When you think of Easter, what is the first thing that springs to mind? If you’re like us, the answer is chocolate! Conveniently, we are only days away until we have a guilt free pass to eat as much chocolate as possible, where we can swap healthy lunches and calorie counting for indulging, mouthwatering Easter eggs!
While you relax and indulge in chocolaty goodness, have you ever wondered how Easter eggs get their unique, hollow shape? Yes? Thought so. Read on and we will explain how magnets are used during the manufacturing process…
To meet the demand of retail stores and chocolate enthusiasts, Easter egg manufacturers up and down the country have to produce thousands of eggs per day; but how do they do it?
So, once they have blended their ingredients and have a big pot of liquidised chocolate, they transfer it to an Easter egg mould like so.
Despite looking delicious, essentially all you have is a blob of liquidised chocolate in a mould; it’s time to shape it!
Chocolatiers use special units that hold several eggs at any one time. The base of the moulds are often made out of steel or contain ferrous plates to make them attractive to magnets – which is where magnets come in. Large, industrial machines have been developed to help mould Easter eggs by rotating the moulds in a circular motion, which evenly spreads the chocolate around the mould giving us the famous egg shape. Interestingly, these machines use strong electromagnets to hold the moulds in place as the machine spins. Electromagnets are ideal for this type of application because the magnetism is only engaged once an electrical current is supplied; this is achieved when the machine is turned on. In this type of application, electromagnets tend to be safer because a permanent magnet would remain magnetic even when the machine has been turned off, resulting in a strong magnetic face being on show permanently.
See here how we demonstate the use of electromagnets. Notice how the mould’s base is applied to the electromagnets on the machine’s arms. They then rotate to spread the chocolate around the mould.
Once the chocolate is evenly spread, the eggs are placed in a cooling system to help them set. In the meantime, your Easter egg moulds continue to spin in the background creating many more chocolaty treats.
So there we have it, the next time you come to eat an Easter egg, you’ll know exactly how it was made!
At First4Magnets.com, we have just added a further 15 electromagnets to our vast range of magnets, where we stock over 20,000,000 magnets at any one time. Our new range of switchable release magnets come in various shapes and sizes with a multitude of pull strengths ranging from 1.8kg to an astonishing 907kg; that’s almost a tonne!
To discuss our new range of electromagnets with an expert, please call our team on 0845 519 4701 or email us at sales@magnetexpert.com. We look forward to hearing from you soon. In the meantime, we would like to wish you a happy Easter!
