Filtering finished product

[slopsbucket]

Please forgive me if I've used the wrong forum, but this doesn't really seem to fit anywhere else.

I'm talking about filtering a finished product, NOT filtering raw alcohol.

Here's the problem I'd appreciate any input on.

I've made a chocolate liquer using ingredients from the supermarket, it tastes great but it takes forever to filter the cocoa back out again. I keep telling myself that there must be an easier way, and apparently there are a few if you don't mind parting with money. Unfortunately I have very little money and it breaks my heart to part with any of it.

Any suggestions on how to make a (cheap) 5 micron filter system would be great.

Suggestions about where to get filter material, what's reusable, anything at all.

[SBB]

The way I do it for things that are a bit tricky to get filtered is to use progressivly thinner filters.....something like a fine mesh sieve, then progress to cheese cloth or some thing similar, then move to something like old cotton sheet material, I then filter through paper towel.....its not as fine as a coffee filter. The last step for me is the coffee filter. It can still be slow going but if you run it through like that it saves a lot of clogged coffee filters. I havn't really answered your question.....but it may help a little.

[slopsbucket]

Thank for the suggestion SSB, paper towel that is.

This is exactly the sort of idea I'm after, and lets face it, I've got 18 litres to get through so there's plenty of room for a little trial and error.

Cheers.

[maheel]

, I've got 18 litres to get through

Cheers.

holy chocolate sauce Batman !! thats a lot of Choc :)

i 2nd SBB's ideas, strain it through (maybe push some through with a spoon?) a sieve to loosen it up a bit ?

i would be eating the leftovers with a spoon as a desert over ice-cream or something :)

[SBB]

Cotton balls packed very loosly into a funnel can help a lot to. ;-)

[slopsbucket]

At the moment I'm using:

1st stage - densely packed chux cloth in a funnel

2nd stage - cloth from old pair of stubbies shorts

3rd stage - coffee filters

It's slow and arduous but it works.

Please keep pushing these other ideas, they're exactly what I'm after.

Cheers,

Andrew.

[Sam.]

Not sure how it works but I have heard of people using compressed air to blow dense liquid through a filter, might be something to look into.... :think:

[stubbydrainer]

why not get a drawer or plastic wash-up tub and drill a shit load of holes in it, line it with old t shirts fill it up stack some more shirts on top and cover in plastic tarp and stack books on it , you know like a grape press from the getto's

[slopsbucket]

Don't yet know how this is going to help, but I read a little about "crash cooling", one of the ways they filter beer.

So I poured off a bottle of unfiltered chocolate sauce and put it in the beer fridge just to see what would happen. When I checked it this morning it had separated and had a thin layer of fat floating on top. I figure the fat must be cocoa butter. I imagine that the fat is what's clogging my filters so quickly. Now to work out a practical way of doing this to the whole lot.

Unfortunately I live in the tropics, currently our overnight low temperatures are around 26 degrees, so within a minute of taking that bottle out of the fridge the fat had melted and dropped back into the mix.

Might be an easy way out for some of you southerners though, just wait till you have a cold morning to filter.

[SBB]

Are there any traces of the cocoa powder you used left in the spirt, or has it completely disolved?
I would have thought the powder its self would have been the problem......never really gave the cocoa butter a thought.
Only guessing but if it is cocoa butter you could loose some flavour by removing it.
If you put your "special sauce" in a large stainless saucepan and then refridgerate it .....you should then be able to scrap the butter of the top. Put the butter aside incase you need to add some back after filtering the rest of the product.
just a suggestion...might or might not work.
SBB

[slopsbucket]

Thanks SBB, removing the butter altering the taste is something I didn't consider.

As for powder remaining in the mix, yes, there's quite a lot of it. Cocoa is a very similar product to coffee, a ground bean that releases oils and flavours when put in hot water, but the grounds themselves do not dissolve.

I actually like the sauce unfiltered, it has a much richer and creamier taste. But the lady friends I keep foisting it on prefer the clear commercial looking product. Looks like Tia Maria when finished.

I think I'll make some room in the chest freezer and try chilling a 10 litre bucket, there's way too much sugar and alcohol in there for it to freeze. Getting the cocoa butter out should make filtering easier.

Looking at the breakdown of this stuff (as it breaks down) I reckon it must be nearly poison to anyone with diabetes.

Cheers,

Andrew.