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Post by amateur on Aug 14, 2019 5:29:09 GMT -5
Hi, I'm looking retirement in the eye and decided to become an occasional chocolatier amateur for home use. Having been in engineering, I thought tempering is just another controlled type of lab process, but looking at my 100% failure rate, obvously I'm not even close to amateur status yet ; ) I bought a food thermometer I saw used in some small artisan confectionery shops I bought a chocolate melting and tempering device I also saw used around here I bought a few kilograms of dark chocolate Valrhona and Callebaut callets I cast food-safe silicone moulds from 3D printed forms with sufficient draft angle I looked at many articles and videos on Chocolate Alchemy to understand as much as possible I did all my first experiments towards midnight at around 23°C room temperature 1. I set the melting device to 46°C and melted 250g callets over several hours, checking with the thermometer 2. I reduced the temperature to 32°C, added 50g callets as seed, steadily stirring, checking with the thermometer 3. After a while, the temperature of the substrate came to a steady 32°C and the viscosity increased 4. I poured some into my silicone mould and also on baking paper, letting it set at the kitchen counter 5. With little stirring, I obtained swirly streaks; later with good stirring while adding the seeds, I obtained fat bloom I repeated this process many times now, either re-melting the bloomed chocolate and adding new seed callets, or using entirely new callets, with a 1-2°C higher or lower seed-adding temperature, adding the seed callets at 46°C before changing the temperature setting, adding the callets later at 33°C; I tried vigorous stirring, gentle stirring or no stirring, also an immersion blender - but the result is ALWAYS the exact same: the chocolate almost snaps like a commercial bar and does not immediately smear when held, but has near perfectly distributed fat bloom : ( What should I try now? The thermostat is in order. The food thermometer is in order. But I must obviously do something very wrong. Are all bags of callets I used gone bad? Extremely unlikely, isn't it? Any hints very much appreciated! - Fat bloom (left little stirring, right much stirring)
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Post by Ben on Aug 14, 2019 8:21:44 GMT -5
Hello! Welcome to the chocolate alchemy forums. My guess is that cooling is the problem. How are you cooling your tempered chocolate? Your chocolate is fine. It can be safely remelted and re-tempered over and over again. You do need to use properly tempered chocolate as your seed every time, though. -Ben
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Post by Chip on Aug 14, 2019 8:32:27 GMT -5
Hi amateur! Welcome to chocolatiering! . To be quite honest, tempering can be quite the pain in the butt. I have found, and exclusively use, the silk method to be the most efficient, easy and almost 100% accurate way to temper chocolate. That being said, the two bowl method of tempering is also quite good and there's some good advice on this board to achieve excellent tempering results. Silk is pretty easy to make, or you can order from John here on Chocolate Alchemy to give it try. Keep going, it gets better, really!
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Post by amateur on Aug 14, 2019 10:55:30 GMT -5
Hello! Welcome to the chocolate alchemy forums. My guess is that cooling is the problem. How are you cooling your tempered chocolate? Your chocolate is fine. It can be safely remelted and re-tempered over and over again. You do need to use properly tempered chocolate as your seed every time, though. -Ben Hi Ben, thanks for your help! I have so far cooled the substrate down to 32°C like this: 1. By first setting the thermostat to 32° (after a few hours left alone at the 46°C melting stage) and immediately introducing seed callets and then continuous slow stirring down to 32°C 2. By first setting the thermostat to 32° (after a few hours left alone at the 46°C melting stage) and immediately introducing seed callets while continuous vigorous stirring down to 32°C 3. By first setting the thermostat to 32° (after a few hours left alone at the 46°C melting stage) and introducing seed callets after cooled down to nearly 32°C while continuous occasional stirring Each time I obtain perfectly distributed fat bloom as shown and the viscosity rises; I pour directly from the tempering device container to not disturb the chocolate further and the mould or baking paper is always at room temperature. I have a few fresh callets from both brands left for seeding after my first 10 attempts... and almost 3kg mistempered chocolate I can grind up and re-melt : /
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Post by amateur on Aug 14, 2019 11:02:38 GMT -5
Hi amateur! Welcome to chocolatiering! . To be quite honest, tempering can be quite the pain in the butt. I have found, and exclusively use, the silk method to be the most efficient, easy and almost 100% accurate way to temper chocolate. That being said, the two bowl method of tempering is also quite good and there's some good advice on this board to achieve excellent tempering results. Silk is pretty easy to make, or you can order from John here on Chocolate Alchemy to give it try. Keep going, it gets better, really! Hi Chip, cheers, yes, of course I keep trying! I just thought after 10 attempts and a few kilos wasted, I will at least get closer to a nice finish, but ALWAYS get the exact same even distributed fat bloom look, no matter what I so far varied in the process. I'm in Scandinavia, so I have to see where I can buy some silk to try that alternative method. I need new bags of callets for seeding soon also : /
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Post by Chip on Aug 14, 2019 11:08:28 GMT -5
Hi again! If your callet is not tempered, your end product won't be tempered. Silk is made from cocoa butter, kept at a specific temperature for 24-48 hours. Then you shred that up and add it in a very small amount to your chocolate.
As Ben said, even though your end product blooms, it is not wasted. You can remelt chocolate (carefully) as many times as you want! If it blooms, try again. Over and over and over is ok.
Good luck. There are LOTS of people on this site ready to help.
