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Airbrush machines: Basics & Beyond


PastryLady

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In class last night we got the opportunity to use a good airbrush machine. She said she paid about $300 for it though. While I had a lot of fun with it and momentarily felt like an art-ist with the pen type wand I was wondering if there was a good brand/model out there that is a little cheaper. Is there anything good in the low 100s for airbrush? Just thinking I would have to get the colors too specifically for airbrush as well.

Also, besides cakes and chocolate designs, can people post on their experiences of using airbrush for pastries/desserts? We have a very small (read cheap/basic) airbrush from the can at the bakery and use it very sparingly on miniatures and some desserts/cakes. Looking for new ideas as well. :cool:

Debra Diller

"Sweet dreams are made of this" - Eurithmics

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I think you get what you pay for in a cake decorating airbrush. The finer the mist, the less it clogs, the easier it is to refill- all makes your job easier. There's nothing worse then ruining something because your color leaked or your spray spattered. Unscrewing jars to load color is a hassle, so look for ones that have cups instead. Airmaster is a brand I've used and liked.

As for other applications: (I learned this thru a demo from Norman Love, (he's terrific) and I use the info. as often as possible) Buy a cheap airbrush for spraying chocolate. Don't confuse this with a wagner air gun that you'd use to coat an item. I own a couple bottom of the line badger brushes (about $20.00). What you want to buy is an air brush where the "paint/ chocolate" doesn't feed thru the nozzle of the brush. If it did, your chocolate would harden up quickly and you'd constantly be cloged. The cheap types feed the liquid thru a tube and the air hits the chocolate propelling it forward. You won't get a really fine mist this way, but it's not bad. If you look up Normans chocolate company you'll see how he sprays a colored coating on the inside of his chocolates and you can notice the way the spray hits (not as fine as a airmaster) with a more ganular look.

If you use canned air with chocolate colors it will freeze up your chocolate in a minute. Instead hook it up to a regular compressor.

As to applications, there's ALOT you can do. I spray the tops of my mini pastries with the colored chocolates (after I cut them). You can use large sheets with patterns or small metal stencils and spray each pastry individually. I spray the tops of whole tortes too with patterns and color. Chefete did an incredible portrate of Marilyn Monroe using a stencil. I'm not sure if she air brushed it but I have to tell her it's given me alot of inspiration!

You can also make your own chocolate transfer sheets by spraying color onto actetate. Your can use multiple colors and make custom transfer sheets pretty easily cutting your own stencils.

There's many possible applications with airbrushes it's auesome. Just use the right medium to the right product.

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  • 1 year later...

Hi everyone,

I've recently purchased the Badger 250 airbrush and am wondering the best way to clean it. Hot water and let dry? The package says"use appropriate solvent" so I'm guessing hot water is the way to go. Xylene probably isn't.

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Assuming your using this for edible products only, definitely don't use non-edible solvents on your brush. This brush cleans up rather easily with hot water flushed through it. I use dish soap to clean the bottles and brush when needed, making sure to rinse it off well.

On occasion it might clog up on you. Any clogs always happen in the feed bottle or tip because nothing but air passes thru the brushes head. I have a thin poker from badger I insert into the feed tip to dislodge any clogs. I've also found a twist tie with the paper stripped off it works really well to open up the tip.

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Yes, I got it becuase I read about it in that post. I just tried it out with some plain melted cocoa butter and some powdered food color mixed in. The color didn't dissolve very well and left splotches. It was also very pale. I'm trying to order the cocoa butter colours from PCB but my supplier is out of stock right now. It's a fun tool to use and I can't wait to try it out with some better colour.

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Agreed, I can't get the dry colors to dissolve properly. I was struggling to get PCB colors and I just recently got a similar product thru Albert Uster Co. .

You can also color your couveture then thin it down with cocoa butter and use that to spray thru your brush.

If your in a hurry and want to play now, I found oil based colors at Micheals Craft Store, in their baking section. Wilton is producing small jars of color, selling them in sets of 4. They aren't bad, in fact they have secondary colors that I can't mix with my PCB colors.

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I remember hearing something last year about PCB colored cocoa butters being not FDA approved as food safe (though of course they are approved in France, where they are made, and chefs have used them for years). That might have something to do with their scarcity. Chef Rubber seems to have picked up the slack.

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I checked out Chef Rubber, thry have some cool stuff. My supplier's price is about the same in Canadian dollars so it doesn't make sense for me to mail order them. They will be in soon! One thing I have been wondering, can you mix the PCB colors with each other to create new ones? Is it worth getting the full set (8) if I can mix the primary colors to get what I want?

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  • 1 month later...

We got the loan of an airbrush from CakeCrafters or someone, just to check it out, and I don't have a lot of experience with one. Used one at school to spray my little marzipan fruits. My boss has used one a lot, but she won't have time this week to fiddle with it. We use plant based/oil based food colors from something called the Plant Colors Group. Does anyone think I can spray these, with a little thinning out with water?

