Epuipment

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Sebastian on April 6, 2011 at 2:18pm

Process what? Liquor?  Chocolate?  It's very inexpensive to make a widower, but the legal implications are significant...

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Permalink Reply by Scott on April 6, 2011 at 2:22pm

It's only April, but I'll go ahead and cast my vote for this as comment of the year.

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Permalink Reply by Sabastion on April 6, 2011 at 2:43pm

liquor and Chocolate...

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Permalink Reply by Sabastion on April 6, 2011 at 3:01pm

That's winnowing Sebastian.

Do you have some information?

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Permalink Reply by Sebastian on April 6, 2011 at 3:26pm

You're looking at handling, assuming you want to start from beans, about 10-12 tons of dry  beans a month.  You've moved out of the realm of hobbiest or artisinal shop, and into relatively large scale manufacture.  I think you'll find that on this scale, all of your options are going to be costly i'm afraid...an 1800 mm 5 roll refiner just sold from Rabin (auction house) from a Nestle facility for $20,000 - which is an absolute STEAL.  If you're cost conscious - and you should be prepared to spend multiple hundreds of thousands of dollars at this scale i'd think - you might want to consider watching the auctions.

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Permalink Reply by Sabastion on April 6, 2011 at 5:52pm

Thanks for the info. I am trying to set up for about $160,000. So the Auctioin house is called "Rabin Auction House".

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Permalink Reply by Clay Gordon on April 7, 2011 at 11:03am

Sebastion:

Sebastian is right: your budget is unrealistic.

You will find it difficult to produce this amount of finished chocolate for this money.

You may be able to purchase equipment used but it will most likely need extensive (and expensive) refurbishing. 

One thing you may not have budgeted for: If your location does not have the necessary power (at least 400 amp 3-phase 480) the cost of getting the necessary service installed from your local utility company and your facility wired could easily cost $40,000 all by itself if it were being done in the US . I can't speak for what it might cost on the island you want to build on.

Another thing to consider at this scale (it's less of an issue in smaller batches) is materials storage and handling.

:: Clay

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Permalink Reply by Sabastion on April 7, 2011 at 3:06pm

So in your opinion about how much could I produce per year for that initial investment?

The infrastructure is not a problem unlike here in the states our power on my island is much more stable. I will be doing most wiring and install my-self. I need to know sickly from an equipment standpoint what my cost will look like. One of the things am considering is cutting my processing down some, and reserve the surplus for export as a raw product.    

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Permalink Reply by Clay Gordon on April 7, 2011 at 3:22pm

Sebastion:

Before it's possible to answer this question it's important to know exactly what you want to produce and in what quantities:

• Nib
• Liquor (how refined?)
• Butter
• Powder
• Finished chocolate

:: Clay

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Permalink Reply by Sabastion on April 7, 2011 at 4:26pm

Nib, Liquor, (as refined as possible), I wanted to do butter but have not been able to find a small press that cost effective.   I must archive as much degree of processing of the beans so can to archive my business model.

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Permalink Reply by Ice Blocks! on April 9, 2011 at 5:08pm

Your in luck. Below is a small production line that someone need to get rid of.

 

http://www.actrader.com.au/ProductionLines/ChocolateProduction/Choc...

 

I've seen pretty good butter recovery from a simple but powerful hydralic ram organized like a basket press but at that kind of volume (600 kg / day avarage) you would need an army of them. 

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