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Post by littlehummel on Jul 23, 2016 9:59:05 GMT -5
So I would say I have been making chocolate for a month now, but I've made 2 batches. One in a tiny, cheap, coffee grinder. That didn't do what I wanted it to do, it didn't really make it workable. It all came out as a very thick mud. Yesterday, I got a Premier Chocolate Refiner. I'm convinced I left this one on too long, as the chocolate is very smooth. I used nibs and sugar, not sure the ratio as my little $10 coffee grinder took a poop and I used the mixture of chocolate I was running through that, plus some added nibs. It was smooth, so I added sugar, and I went to work for 7 hours. My mother regularly stirred it and stopped it from building up. When I got home, the chocolate was all stuck to the stones, so I said "this is probably done" and I turned it off. I tried it, and it was a thick mud like the coffee grinder, but it was very smooth, the grinder made it very gritty. I put it in a container to harden so it didn't harden in my machine, and when I got back to it today, it's very crumbly, just like the first batch I had made. I'm not really sure about recipes, and I definitely need to look some up, but was it the recipe of unknown amounts of just nib and sugar? Or did I run it too long?
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Post by Thomas on Jul 23, 2016 15:52:55 GMT -5
Chocolate must be tempered in order for it to set properly. If not, it can be crumbly or soft. There is probably nothing wrong with your chocolate. It just needs to be tempered.
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Post by littlehummel on Jul 23, 2016 17:00:51 GMT -5
I'm in the middle of trying to temper it, and it's not melting at all. It's getting soft, but there's no chocolate being left in the double boiler.
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Post by Thomas on Jul 23, 2016 17:45:30 GMT -5
It could be that the fat content is too low. You want at least 35% fat content in your recipe. The chocolate should be very fluid coming out of the grinder. On your next batch, try a 70% dark. That is, 70% nibs and 30% sugar measured by weight. Run it in the premier for minimum of 12 hours (24 would be OK too). Posting photos to the forum also helps with troubleshooting.
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