Melanger experimentation

[JoNorvelleWalker]

Thank you so much for the idea of sugar or salt!  I wonder though, could salt affect the stainless steel?

 

[pastrygirl]

12 hours ago, JoNorvelleWalker said:

My micro batch arrived this afternoon!  It's cute.  Came with no instructions -- though I recall the original grinder instructions said to grind a sacrificial batch of stuff to remove any bits of granite?

 

 

How does it compare volume-wise?  Half the large one, or less?  I have the tilting 2 liter now.

[JoNorvelleWalker]

1 hour ago, pastrygirl said:

 

How does it compare volume-wise?  Half the large one, or less?  I have the tilting 2 liter now.

 

Forgive me, math is not my thing.  I calculate the bowl of the tilting to be 7.25 liter and the bowl of the micro batch to be 3.16 liter.  So a little less than half.

 

[pastrygirl]

What, if anything, are people using to pre-grind the nibs (or whatever) before adding to the melanger? 

 

I use my food processor, have seen Champion juicers recommended.

[Kerry Beal]

25 minutes ago, pastrygirl said:

What, if anything, are people using to pre-grind the nibs (or whatever) before adding to the melanger? 

 

I use my food processor, have seen Champion juicers recommended.

I have a Sumeet - like a coffee grinder on steroids which works well.

 

 

[Tri2Cook]

I use a processor. I didn't pre-grind at all for my first batch and it did fine but I later read somewhere that it's better for the machines to pre-grind a bit. Don't know if it's true or not but it seemed like cheap insurance so I now do it.

[pastrygirl]

I've been doing a little R&D, and finally succumbed to temptation and ordered the micro-batch grinder last night.  For $100 including shipping, how could I not?  It'll be nice to be able to make tinier test batches!  Thanks to @Tri2Cook for finding it on sale.

[tikidoc]

I got mine yesterday. Unfortunately, the wheels don’t make contact with the bottom. There is 2-3 mm clearance. I have emailed and am waiting for a response.

[YetiChocolates]

I use a Hamilton Beach food processor for pre-grind, works well for nuts, which is primarily what I’m using the melanger for. @tikidoc curious to hear what they say about the clearance issue...

[Tri2Cook]

I have to confess that I haven't actually ordered it yet. I was excited about it and geared myself up to grab it when it hit the website, especially when it hit the site with an introductory sale price. But then I took a careful read of the specs and now I'm waffling over whether I consider a 500 gram minimum batch size micro enough to be worth the expense (which is significantly higher than the number on the website after shipping and currency conversion to Canada are added on). That's not really as small as I had in mind for testing and experimenting, I can get down almost that small in the full size unit. I realize there are limits to how small it can go and still generate the forces necessary for it to do it's job and I'm betting that 500 gram minimum is a safe number and can be flexed lower so I'm still giving it serious consideration. 

[JoNorvelleWalker]

On ‎8‎/‎5‎/‎2018 at 3:24 AM, Kerry Beal said:

Sugar for the sacrificial grind

 

Sugar was on sale.  But if you use sugar do you still add oil?

 

 

Edit:  and now that you're home, what do you think of the micro-batch?

 

Edited August 13, 2018 by JoNorvelleWalker (log)

[Kerry Beal]

First batch today using the little bowl - two aliquots of sugar were sacrificed to clean the bowl.

 

Freeze dried guava and mango, cocoa butter, sugar and a bit of citric acid.

 

 

 

Put some cling film over the top. When I was grinding the sugar there was sugar dust in the air.

[Kerry Beal]

1 hour ago, JoNorvelleWalker said:

 

Sugar was on sale.  But if you use sugar do you still add oil?

 

 

Edit:  and now that you're home, what do you think of the micro-batch?

 

 

Just used sugar. 

 

Doing my first batch now in the micro - think it will be very satisfactory.

Edited August 13, 2018 by Kerry Beal (log)

[Rajala]

5 hours ago, Kerry Beal said:

Freeze dried guava and mango, cocoa butter, sugar and a bit of citric acid.

 

What kind of product will this end up being? 🤔

[Kerry Beal]

4 hours ago, Rajala said:

 

What kind of product will this end up being? 🤔

A tasty one I hope! Looking to make small intensely flavours non chocolate chocolate bars.

 

[Rajala]

5 hours ago, Kerry Beal said:

A tasty one I hope! Looking to make small intensely flavours non chocolate chocolate bars.

 

 

That's interesting, let us know how it goes.

[pastrygirl]

10 hours ago, Rajala said:

 

What kind of product will this end up being? 🤔

 

5 hours ago, Kerry Beal said:

A tasty one I hope! Looking to make small intensely flavours non chocolate chocolate bars.

 

 

@Rajala think white chocolate but fruit powder instead of milk powder.  Same as Valrhona Inspirations.  I've made some with freeze dried raspberries and it was delicious but expensive.  Freeze dried fruit compacts down to nothing once powdered! 

[Rajala]

What kind of ratios do you use? I should try this with like black currant or something really weird.  

[pastrygirl]

My latest experiment is a dark milk chocolate made from nibs, cacao butter, a lot of nonfat dry milk powder, a bit less heavy cream powder, and only a little sugar.  Works out to about 50% cacao but less than 10% sugar and extra protein from the milk.  It's not bad!  Not ready for market, but not bad

[Rajala]

I can get 200 grams of freeze dried blackcurrant for 25 EUR. Will buy some with my next order.

[Kerry Beal]

2 hours ago, Rajala said:

I can get 200 grams of freeze dried blackcurrant for 25 EUR. Will buy some with my next order.

So to 200 g fruit I added 60 grams of sugar and initially 200 grams of cocoa butter - added 70 more later 

 

Makes for expensive bars unless you have a freeze dryer.

[Kerry Beal]

 

[Tri2Cook]

1 hour ago, Kerry Beal said:

 

Nice! I'm still going to give this a try just so I can say I did but I became a little less excited about it when I started tracking down freeze dried fruits and realized what it would cost to do it as a regular thing. I can still see maybe doing it as a seasonal limited edition or something though.

[Kerry Beal]

Just now, Tri2Cook said:

Nice! I'm still going to give this a try just so I can say I did but I became a little less excited about it when I started tracking down freeze dried fruits and realized what it would cost to do it as a regular thing. I can still see maybe doing it as a seasonal limited edition or something though.

Did you do the corn one?

[Tri2Cook]

2 minutes ago, Kerry Beal said:

Did you do the corn one?

Got sidetracked with other ideas and never got back to it after my initial disappointment that it was too soft. I have it stored with some other things waiting to be molded and it actually did seem to harden up more eventually, it just took longer to do it than most things usually do, so I need to finish that and see what I end up with.