According to Whymper, second edition of _Cacao_and_Chocolate, Anton Reiche chocolate molds produced an especially glossy result because of their proprietary plating with Plattinol, as opposed to the duller surface obtained with tin. Does anybody know the composition of the Plattinol plating?
(If you have access to EDX or a similar technique, I'd be happy to loan you a mold.)
I have been using polycarbonate chocolate molds for long time and I don't think there is such as coating.... Indeed its a lot better than tin molds but not because of the existence of such coating.
Maybe just a sales pitch in order to sell more polycarbonate molds?
We do have an EDX here at work, but we'd have to charge you for the time on it. Probably not what you had in mind :(
I'm assuming that you spelled Plattinol correctly, although platinol would be a good coating for cancer patients ;)
John Aspen Research, -
Opinions expressed herein are my own and may not represent those of my employer.
Anton Reiche went out of business a long time ago, after WW2 when they ended up in East Germany. Many consider Reiche molds to be the best ever.
Whymper's book mentioning the Plattinol plating was published in 1921. The base metal of Reiche molds is something that rusts, presumably iron or steel. Apparently, the problem with tin is that it results in a matte surface, which in turn results in less glossy molded chocolate surfaces. Plattinol gives a smoother surface, resulting in glossier chocolates.
I'd like to know what Plattinol really is.
I must say that I did do some digging around and cannot find the answer. The only references I found were, surprisingly, on eBay and in German to boot.
My German is not very good, but I could make out that the candy molds for sale were offered as antiques and that Pattinol was mentioned, but with no further information about the coating.
Perhaps the coating was something patented in Germany, and you can find more information in that direction.
Boron
I did search the U.S. patents, and got no hits, but if there were any patents, they probably would be so old that they would not have been converted to searchable text.
I don't know what European law is, but my Reiche molds don't have any patent markings. I suspect that this was a proprietary plating. It's also possible that it was a process, such as electropolishing.
Judging by the brightness of the remaining patches of plating, I suspect nickel or chromium may have been used.
The closest name I could find was platinite, this was a low expansion Ni-Fe alloy designed to give similar thermal expansion to that of platinum.
Damned if I know. Sounds like something that's supposed to restore hair growth.
I think it was an additive used during the '50s and '60s in DX brand gasoline.
don't you mean Platinol? (one T)
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