After 4 failed attempts at making chocolate, I need some help. Not quite sure WTF is going on.
Recipe is
2/3 cup coconut oil
1 cup powdered sugar
1/2 cup milk powder
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1 tsp vanilla extract
On double boiler like the vid below.
Did your chocolate lose itās temper? You might need a good emulsifier.
No
The FN milk powder is never fully dissolving and leaving gritty crap. I went and bought another type/brand of milk powder. Same result
Just like gummies, you could save time (and headaches!) by buying pre-made chocolate intended for melting, mix in disty and re-mold.
Iām about to go buy the melting chocolate pieces. I just need to make sure the distillate gets evenly mixed so no hot spots.
I wanted to do a few test runs w/o distillate so I didnāt waste any.
Gummies require a heavy duty industrial wand mixer. I think you can get away with a straight kitchen wand mixer to homogenize based on the thinner consistency.
I was going to use my heated plate stirrer or what ever you call it.
Any ideas?
That was gonna be my suggestion. āMeltsā donāt take all the work out, but they do make it so much easier to get product out the door, and are pretty much industry standard outsides very select few.
And look into tempering.
Iāve messed around with chocolate a few times (melts/chips) and tempering can definitely be frustrating. It was hard to be consistent, but I felt like the temperature / humidity in the room was playing a part.
I found that white chocolate chips/melts were way easier to work with since they donāt need to be tempered. Just melt, add medicine, mold and cool.
Adding flavorings can help a lot too if youāre not really into white chocolate (like strawberry extract, etc).
Props for trying to make chocolate from scratch @Demontrich!
Iāve always just melted down chocolate bars. I usually buy some dark stuff for the high cacao content, and some milk chocolate because I donāt like the taste of super dark stuff. Maybe throw in some mint dark chocolate too.
Throw the bars in the freezer for a while, then smash em to bits while theyāre still cold. Melt about 3/4 of the total amount of chocolate double boiler style. Save the other 1/4 for tempering later.
I usually add some bho or eho, decarbed in a roughly equal amount of liquid sunflower lecithin in a small double boiler. After decarb, while still hot, I stir into the melted chocolate, then hit it with the handheld kitchen mixer. After the chocolate cools a bit, add the unmelted chocolate to seed the proper chocolate crystal formation, stir it in, then hit it with the mixer. Then itās off to the molds.
I canāt recall the temps I use for melting and tempering right now. I always just google it before I makes some every few months. Tempering will give a nice firm chocolate that has a snap to it when bitten. It also keeps the chocolate from blooming - white streaks on the surface. Blooming looks like nasty mold, but itās perfectly ok to eat.
Iāll see if I can dig up the temps in a bit.
@Rowan once posted a very good book about tempering chocolate thatās around here somewhere (was brought up in discussion about amorphous glass transition).
I have no experience with chocolate (our state doesnāt allow edible other than capsules) but, what we do with a lot of new formulations to save money on med is use hemp seed oil initially and then omega 3 fish oil until we decide to throw real oil at it. The fish oil to pot oil transition is very easy, the bigger issue is that the shit still aināt that cheap and scaling always makes recipes hurt lol
If you need help dosing chocolate, get yourself some PGPR. It works wonders.
Iāve already got the tempering part down, and molds. When I added the milk powder to the coconut oil, it never fully mixed. It always had some bits that never fully melted in the mix. All 3x I tried tonight.
I may just go back to the brownies I made prior. Never had any issues.
Iām used to (or was) making 5 gal batches of pancake batter, French toast batter, sauces, hollandaise, bashemel, graveys, etc, so my hand whipping skills are top shelf.
Get valrhona pistoles. Easiest melting chocolate. Those little dome shaped peices.
Maybe sift small amounts in at a time while mixing?
Sifting is most definitely key for no clumping, as well as gradual addition
Youāll get a much better chocolate if you used cocoa butter instead of coconut oil. It will make a noticeable difference. More chocolaty. Itās satisfying making your chocolate from scratch but those wafers work just fine and you can use the microwave. 
I have a super simple chocolate āpateā recipe, just butter yolks cream chocolate
Can be rolled into truffles, or chilled sliced and flambee d w high proof rum