I have recently had the chance to experiment with a very powerful 10 tray combo/convection oven. I was really excited about all the features but the results I have got so far have been disastrous! So I would be really grateful for your thoughts on resolving this mystery.

How do you define quality chocolate?

I have been roasting the Belize Maya Mountain beans in 2lb batches in my home oven. So far I have tried two different profiles: 

Two new Peru in stock

Could you maybe enlighten me a bit about the function of the lid on the melanger?

It is about aging or blocking the chocolate right after the melanger/conching.
I have always blocked them untempered for about 2 weeks before melting them for use. But I heard some professional chefs said they age them in tempered form.
Questions:

I have a friend whose Mom needs medical MJ for an illness and she loves my chocolate. 

I think I'm confused by something and I'm not sure what to think.

I just heard about "Ruby Chocolate" from Callebuat. Do you know what kind of bean this is and have any info about it? Would like your 2¢

Sometimes you leave out drying time and sometimes you don’t.  In the case of your patanemo recommendation, is 10/3/4 drying/development/finishing

I have been playing with trying to control my roasts with the Gourmia and was having a lot of trouble getting the temps to hit about 212 at 10 minutes, and then tamping down the temperature for the development phase.

How can I make chocolate with honey? -- 'The Updated Answer'

So why am I going to answer it again?  It boils down to the scientific method.  Science, good science, by its nature changes and evolves as we learn new things.  It does not necessarily  invalidate previous findings completely.  It refines it and fine tunes it.  To that end, I have somewhat a new answer to this question in that it appears (note the disclaimer for future updates of failure) that I have successfully tempered chocolate with honey in it.

I have heard you should stop roasting when cocoa beans start to smell good so you don’t lose all those great flavors.  You don’t really talk about that though. How do you know when to stop a roast?

I have been following your roasting profile recommendations and I am loving the results.  I am having a lot of trouble though keeping the roast from going too fast.  I know we are driving off water in the first part so I turn the power down 5-10% to account for that but it never seems enough.  I’m afraid to turn it down more and mess up the roast by having it take too long.  How much should I have to turn my roaster down?

Where do you get your spider charts?

We have the newest crop of an old favorite and two (soon three) new direct trade in.

ew questions have been a little light lately.  I want to share a correspondence I had due to Ask the Alchemist #211.  Because I have something planned Ask the Alchemist #212 (is it obvious to everyone what the subject will be?) I’m going to call this one 211.5.

We've noticed that different beans seems to have different amounts of intrinsic oil. The Peruvian Maranon seems to have quite a bit of oil and produces a chocolate that flows very easily but it tricky to temper correctly. Is there a way to know in advance the amount of oil in a bean so we can adjust the amount of cocoa butter we add?

It is another of the short and sweet speed rounds of Ask the Alchemist.

What is your favorite chocolate?