|
Post by chocolady on Feb 6, 2018 19:37:33 GMT -5
Hi All, I'm new to this forum but have found it a massive help so wanted to pose a quick question and see if anyone here can help me. I bought my melanger recently and have run three different batches through so far. Volume aside, which I am quite disappointed with, I feel I'm still doing something wrong. I've uploaded a video so you can see what I mean, but basically my chocolate is going everywhere but under the wheels! It seems to be getting really stuck in the middle and just sitting there in a big blob and its not flowing freely like I've seen in so many other video's. I tried scraping with spatulas to move it around, I tried stopping it, letting it settle and then starting again but all to no avail, as soon as I turn it back on again it just goes back to sitting in the middle! I'm pretty certain I did not get any water in here as I was extremely vigilant about that, so what's causing this? Why is it so 'gloopy'?
|
|
|
Post by Chip on Feb 6, 2018 20:01:35 GMT -5
Other than quite a bit of chocolate in there, it looks pretty normal to me. You are not going to see a lot of chocolate ON the wheels, because the pressure on the wheels forces the liquid to the sides, hence the buildup on the sides of the wheels.
|
|
gap
Apprentice
Posts: 390
|
Post by gap on Feb 7, 2018 2:37:13 GMT -5
What is your recipe? Also, what is the temperature of the chocolate when it is "glooping" like that? It's hard to trouble shoot without that data.
I have seen something similar when I made white chocolate on a very cold day once. The fat almost "whipped" to a mousse consistency and I had to hit it with a heat gun to get it up to ~43C so it started to flow properly in the machine. Hard to tell if that's your issue though without the info mentioned above.
|
|
|
Post by chocolady on Feb 7, 2018 20:08:56 GMT -5
What is your recipe? Also, what is the temperature of the chocolate when it is "glooping" like that? It's hard to trouble shoot without that data. I have seen something similar when I made white chocolate on a very cold day once. The fat almost "whipped" to a mousse consistency and I had to hit it with a heat gun to get it up to ~43C so it started to flow properly in the machine. Hard to tell if that's your issue though without the info mentioned above. Sorry yes those are good questions. The recipe was a basic dark milk chocolate with a small amount of coffee added. So it was approx 35% Cocoa nibs, 15% Cocoa butter, 30% sugar, 17% whole milk powder and 3% coffee. As for temperature, I'm in NYC and its pretty cold here! But we keep the heating on in the room with the melanger at a steady 72-74. I did wonder if the chocolate was too cold, but the melanger and the liquid itself was actually very hot to the touch and I was wondering if it was getting too hot, but that didn't really make sense either given how how thick it was. Total weight of ingredients was approx 2kg which I thought was fine as I read in the instruction manual that the melanger can handle up to 4kg?
|
|
|
Post by Thomas on Feb 7, 2018 20:21:41 GMT -5
I think your cocoa butter fat content is too low. Have you made this recipe before?
|
|
|
Post by chocolady on Feb 7, 2018 23:20:27 GMT -5
I think your cocoa butter fat content is too low. Have you made this recipe before? No, this was the first time. I calculated my total fat content at 38% and I read that it should be between 32-40%, so I had thought it was on the higher end? If I were to increase the cocoa butter, what should I reduce to compensate for it, the sugar or cacao nibs, or the milk powder?
|
|
|
Post by cacaosublime on Feb 8, 2018 1:20:13 GMT -5
|
|
|
Post by chocolady on Feb 10, 2018 21:32:56 GMT -5
I Was including the fat content in the milk powder to get to 38%, should I not include that in the count? Thank you for the links, they are helpful. I think you're right that I just didn't get enough fat in this one. I posted this question before I tempered it, and during that process it basically turned to fudge! I had to carve it put of the double boiler and force it into molds!! The taste is pleasant enough but definitely wrong texture. Will try again with more cocoa butter
|
|
|
Post by cacaosublime on Feb 12, 2018 13:10:11 GMT -5
The milk fat only plays a role in tempering. So if we are talking about flow behaviour in the melanger, only cocoa butter and lecithin are ingredients you have to take into account. Based on it turning into fudge, a bit more cocoabutter next time sounds like the best way to go!
|
|