DIY a small batch chocolate melter

insights and a video how-to for making a melter: keep batches melted, melt stored blocks, use for infusing cocoa butter

my melter

In this post I listed my DIY melter as one of my longtime favorite go-tools, and lots of you had questions.

A melter is a productivity tool:

Pour (strain) straight from a melanger and maintain that beautiful, uniform, just-refined suspension of the batch until it’s needed;

Use to hold multiple batches of the same chocolate until a tempering run;

Can be used to lower chocolate to the tempering zone;

Easily melt stored blocks of chocolate; by having multiples of the pan available I can pour/strain into a pan, cover, set aside, then when I need to chocolate pop the pan straight into the melter (no chopping etc).

When infusing cocoa butter, the pan used as the chocolate reservoir can be filled with the cocoa butter and the infusing ingredients and infused for however long required.

My melter uses a sous vide, a container that holds water for the sous vide, and a deep pan for the chocolate, that is suspended in the water. I use hotel pans, but I’ve seen other makers create melters using a bus tub for the water, or even a plastic tub.

the hotel pan came with a lid (highly recommended). If there’s ever a small amount of chocolate, the pan can “float” up; with the lid on I can use a grinder stone or heavy pot to keep it weighed down.

the pan holds 18 pounds of chocolate

Here is the basic layout:

And a helpful video:

Happy chocolate making,

Mackenzie