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Post by dubmaji on Nov 10, 2018 12:50:14 GMT -5
Hello! I made a vanilla extract several months ago. The formulation was two vanilla beans in 500ml of alcohol, as suggested by the people from whom I got them. I've been using it without problems in several formulations until now. Two batches ago, I noticed the chocolate (70% cacao, no milk) started to become thick immediately after the vanilla was added (15ml in 3kg ingredients). After some struggle, the machine followed its course and everything went fine. The next time, while making milk chocolate, it struggled a little more. Finally, last night I decided to pour the ingredients in different order: first cocoa butter, then powdered milk (only 20% of the recipe) and then vanilla. Everything became REALLY hard and stuck into the wheels. I had to turn off the machine and throw the mixture.
Does anybody know the reason why my vanilla extract is giving me those much different results? Everything was perfect two weeks ago.
Thank you very much in advance.
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Post by Chip on Nov 10, 2018 14:36:04 GMT -5
The process you experienced is called "binding" and it is caused when water is introduced into the chocolate making process. Water and chocolate are a strict no-no. I'm surprised, but not totally, that you got away with it the first few times.
Extracts contain WATER. Alcohol contains WATER. Chocolate and water NO NO NO NO.
If you want to add vanilla, use the raw bean, cut it up into tiny pieces and put it in the melange and grind for 12 hours. Better yet, get some pure vanilla powder and add that to the grinding process.
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Post by dubmaji on Nov 10, 2018 15:18:25 GMT -5
The process you experienced is called "binding" and it is caused when water is introduced into the chocolate making process. Water and chocolate are a strict no-no. I'm surprised, but not totally, that you got away with it the first few times. Extracts contain WATER. Alcohol contains WATER. Chocolate and water NO NO NO NO. If you want to add vanilla, use the raw bean, cut it up into tiny pieces and put it in the melange and grind for 12 hours. Better yet, get some pure vanilla powder and add that to the grinding process. Thank you for your answer, Chip.
On the chemical side, I'm curious if something happend inside the vanilla bottle. I must have run at least 30kg with zero problems. Maybe the alcohol is evaporating by this time?
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Post by Chip on Nov 10, 2018 15:37:56 GMT -5
What’s weird in chocolate making is that when something works once it may never work that way again. Kind of an “aligning of the stars” event. Lol. I used orange extract once and my batch came out fine. Never again do I switched to orange oil and now comes out perfect.
Just remember: no water. So, no alcohol, no honey, no extracts, no non-purified butter, etc.
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Post by dubmaji on Nov 10, 2018 16:24:25 GMT -5
I understand the no-water recommendation. I'll have a look at an oil alternative . EDIT: Do you know if olive oil could work? However, if it worked that only time when you use orange extract, and +10 times with my extract, there has to be a reason behind that I rather know. Many people stand against its use because of its water content. On the other side, there's this answer by Sebastian in Chocolate Life forum:
My recipe uses less than 1%. My guess is that something changed in the components of my extract—don't know what, though.
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