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  • Troubleshooting A Chocolate Fountain Part 1

Sephra - Troubleshooting a Chocolate Fountain Part 1


We've received two 23-inch Sephra Cortez Commercial Chocolate Fountains back from one of our caters with the following letter... it reads:

"I'm sending these Chocolate Fountains back to your department because they do not work. Chocolate does not flow up the center cylinder and it also sits at the bottom of the Fountain in the bowl. I cannot hear the motor working."

Our Chocolate Fountain Motors are WhisperQuiet™

Well two of the points here talk about the chocolate. It's not able to flow up the center cylinder and it also sits in the bottom. The third Point is not being able to hear the motor work and candidly that's actually a compliment that we appreciate. Sephra has prided itself since its inception on creating the best equipment the world has to offer and we have custom made motors with WhisperQuiet™ technology so that while you're at your catering event or wedding, or what-have-you, you're able to hear your guests speak rather than a noisy machine clinking around and distracting from the true essence of what the celebration is all about... so thank you for the third point that you cannot hear the motor.

Melting Sephra Chocolate

I've already melted some chocolate and I've added it to the fountain I'm going to go ahead and turn this on and see how it works just to find out what issues we may be dealing with. Now the chocolate that I've opted to use for this fountain is what is called RMA chocolate (return merchandise authorization) meaning in this case it was shipped out during the summer, right now it's December so this was probably six months back. It was shipped out during the summer and it went across either Las Vegas or Phoenix some were really hot and it melted in the process and so it was undeliverable. FedEx then returned it to us and what we ended up with was a bag of RMA chocolate that we refer to as a brick and so when it came back to us it was solidified in a solid brick. Now what I did was I simply followed the melting instructions on the back of the bag which state 'put the bag of chocolate in the microwave for two minutes at half power and repeat that as many times as is needed'. I will tell you right now you'll never need to heat any of your Sephra chocolate bags more than a total of four minutes, so two minutes at half power on one side take the bag out, kneed it, put it back in for another two minutes at half power on the other side, and your bag of chocolate is done be it dark milk white premium Belgian or even our Sephra melts. All of the bags only require a maximum, you could even go a little bit less, but a maximum of four minutes. If you go any more than that you run the risk of scorching your chocolate.

Turning on a Sephra Chocolate Fountain

Let's go ahead and turn this fountain on and see how it flows. It's a brisk 56 degrees in here... sometimes we get questions about you know "I'm under an air-conditioning unit or a vent or it's really cold outside where I'm at... how much of an impact is that going to have on the fountain?" Chocolates flowing up the center cylinder it's cascading over each of the tiers it's 56 degrees I melted the chocolate and it was viscous in the bag for about 30 minutes prior to adding it to the fountain now that I've added it to the fountain it's been about 20 minutes since then so I melted the chocolate about 40 minutes ago it's a little bit thick still... if I gave this fountain about 15 minutes to run it would thin itself out.

Burping a Sephra Chocolate Fountain

Another thing that this might be just that it's not perfectly cascading and that there could be air bubbles in the center cylinder. We commonly refer to this next technique I'm about to show you as burping the fountain. What it typically happens is when you initially turn your chocolate fountain on cavitation will occur and some air will be pulled into the center cylinder. When air is pulled into the center cylinder it will impede the flow of chocolate up the center cylinder and then as it cascades down each of the tiers it will look drippy. I've turned the fountain off for about 20 seconds you should have seen some air bubbles pop out the bottom of the fountain maybe the top and that was it. So I can hear a little bit of air still being sucked in so I may need to give it just a little bit of time but in terms of the two points that we have here, not being able to hear the motor workin,g that's good. I'm glad you can't hear the motor working... it does work.

Sephra Chocolate Fountain Heating Element

We've also inspected the heating element for those of you who have questions about whether or not your heating element works. In the six years that I've been with the company I can count on one hand the times that we have had to replace heating elements. There are two wires that run to the heating element and it's either on or off. The power is supplied through a thermos. The thermostats just don't fail... it is very simple. We use analog switches rather than digital so we don't have PCB boards to go down. We've researched everything this is the soundest equipment that we could possibly put in there and the reason that we've put it in our fountains is so that it works every single time for the duration of the product.

Please click on the following link to continue watching part two of how to troubleshoot your chocolate fountain