Capacity of CocoaTown Melanger

I've searched through old forums and not found the answer I was looking for. Perhaps I didn't search hard enough, so please forgive me if this is a repeat question.

After a series of complicated logistics, a CocaoTown ECGC-12SL melanger now makes its home in the tiny workshop of my chocoladies here in Peru. However, they keep telling me that they can't put more than 1 kg of licor (twice ground nibs plus sugar) into the machine or it siezes up. I swear this machine has a capacity of 8 lbs of final couverture. With our current process we put 70% nibs to 30 % powdered sugar through a grinder we have, and then pass the pasta that comes out through the grinder once more. What we have at this point is a licor that's still too grainy to eat, but not *that* bad. However, it's quite thick...like a paste.

From here he put this paste into the melanger. My ladies say that if they put more than a kilo of this mix into the melanger, it seizes up. Additionally, they only let it grind for 2 hours. After researching, I'm relatively certain this isn't enough, but I need more to go on than "the internet said so," or they won't believe me.

So what I'm wondering is, what has been the experience of others, and, obviously there's something not ok about our process. Therefore we welcome all thoughts and suggestions.

Thanks,

Casandra (and the chocoladies of ASDEME)

Tags: ECGC-SL12, cocoatown, melanger

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Permalink Reply by Andal Balu on January 7, 2013 at 11:14pm

Hi Thomas,

Please send us an email at info@cocoatown.com and I can send you the order form for ordering the belt.

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Permalink Reply by Thomas Forbes on January 8, 2013 at 5:23pm

Thank you and congratulations or felizidades for the FCIA award.

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Permalink Reply by Andal Balu on January 8, 2013 at 7:20pm

We thank you for your wishes. We could not have done it without the support from our customers and well wishers. We thank the bean to bar pioneers who got us into making equipment for bean to bar industry, the customers who support us with feedback so we could constantly improve the machines, and the Chocolate Life members. There are too many names to mention and since this is a public forum, I do not want to leave out anyone. So I am thanking one and all.

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Permalink Reply by Andal Balu on February 28, 2013 at 4:09pm

Hi all,

I also read an interesting article on sugar and I thought it will benefit all the chocolatiers. The article explains that each sugar works differently. http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/SUGAR-SUGAR-Cane-and-beet-share-the-same-2939081.php

I have also uploaded the pdf version of this article just to make sure everybody can access it.

Andal Balu

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