I just posted about tempering machines and have another question that my research has not helped…
I just posted about tempering machines and have another question that my research has not helped answer. How do you take care of pumping chocolate from one machine to the next? What brand/style pumps work for chocolate and where do I find them? It seems none of the big companies have solutions for this. Am I missing something? How do you move liquid chocolate around? Until this point in my business it was reasonable to fill buckets and move them around. Now it will not be. Thanks guys! Building a new kitchen and I will probably have lots of questions. I encourage you too look into what I am doing with Superfoods www.mandalanaturals.com and ask me anything you like so i can return the favor!!!!
you are correct. mandalanaturals.com works -the other URL is coming online this week and has been in my fingers, so to speak =) I am looking to purchase one of these machines (re: my other post!) so it seems that purchasing a melter with the tempering machine is advisable. Currently I melt 66lb blocks of raw paste and 55lb of raw butter in temp. controlled melting pans and add all ingredients (paste, powder and the balancing dose of butter!) to my 100lb grinders. Once the chocolate is finished in the grinder I am trying to figure out what the most effective way to get it from the grinder to the tempering machine. I do not foresee needing to delay removing the entire batch from the machines into the tempering machine, either at once or within the relative time frame of the machine’s capacity; though I am sure I will run into times when having a melter to hold the finished couverture makes sense. Or; is that the system? Directly from grinder into a melter in order to meter the chocolate into the tempering machine? If so how do I transfer to the melter? I wish I had more working knowledge of how all this next-level equipment works. I am upgrading from two small stone grinders, a single 100lb and two batch chocovision machines to this new setup. i hope this clarifies and thanks!!!
The URL you give in your post does not work for me. Are you at https://www.mandalanaturals.com/ ? In Barnardsville, NC?
What machines do you need to pump between? Most tempering machine companies make melters with pumps and pipes and sensors that will keep the working bowl of the tempering machine full of chocolate at all times.
There are significant differences in terms of capacity, method, and price among the manufacturers.
If the melter does not have an integrated pump then you’ll need to use some sort of container (e.g., a bucket) to move chocolate from a melter to the tempering machine.
If you don’t have a regular melter but are using a cabinet to melt the chocolate, you can batch the recipes in a bucket or hotel pan and top up the working bowl as needed.
A lot depends on how much chocolate you will be working with each day as well as recipes. You should also keep in mind that if you’re adding a lot of powders you need to be aware of mixing times and fluidity. One maker purchased a machine from FBM and added 25% dry weight of powders and did not add cocoa butter. The chocolate was basically impossible to temper in the machine they purchased and they would not consider adding any extra cocoa butter to make it possible to temper the chocolate.