Project description
I make chocolate at home for my family and as gifts, and I have finally decided to stop working on the dinner table between meals. There is a free corner by the north wall, roughly 2.2 square metres, and I would like someone who has actually tempered chocolate, not only watched it being done, to plan that corner and explain the decisions instead of sending me a shopping list. I am not opening a shop and I do not need anything industrial; I need a small workspace that behaves the same way in February and in July.
The heart of it is the work surface. I am choosing between a granite slab and a thick stainless steel top, and I want a reasoned answer rather than a fashionable one. Stone has mass and gives up its cold slowly, so thirty kilograms of granite do not warm through in three minutes of spreading; steel pulls heat out faster but loses it just as fast. Tell me which suits a room kept at 16 to 18 degrees, what thickness makes sense, and how to build the base so it stays level and completely dead. My present table shivers every time the fridge compressor starts, and a trembling surface streaks a batch that has already begun to set. Feet, levelling and a way to check it with a spirit level are part of the job.
After that comes climate and storage. I want a thermometer I can trust to a couple of tenths of a degree and gentle heat instead of a boiling water bath, so that I can hold 31 degrees for dark and 29 for milk without standing over the pot. No extractor hood is needed here because nothing is fried, but coolness is: tell me how to keep the corner at 16 to 18 degrees in July. Moulds need shelves where they lie flat and never rub against each other, because one scratch on polycarbonate shows on every bar afterwards. I also want a separate small fridge. The family one is opened forty times a day, it smells of cheese and drips condensation onto everything taken out of it, and damp is the one thing chocolate never forgives. Humidity should stay under fifty per cent, and I want to know what to measure it with.
Hygiene matters even in a home corner: the slab is for chocolate only, never for raw meat or onions, and I want a short written cleaning routine for the surfaces. And since half of this goes to friends, every box must carry an honest allergen note with nuts and milk named in plain words, even when it is a present.
What I expect to receive:
— a layout of the corner with dimensions and the reasoning behind the surface choice;
— a shopping list by priority, with sensible alternatives at two price levels;
— tempering routines for dark, milk and white written for my equipment;
— storage rules for moulds, finished bars and the cool cabinet;
— a short card covering cleaning and allergen labelling for gift boxes.
About ten days is fine. I would rather have a careful plan than a fast one.
The heart of it is the work surface. I am choosing between a granite slab and a thick stainless steel top, and I want a reasoned answer rather than a fashionable one. Stone has mass and gives up its cold slowly, so thirty kilograms of granite do not warm through in three minutes of spreading; steel pulls heat out faster but loses it just as fast. Tell me which suits a room kept at 16 to 18 degrees, what thickness makes sense, and how to build the base so it stays level and completely dead. My present table shivers every time the fridge compressor starts, and a trembling surface streaks a batch that has already begun to set. Feet, levelling and a way to check it with a spirit level are part of the job.
After that comes climate and storage. I want a thermometer I can trust to a couple of tenths of a degree and gentle heat instead of a boiling water bath, so that I can hold 31 degrees for dark and 29 for milk without standing over the pot. No extractor hood is needed here because nothing is fried, but coolness is: tell me how to keep the corner at 16 to 18 degrees in July. Moulds need shelves where they lie flat and never rub against each other, because one scratch on polycarbonate shows on every bar afterwards. I also want a separate small fridge. The family one is opened forty times a day, it smells of cheese and drips condensation onto everything taken out of it, and damp is the one thing chocolate never forgives. Humidity should stay under fifty per cent, and I want to know what to measure it with.
Hygiene matters even in a home corner: the slab is for chocolate only, never for raw meat or onions, and I want a short written cleaning routine for the surfaces. And since half of this goes to friends, every box must carry an honest allergen note with nuts and milk named in plain words, even when it is a present.
What I expect to receive:
— a layout of the corner with dimensions and the reasoning behind the surface choice;
— a shopping list by priority, with sensible alternatives at two price levels;
— tempering routines for dark, milk and white written for my equipment;
— storage rules for moulds, finished bars and the cool cabinet;
— a short card covering cleaning and allergen labelling for gift boxes.
About ten days is fine. I would rather have a careful plan than a fast one.
Other / Miscellaneous Cash, Bank transfer
