facebook me, it's easier to work with over here in WYO.

I'm also in for Saturday dinner!

Hey Kerry, I'm definitely interested in doing this, I'm guessing the easiest way would be to call them up and place the order over the phone? I really appreciate you doing this for all of us border crossing folk

I forgot to report back on the chocolate tasting party! I've been a little busy putting in new countertops and working on new cabinet doors in my house right now so I completely forgot! It went great. Had 16 people for the tasting, they all gave really great feedback, mostly affirming my own suspicions, and I think the strawberry cheesecake was the hit of the evening with the fig jam and fig balsamic coming in a close second. A great time was had by all!

Were all 3 around the same spot or in different areas. What I've found is depending on how I hold the molds the heat from my hand will sometimes throw certain shells out of temper and those will be the ones that won't release. I follow Kerry's lead when that occurs and first put them in the fridge to see if they will release, and then if that doesn't work, pop them in the freezer for a few minutes then try again. I've also found that after they come out of the freezer, if I put light pressure on the mold at opposite corners while having the mold slightly off the table it will sometimes help to release the chocolate, depending on the mold. It happens to all of us at one time or another, more often then you'd think

I'll jump in...I have my cocoa butter in a food dehydrator set at ~100 F, I also put my airbrush in there so it's nice and warm when I start. When I'm ready to go, I take the cocoa butter out of the dehydrator, shake it for 5-10 seconds, pour it into the airbrush and spray. Then when I'm done spraying, I pop the molds in the fridge for 5 minutes or so to set the cocoa butter, and if I'm doing multiple layers, I fridge between and then warm back to room temp before the next layer, then repeat the process. I'm not sure about what temp the molds are, I never check that, but my house is around 64 F, so I'm guessing the molds are close to that. I also agree with Kerry and Ruth that the temper of your chocolate is the more crucial element as it seems that many people have a different process with cocoa butter spraying and achieve similar results, but if your chocolate isn't in good temper then it's a nightmare...trust me! I've also found that because of the way I hold my mold when I shell the heat from my hand will heat the mold up enough to throw things out of temper. When that happens the molds head to the freezer for a bit once they are finished. I also chill my molds after I shell them, once they've started to set, which will counteract the heat from my hands most of the time. Latent heat of crystallization can be a bugger! I hope this helps! Good luck, and don't get frustrated, (I know that's easy to say as I've been frustrated plenty of times airbrushing), but I'd focus on getting a really good temper and see if that doesn't help with the airbrushing. And I wouldn't worry so much about the cocoa butter being in temper, as like Kerry says, the cold air tempers the cocoa butter as it goes through the airbrush, just get it warm, give it a couple shakes, then go for it!

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.