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i don't think so... particularly if they are oil-based food colors. You don't want to muck up the airbrush, you'll never get it clean. (Unless you used alcohol? don't know tho, and I wouldn't want to ruin the airbrush experimenting!) I only use colors made specifically for airbrushes, they are all water-soluable. Didn't the airbrush come with any literature, like telling which tips do what? There might be some fine print mentioning what types of colors are acceptable.

Whoever loaned you the airbrush for trying out --ought to have included colors/paint to go with it. Maybe you should call them.

I like to cook with wine. Sometimes I even add it to the food.

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We can't use artificial colors or flavors at the earthy crunchy groceria. That's the reason for the spinach, beets, annato, turmeric and blueberry overtones to your kid's birthday cake. I'm doubting that widely available food colors conform.

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You don't mention what brand of airbrush it is. If the liquid doesn't feed thru the brush itself you can spray just about anything liquid thru it. You definately can spray oil based colors thru a wagner paint gun (which of course isn't very fine like an air brush).

I don't know, I think you should check out some art websites and see if you can find more info. on what you can spray thru that brush. I sort of think you can spray oil based paint thru one. I wouldn't dilute an oil based product with h2o though, can't you just use more oil?

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I only looked at it quickly and the gun thingie has a little cup on it where the color goes. Suppose it makes sense that it will handle oil based materials with some particulate matter, that sort of sounds like paint. Much too busy today to get near it. Dipped 32 pounds of strawberries in chocolate at one point.

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Well, it worked. I came back from lunch and my boss had "decorated" a cake with it. I tried it earlier in the am, but I'm kind of unimpressed. I had to finish about 15 more cakes, but they got buttecream flowers and whatnot.

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but I'm kind of unimpressed.

I think it really does depend upon what your doing and totally how skilled the person is with the brush. It's not always so easy for people to get decent colors with these (you have to know how to blend/mix colors)......it takes a fair amount of practice to get good. But in the hands of someone skilled they really can be neat.

What are you thinking about using this on?

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We have a line of cakes meant for kid's birthday and we were going to get a little frisky doing them. I almost couldn't care less.

I put nice bouquets of buttercream roses and leaves on some of the cakes yesterday and came in today to find that a new worker had put low domes instead of high domes on all the cakes and flattened all the roses. Her quote, "You learn by your mistakes." The first one was a mistake, to do it to 6 more was just effing stupid. I have enough to do without having to re-do the decorations.

My co-workers just insist on stacking up the freshly baked coffee cakes, to the point where it spoils my day to find them like that. It was suggested to me by one of them, an idiot remark, not to make them so high. I've threatened that the next time it happens, the culprit gets assigned to me for some production training and they are going to make a batch, from filling to streusel to mixing, scaling and finishing and we'll see how they like it.

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  • 2 months later...

One of my goals for myself this year is to learn airbrush technology.

What's a good place to purchase the equipment and how should I begin to learn?

Believe, Laugh, Love

Lydia (aka celenes)

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I hope some of our more expert level cake decorators will have better leads then I. I know theres at least one book on airbrushing on cakes it's written by Carol Faxton (I could have her last name slightly wrong). I've never seen the book, but I've heard good things about the author.

I know you can get that book and airbrushing supplies at this site.. I've ordered other products from them over the years and they have great service. Their site can be a little hard to navigate because they stock so much but I think you can message them dirrectly at their site and they can lead you to that book and supplies.

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I hope some of our more expert level cake decorators will have better leads then I. I know theres at least one book on airbrushing on cakes it's written by Carol Faxton (I could have her last name slightly wrong). I've never seen the book, but I've heard good things about the author.

I know you can get that book and airbrushing supplies at this site.. I've ordered other products from them over the years and they have great service. Their site can be a little hard to navigate because they stock so much but I think you can message them dirrectly at their site and they can lead you to that book and supplies.

Two books by Carole Faxon: "Joy of Airbrushing" and "More Joy of Airbrushing". Not sure if they're still in print since she passed away, but they both have lots of great info in them. There's also a great book by Roland Winbeckler: "Airbrush Techniques for Cake Decorating" with a companion book of patterns.

Roland's books are available from his site. Looks like he's got one of the Faxon books too as well as a couple others I'm not familiar with.

Best advice I've got is to not be scared of the thing. I've learned at least as much by playing with it as I have from books or demos.

FWIW, I've got the Kopykake Airmaster compressor and an Aztec brush.

B. Keith Ryder

BCakes by BKeith

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I just a Kopykake airmaster and aztec brush following peoples advice here. Found the airmaster slightley cheaper than Kopykakes site, using a froogle search, and got a brand new aztec brush for under half price on ebay. Having all sorts of fun trying to figure out the best way to use it

karen

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