Intro

 

Hi everyone this is Luis Rodriguez from 3DigitalCooks and in this weeks video I will be answering some questions from two awesome 3d food printing entrepenaurs. Cristina and Barbara. The wanted to have more information on how to start printing with chocolate.

Main

Chocolate

 

Disclaimer!

Printing chocolate is hard, Jason pointed that is the Drama Queen of foods, because it caughts everyones attention but at the same time is not the easiest material out there.

 

Basic things you need to know.

 

Before even looking at what machine to buy or build. You need to answer two questions.

 

What chocolate do you want to print?

There is tons of different types of chocolate, knowing what you want willl help you to choose a better fit technology. Different melting temperatures, viscosities, set times,… all those are good reason to choose different technologies.

A great important distinction is if you want to use a compound chocolate or chocolate with cocoa butter. The second one, more delicate, will require tempering and precaution to avoid blooming.

 

With this i am not saying that you can not use the same technology for both, but knowing better what you want to print will help you to choose wisely, and ask the right question when buying.

 

Is also important what do you want the printed chocolate for. Is completely different if you just want to print chocolate for yourself, or if you want to add customized items to your bakery. Parameters like, repeatability, speed and robustness can have a major impact in the technology and the cost of it!!!

Equipment

Once you know what you want to print. is time to look for your printer.

• Budget

There are existing technologies out there that might work for you. From custom build machines to already in the market. I will suggest to whatever technology you choose make sure that you will have a decent customer support. Especially if you are not much interested in playing with the technology. Sometimes is worthy to pay extra but to know that someone has your back.

 

If budget is an issue make, surely you can build your own, but be aware that depending on your expertise this might be a longer journey.

So what is out there?

ChoCreator, Bocusini, 3d drag, Rokit, …Out the shelf solutions, that range from 3500 dollars to 600. More or less

 

Links at the of the description.

Learning more

There is tons and tons, of people who has tried this before, in different shapes forms and levels of success. Make sure to surf the web learning from their designs and mistakes! I would not say there is a clear place to learn everything you need about printing chocolate but if you put the pieces together I sure you can make it!

 

Make sure to check Mark Jones’s interview from ChocEdge, the work form Smart Gastronomy Lab, Fans Hauche, hersheys, … for all that check the links at the end of the post.

I hope this information is helpful write a comment below if you have more doubts about printing chocolate and now now I am just going to enjoy some chocolate.

Links

ChocEdge, Mark Jones interview, Smart Gastronomy Lab they have a cool set of pictures on their facebook page , Hans Fauche, Rokit Chocolate printer or 3D Drag.

 

And many more chocolatier in our Digital Cooks map.