I haven’t been making chocolate for the summer months this year, and as a result haven’t been to this forum for awhile. I’ve been making chocolate in my melanger for just over two years now, and started roasting my own beans last year. (Mostly I’ve been roasting our own coffee which I buy from Sweet Maria’s which is excellent, and a nice side benefit to the coffee roaster). Anyhow, I saw this thread came alive again, and so thought I’d add my experience. I have a Spectra Melanger, and I grind my cacao beans with the Crankandstein grinder, which leaves the nibs pretty large, so I whir them up in the food processor first. It just goes smoother. When I’m making dark chocolate, usually 75%, I normally wait about 30 minutes to add the sugar. With milk chocolate, there’s more coco butter, so I generally add the sugar right after the nibs, but wait about 30 minutes to add the milk powder. The key for me is to just gradually sprinkle in the ingredients (except the coco butter) as the mix can take it. Fortunately I’ve never had anything seize up, or any mechanical issues. I did break off the outer plastic button on the on/off switch, but it’s such a poor design, and it works fine and is safe as it is, so I didn’t bother with getting a replacement.
As far as cleaning, I don’t find it too much work. I tend to make a few batches in a row now, and have gotten pretty good at the scrape out as much as possible between batches thing. With chocolate, I just let it set up overnight, then scrape all that I can to save, and then the washing part is really just maybe 15 minutes. I take the wheels off and bushings out every cleaning.
It does the job for me for sure. I know I’ve made at least 40 or 50 batches over the last 2 years, and will probably do 20 or so before Christmas this year. Some of the people we gave it as gifts to over the years want to buy from me to give as gifts themselves, so this is starting to take on a life of it’s own.
