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Post by sdcecil on Mar 7, 2015 17:57:51 GMT -5
Problems during 1st batch
The recipe: 15 oz cacao nibs, roasted and winnowed 15 oz powdered sugar
The Premier grinder ground the cacao to butter just fine. However, once the sugar was added the chocolate became more like a paste, which just got thicker as time passed. By hour 5 of grinding the batch had turned to fudge and the grinder was beginning to bind. The chocolate is a thick mass rather than the liquid I read about in other recipes.
What happened and what can I do to avoid it again?
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Post by Sebastian on Mar 7, 2015 18:05:44 GMT -5
Y our fat is too low, and/or your temperature is too low. Your recipe above = approx 25% fat, which is very low. You're going to want something 33% or higher for your grinder, i'd propose. Using 0.5% fluid lecithin always helps as well.
What can you do to avoid it? up your nib content and/or add cocoa butter to increase the fat content to at least 33% (for ease of math, lets assume your nibs are 50% fat).
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Post by sdcecil on Mar 7, 2015 20:44:20 GMT -5
First of all, thanks for the reply. It will definitely be helpful in repeating the issue.
A few follow up questions based on your recommendations. 1) If I'm reading your recommendation on lecithin correctly I would add .5 oz of emulsifier to a 50 oz cacao & 50 oz sugar? 2) I'm also curious how folks manage recipes such as milk chocolate that are only 50% cacao? How do they keep from encountering this problem? 3) Lastly aside from reading the forums, what should I be reading to get the knowledge to make chocolate well?
-Simon
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Post by Sebastian on Mar 8, 2015 6:48:01 GMT -5
No problem. I've not had my cup of coffee yet, so i haven't done the math - but however many grams of lecithin 0.5% works out to be, go with that. It'll be a very small number.
People usually add extra cocoa butter for milk chocolates.
Industrial manufacture and use edited by stephen beckett is a good read.
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Post by copasetic on Mar 14, 2015 12:58:37 GMT -5
I think there was some confusion regarding the lecithin. I got the impression that Sebastian llwas suggesting that 0.5% of lecithin can be added to get the desired consistency, but you would still be required to have a fat content of about 33%?
So in your first point, where there are 50 Oz of nibs and 50 Oz of sugar, you would still encounter the same problem despite adding lecithin. You would need say 66 oz nibs, 33.5 Oz sugar and 0.5 oz of lecithin (keeping the 100 Oz example) to achieve the required fat content.
Would this be correct?
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Post by Sebastian on Mar 14, 2015 15:48:49 GMT -5
For starters, i'd suggest you target both a total fat content of 33% fat and use 0.5% lecithin. As you become more familiar with the process and your particular raw materials - you can then begin to adjust them if you are so inclined, but this will be the path of least resistance for you if you're at the front end of your learning curve.
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Post by sdcecil on Mar 15, 2015 12:16:34 GMT -5
Thanks to both of you. Those pointers are helpful. I'll pick up some lecithin, as well as some extra cocoa butter. And I started reading Beckett's book earlier this week. Hopefully the next batch will be a bit smoother.
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Post by Sebastian on Mar 15, 2015 15:06:08 GMT -5
let us know how it goes!
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Post by montrealchoc on Mar 17, 2015 15:07:34 GMT -5
Make sure the powdered sugar is not a commercial powdered sugar which all contain starch. Just use regular sugar which you slowly add the moment all the nibs are ground to liquid.
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