Hello everyone!
I purchased a Moldart Chocolate machine for moulding – 15kg. Although it helps with the melting and tempering, however due to the fact that I did not have a prepared any seed chocolates to get my batches tempered using the machine, I’ve had some issues with getting my chocolates tempered in the machine, thus i used the machine as a melter simply, and had to resort to hand tempering 10-15kgs of chocolates each day for about a week. Whilst getting the proper temper, shine and snap through hand tempering was a success, it was also very inefficiently slow, and tiring – add to the fact that I had to get as much tempered chocolates out of the kitchen as I can, so I didn’t really have the chance to make a seed chocolate to use. I really need to up my production and stabilize it to at least 30 KGs of chocolate per day, on days that I’m scheduled to temper and mold.
I’ve encountered EZtemper in a lot of readings for a number of years now, and I honestly am tempted by the promise of easy temper solutions to my needs. Please can any of you share your inputs and experiences on producing silk from this machine?
Am I correct to assume that by simply adding 1% of EZtemper silk, in my pre-crystallized bean to bar mass, it’ll instantly temper my chocolate, and so i’d be ready to mold them? It really sounds too good to be true, but maybe it really is that good.
By the way, i extract my cocoa butter from own beans – will i be able to use this to make a silk?
I have been advised to buy a bigger much more expensive tempering machine to scale up, but I don’t think this is the solution. The EZtemper seems like a much more cost effective solution to helping me get to temper using my Mold’Art, but even so, EZtemper is not cheap cheap, you know.
I would really appreciate your inputs…
Best regards,
Luchie
I use an ez temper in combination with a wheel machine and it works wonderfully. I do not use seed as I make my own chocolate so it has helped me tremendously especially as the wheel machines are not designed for batch chocolate (which I do) but more for folks using seed coverture. It was a learning curve for me and I struggled with the machine until I gave up and starting using seed. I now can produce 20Kg + easily in a day
reply toCocoa butter silk was originally invented for tempering ganaches and pralinés and the like and while it can be used for chocolate that’s definitely not what it’s designed for.
The original machine from Statice is over $4000 and so the EZTemper is an inexpensive copy. RF Fran is correct that you can use sous vide equipment to create silk, you just need to be careful to make sure you don’t introduce any water from the bath into the chocolate. Using sous vide is probably going to be less energy efficient but it will take years before the difference will make a difference.
It’s probably best if you establish a standard quantity of chocolate to temper and scale bags of the right weight to put into your chocolate. You can use the melter to keep the chocolate at the right temperature and an immersion blender (that’s what Jean Pierre Wybauw used) to mix the silk into the chocolate.
Thank you so much for this ! Getting my own sous vide seems like the most practical approach both on the financial side and the production side. It is the process of tempering the chocolates that I least like, but hopefully with making my own silk, I’ll remedy this. Thanks a lot once again!!! 🙂
To use the silk, you add the 1% of silk to your mass at the correct temperature and it does the pre-crystalization. That is what gives you the temper. Yes you can use your own cocoa butter to make the silk. The EZTemper website even has a video on how to make cocoa butter on the stove top! All that said, the EZTemper is a ready to go solution that runs about $1000. The process of making silk is actually very easy and can be accomplished without the use of a $1000 piece of equipment. A simple circulating immersion heater (sous vide) for $100 and you can make your own silk over night. The cocoa butter just needs to be maintained at 94 F for 12-24 hours and it automatically forms the silk.