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Post by amateur on Aug 14, 2019 12:49:31 GMT -5
Hi again! If your callet is not tempered, your end product won't be tempered. Silk is made from cocoa butter, kept at a specific temperature for 24-48 hours. Then you shred that up and add it in a very small amount to your chocolate. As Ben said, even though your end product blooms, it is not wasted. You can remelt chocolate (carefully) as many times as you want! If it blooms, try again. Over and over and over is ok. Good luck. There are LOTS of people on this site ready to help. Hi, the callets Valrhona and Callebaut are selling in Europe are tempered. Do they sell untempered ones in the U.S.? It is quite frustrating, even when being able to control the temperature and the gradient when cooling so carefully only to always obtain the same mess... I have enough left for maybe three more trials, then I have to order more callets for seeding.
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Post by Ben on Aug 14, 2019 18:14:41 GMT -5
Hello. I was more asking how you cool the chocolate to set it rather than how you cool it while tempering. If you're just leaving it out at room temperature, it will almost definitely bloom. The ideal is a cooling cabinet set to around 55F (approx 12.5C) with decent airflow. If you don't have that, try to get as close as you can. Even just sticking the chocolate in the fridge for a few minutes or blowing a fan over the chocolate will help.
There's a lot of discussion on this forum about different cooling techniques. Search and browse around and you'll find lots of great info. Same for tempering.
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Post by Ben on Aug 14, 2019 18:17:55 GMT -5
I've only ever seen tempered callets. I don't think they sell them un-tempered. As Chip says, there's lots of ways to temper other than using seed chocolate--no need to buy more callets if you don't want. My preferred method (other than a tempering machine, of course) is the double-boiler and ice bath method. Brad posted a good video of it on Facebook and linked it in this forum a while back.
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Post by mark on Aug 14, 2019 19:59:41 GMT -5
If you're an engineer, you might find the double boiler method easier to start with. It has the advantage of not needing to purchase "fresh" callets as seed. Brad has posted good documentation on that here somewhere.
Ben is right in pointing out that the cooling of the chocolate once molded is critical, especially this time of year. In the summer, my chocolate that has been in the chiller for a while is perfectly tempered but any leftovers that I just drop onto some baking paper and leave at room temperature will be out of temper.
Hope this helps, just persevere, you will get there in the end.
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Post by Brad on Aug 14, 2019 22:54:35 GMT -5
Here is the link for you. Don't worry about wasting callets. Just because it's not tempered right the first time you can always remelt all of it and try again (provided you haven't added anything to it). My record for consecutive failures when I was first starting was 40. I truly sucked at it and almost gave up. Hang in there. You'll get it. www.facebook.com/SoChoklat/videos/1132903850118884/Cheers Brad
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Post by amateur on Aug 15, 2019 1:04:06 GMT -5
If you're an engineer, you might find the double boiler method easier to start with. It has the advantage of not needing to purchase "fresh" callets as seed. Brad has posted good documentation on that here somewhere. Ben is right in pointing out that the cooling of the chocolate once molded is critical, especially this time of year. In the summer, my chocolate that has been in the chiller for a while is perfectly tempered but any leftovers that I just drop onto some baking paper and leave at room temperature will be out of temper. Hope this helps, just persevere, you will get there in the end. I'm not ready giving up the melting and tempering device just yet, as so many Italian ice & chocolate sweets shops are using it to great effect, and I saw almost hobbyist/crafter using them over here; but the next thing I will try out is cooling right after pouring into the moulds with maybe 10 minutes in the fridge (7°). Maybe with 23°C room temperature around midnight, it's still too warm to just leave the freshly poured molds out on the kitchen table. And, yes, it's a matter of perseverance indeed!
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Post by amateur on Aug 15, 2019 1:07:42 GMT -5
Hello. I was more asking how you cool the chocolate to set it rather than how you cool it while tempering. If you're just leaving it out at room temperature, it will almost definitely bloom. The ideal is a cooling cabinet set to around 55F (approx 12.5C) with decent airflow. If you don't have that, try to get as close as you can. Even just sticking the chocolate in the fridge for a few minutes or blowing a fan over the chocolate will help. There's a lot of discussion on this forum about different cooling techniques. Search and browse around and you'll find lots of great info. Same for tempering. Cheers, yes, you are likely right; I am not cooling the freshly poured moulds properly, with 23°C room temperature even afte midnight - although burning the midnight oil as if young again is fun ; ) I saw indeed that there are many forum posts pertaining to cooling; I missed to pay attention to cooling in the videos and blog posts. I try the fridge today for maybe 10 minutes to begin with.
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Post by amateur on Aug 15, 2019 1:13:12 GMT -5
Here is the link for you. Don't worry about wasting callets. Just because it's not tempered right the first time you can always remelt all of it and try again (provided you haven't added anything to it). My record for consecutive failures when I was first starting was 40. I truly sucked at it and almost gave up. Hang in there. You'll get it. www.facebook.com/SoChoklat/videos/1132903850118884/Cheers Brad Thanks for the video Brad, that looks rather professional! I do indeed re-melt the cocked-up results, but for every new attempt, I need fresh (tempered) Callebaut or Valrhona callets again as a seed (250g melt, 50g seed), don't I?
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Post by cacaosublime on Aug 15, 2019 3:45:06 GMT -5
Hi amateur, I regularly temper with callets as well (callebaut) and then have 10% as seed, but quite often use even less than that. So that might help you to increase the amount of trials you can do with your current stock of callets
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