Post by chadmart1076 on Aug 12, 2014 16:49:33 GMT -5
I have only attempted two batches of milk chocolate to date, and I finished up my second batch yesterday. This morning I wake up only to find that the backs of all of my chocolate has bloomed! I popped the chocolates out of the molds and even the fronts of many of them have bloomed! Normally, even if the back blooms, the side that is in the mold would stay glossy. What did I do wrong? I looked up the correct tempering levels for milk chocolate and made sure to stay within those ranges. The instructions that I followed stated that for milk chocolate you cool to the low 80 degree range, then slowly warm back up to somewhere around 86-88 degrees (where dark is 92 degrees). I followed that to a tee. My chocolate dipped down to 81 or 82 degrees, then I slowly brought it back up capping out at around 87 degrees.
Now, I had one piece of chocolate that was in perfect temper. It had a beautiful snap and a wonderful texture, and that deep brown color that we all know and love. Why was this one piece tempered perfectly while the rest was not?
Then it hit me... BAM! The perfectly tempered piece was the last bit from the piping bag into the mold. This means that it was likely the warmest mass of chocolate as my hand had been around it for some time. The temperature that I tempered to was too low. But why is that? Milk chocolate is supposed to temper at a lower temperature right? This is when my second realization hit me. The temperatures that we temper too are based on not whether the chocolate is milk or dark, but rather the percentage of cocoa. Many people associate these two things together, but the percentage of cocoa in chocolate does not define whether it is milk or dark. The presence of milk powder defines "milk" chocolate. My batch of milk chocolate came in around 52% cocoa, and as such it has much more than a typical milk chocolate (Hershey's is 11%!). With the presence of more cocoa in my milk chocolate, and since the crystallization in chocolate is based solely on the cocoa itself, of course my temperature needed to be higher.
So, don't base your tempering temperatures on whether your chocolate is "milk" or "dark" but simply on the ratio of cocoa mass and butter to the other ingredients. As that percentage lowers, the temperature that is needed for a good temper will lower as well. This should apply to all tempering though. A 100% chocolate will temper at a higher temperature than a 90% and so on. As the temperature for "milk" chocolate as defined by various sources on the internet is 86 degrees on the low end, and for "dark" chocolate it is 92 degrees on the high end, that is a shift of only six degrees. If we apply that to percent cocoa instead of to "milk" and "dark" and assume that "milk" chocolate is less than 20% cocoa, then we have a six degree temperature swing over an 80% cocoa shift... which boils down to less than 1 degree for each 10% of cocoa. So, between 90% and 70% we may have to adjust by 1 degree or so.
This hasn't been confirmed or tested or anything, but is based on some critical thinking as well as my observation of my latest batch of milk chocolate.
Now, I had one piece of chocolate that was in perfect temper. It had a beautiful snap and a wonderful texture, and that deep brown color that we all know and love. Why was this one piece tempered perfectly while the rest was not?
Then it hit me... BAM! The perfectly tempered piece was the last bit from the piping bag into the mold. This means that it was likely the warmest mass of chocolate as my hand had been around it for some time. The temperature that I tempered to was too low. But why is that? Milk chocolate is supposed to temper at a lower temperature right? This is when my second realization hit me. The temperatures that we temper too are based on not whether the chocolate is milk or dark, but rather the percentage of cocoa. Many people associate these two things together, but the percentage of cocoa in chocolate does not define whether it is milk or dark. The presence of milk powder defines "milk" chocolate. My batch of milk chocolate came in around 52% cocoa, and as such it has much more than a typical milk chocolate (Hershey's is 11%!). With the presence of more cocoa in my milk chocolate, and since the crystallization in chocolate is based solely on the cocoa itself, of course my temperature needed to be higher.
So, don't base your tempering temperatures on whether your chocolate is "milk" or "dark" but simply on the ratio of cocoa mass and butter to the other ingredients. As that percentage lowers, the temperature that is needed for a good temper will lower as well. This should apply to all tempering though. A 100% chocolate will temper at a higher temperature than a 90% and so on. As the temperature for "milk" chocolate as defined by various sources on the internet is 86 degrees on the low end, and for "dark" chocolate it is 92 degrees on the high end, that is a shift of only six degrees. If we apply that to percent cocoa instead of to "milk" and "dark" and assume that "milk" chocolate is less than 20% cocoa, then we have a six degree temperature swing over an 80% cocoa shift... which boils down to less than 1 degree for each 10% of cocoa. So, between 90% and 70% we may have to adjust by 1 degree or so.
This hasn't been confirmed or tested or anything, but is based on some critical thinking as well as my observation of my latest batch of milk chocolate.