|
Post by finnscacao on Apr 6, 2016 13:34:31 GMT -5
Hi, I am tempering my homemade chocolate in my melanger, but at about 30 degrees celcius is is getting really thick and I don't want to cool it to 28 degrees because it might get stuck in the melanger. Does anyone know why this might be, or if I should just leave it to cool to 28 degrees?
Best regards, Finn
|
|
gap
Apprentice
Posts: 390
|
Post by gap on Apr 7, 2016 5:16:52 GMT -5
1. Do you have enough fat in your recipe? I generally aim for around 37% if using a standard wet grinder setup.
2. Do you use lecithin? Lecithin can help bind water absorbed during production and make the chocolate flow a lot easier. I have worked with chocolate for over 10 years and I have never seen chocolate as thick as a 70% I made without lecithin (I could only just temper and mould it).
3. Is it possible your chocolate has absorbed moisture during the production cycle (beans not roasted enough to remove moisture? Sugar contained moisture - especially non-white sugars? Humid weather during production? Any minute amounts of water absorbed during production will make the chocolate thicker when working it.
|
|
|
Post by finnscacao on Apr 7, 2016 5:35:00 GMT -5
Hi,
I use 0.4% lecithin, 5% whole milk powder, 10% added cocoa butter along with 55% cocoa nibs. The rest of it is sugar (organic golden caster sugar). It is not humid here either and the chocolate seems really liquid at 45 degrees centigrade. I do not heat the sugar in the oven before using it though, which I have seen suggested before. The chocolate is a blend of Madagascan cocoa and 3 different Venezuelan cocoa beans. I roasted the Madagascan cocoa and 1 type of the Venezuelan bean for about 8 minutes at about 160 degrees centigrade before slowly lowering the temperature to 140 over another 10 minutes. I gave the other Venezuelan beans a slightly longer roast, but mainly at about 150 degrees.
Many thanks, Finn
|
|
gap
Apprentice
Posts: 390
|
Post by gap on Apr 7, 2016 16:28:07 GMT -5
It doesn't appear to be your recipe, so I'm guessing there must be some moisture in the chocolate.
I haven't heard of "golden" caster sugar - it sounds like that may be a "brown/raw/more molasses" type sugar which could potentially hold more moisture than white caster sugar.
Your roasting times are also shorter than mine, so maybe the beans are still holding moisture after the roast.
Alternatively, maybe there was some moisture in the grinder before you started.
I'm outta ideas after that :-)
|
|