ALOHA ~ turning cacao beans and/or nibs into liquid for chocolate making ... techniques/equipment etc ~ MAHALO

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Permalink Reply by Clay Gordon on February 19, 2010 at 6:50am

DeeDee

There are several groups on this site to look to for help.

The first is Startup Central which is for people looking to start chocolate businesses.
The second is Home Brew which is for people looking to make chocolate from beans.
The third is Classifieds where members can offer equipment to sell to other members.

:: Clay

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Permalink Reply by deedee devi on February 19, 2010 at 1:09pm

excellent! i finally found the classifieds and the HOME BREW will BE a blessing! mahalo ~ namaste

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Permalink Reply by cheebs on February 19, 2010 at 11:14am

What kind of melanger do you have? With the Santha and Inno models, I've always just put the nibs directly in. Of course not all at the same time, but warmed nibs, added slowly, will grind into liquor just fine in either of the two previously mentioned grinders. No need for the Champion. In fact, mine is now used only for making nut butters and for juicing.

If you need higher output, a Nixtamal (used for making corn masa, among other things) grinder could do the trick nicely for a coarse grind. You still need to warm the nibs before grinding.

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Permalink Reply by deedee devi on February 19, 2010 at 1:12pm

I AM using a santha wet grinder/melanger ... i bought it thinking i could add the nibs diretly BUT it warned against this in the manual so ...

when you warm the nibs, do you do this in the oven or? i've already had to use hair dryer on the drum of the melanger to get it going even after running the nibs through the greenstar ")

thank you for the nixtamal idea ... i will look into this.

mahalo ~ namaste

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Permalink Reply by Brad Churchill on February 19, 2010 at 1:50pm

Deedee;

The best way to use your Santha, is as follows:
1. Preheat the Santha bin and granite wheels with a blow dryer, or hot air.

2. While your bin is heating, melt the cocoa butter, then add all ingredients into it, and gently heat the entire mass until it's about 120 degrees.

3. Remove the tension cap from the Santha, turn it on, and SLOWLY add the warm ingredients. This process will take about 10 minutes to complete.

It's important to note that while the Santha CLAIMS to make chocolate, it's primary original design was in fact NOT to crush cocoa beans. the motor is underpowered, and the belt will stretch and wear out very soon after a couple of batches.

You will need to tinker with the machine eventually, so be prepared for it.

I say this with utmost sincerity and 4 years of experience with that type of machine. (I completely re-engineered mine, and even though I have proper industrial chocolate equipment today I still use my modified one to evaluate samples of beans I receive).

Cheers.
Brad
www.SoChoklat.com

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