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Post by amateur on Aug 15, 2019 5:52:45 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 All right, thanks, saving some seed callets sounds good!
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Post by Ben on Aug 15, 2019 7:52:33 GMT -5
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? If you're using the method in Brad's video (or most of the other methods) you don't need any seed chocolate. You're seeding the crystallization process when you cool the melted chocolate down below the final working temp.
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Post by amateur on Aug 15, 2019 8:04:08 GMT -5
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? If you're using the method in Brad's video (or most of the other methods) you don't need any seed chocolate. You're seeding the crystallization process when you cool the melted chocolate down below the final working temp. I see, thanks! Apart from the cooling issue, I shall then try Brad's process with my melting/tempering devices also.
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Post by Ben on Aug 15, 2019 9:37:13 GMT -5
Sorry, I had forgotten that you had a chocolate melter. You would generally use seed for tempering in a melter, but it can definitely be done using other techniques. Since the melter you have uses a small bowl, you could pull the bowl out and follow the process detailed in Brad's video.
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Post by amateur on Aug 15, 2019 13:07:07 GMT -5
Finally, I got a first good result; or, rather, it feels solid, demoulds well and has not bloomed... yet ; ) Melted 250g in the melter at 47°C while stirring manually for 20 minutes. Turned thermostat to 31,5°C and added 50g seed callets. Cooled down while stirring manually continuously for 20 minutes and frequently using the thermometer. Managed to hold it at 31,5°C and poured all into a beaker, as Brad was showing, and then filled some moulds. Put the moulds into the fridge at 9°C for one and a half hours. Feels solid and has no sugar or fat bloom. If it stays that way, it's really obvious that constant stirring and finally good cooling does the trick. That was the entire process - 3D printing, food-safe silicone casting, chocolate tempering and casting... should have been ready for the moon landing anniversary : )
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Post by Ben on Aug 15, 2019 13:45:21 GMT -5
Awesome! Congrats. One thing to be careful of is condensation after cooling the molded chocolate. Putting the chocolate in the fridge for that long cools it more than is necessary, so could cause condensation when you bring it out of the fridge. Condensation can dissolve a redeposit sugar crystals on the surface (sugar bloom). That's a pretty thick piece, so it may need more cooling than a standard bar mold, but generally I think people put bars in the fridge for 10-20 minutes.
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Post by amateur on Aug 15, 2019 14:10:26 GMT -5
Awesome! Congrats. One thing to be careful of is condensation after cooling the molded chocolate. Putting the chocolate in the fridge for that long cools it more than is necessary, so could cause condensation when you bring it out of the fridge. Condensation can dissolve a redeposit sugar crystals on the surface (sugar bloom). That's a pretty thick piece, so it may need more cooling than a standard bar mold, but generally I think people put bars in the fridge for 10-20 minutes. Cheers, yes, it's good fun now, and I need to make more silicone moulds now. The chocolate "bars" are around 20mm thick and 80mm in diameter. How would you bring them out of the fridge, when your kitchen is 23°C or more even at night? Is there some clever in-between step to obtain a shallower temperature gradient that will avoid condensation? Or is it unlikely to occur after only 20 minutes anyway? It's just too sodding hot up here, like in nearly all recent years.
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Post by Brad on Aug 15, 2019 14:45:19 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? You don't need seed at all if you heat, cool and reheat the chocolate properly. I have table top tempering machines that do exactly what I demonstrated in the video, and I also have a $50,000 continuous tempering machine which does several hundred kg per hour where chocolate continually flows in hot, is cooled down in a cylinder, then reheated a moment later in another cylinder. Heat, cool, reheat and watch your temperature setpoints. You will never have to play around with seed callets again. I promise.
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Post by amateur on Aug 15, 2019 15:30:05 GMT -5
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? You don't need seed at all if you heat, cool and reheat the chocolate properly. I have table top tempering machines that do exactly what I demonstrated in the video, and I also have a $50,000 continuous tempering machine which does several hundred kg per hour where chocolate continually flows in hot, is cooled down in a cylinder, then reheated a moment later in another cylinder. Heat, cool, reheat and watch your temperature setpoints. You will never have to play around with seed callets again. I promise. All right, very good to hear that I can use that method also with the melting/tempering devices I got. I must to try that next.
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Post by Ben on Aug 16, 2019 9:43:48 GMT -5
When cooling bars, they shouldn't cold enough to get condensation with 10-20 minutes in the fridge. With such a thick piece, though, you'll need to experiment to see how long you need to have it in the fridge to cool enough but not so much that you get condensation.
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Post by amateur on Aug 16, 2019 14:22:21 GMT -5
I left those rather chunky pieces in the fridge at 9°C for one hour, and no condensation occurred, at least to my tired old eyes ; ) They're now sitting all on the kitchen counter since almost a full day, still lookin' good without bloom of any sort. Need to find a way to wrap/pack them though, so I can store them for a few weeks. If I had made more silicone moulds (only made three identical ones from my 0.9kg pack of Smooth-Sil 940), I could just while away the hours and churn out one piece after the other : )
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Post by amateur on Aug 20, 2019 15:12:58 GMT -5
All right, thanks, that's interesting to learn about Swiss chocolate! I only had standard thick-ish kitchen foil, but will get some zip-loc bags for sure; I got 20°C in the cellar today, but this weird northern European summer just prevails. Unfortunately, after doing some more "mass-production" trials, I get some rather odd fat(?) bloom that on some parts looks strangely hazy (never had that before) and also develops distinctive boundaries (it's not the lighting casting a shadow). This is how I went about it: 1. Took last week's bloomed trials and new callets, 400g in total, and melted them in my melter at 46°C while stirring thoroughly 2. Set the thermostat to 32°C and added 40g fresh callets (last ones I had) and stirred like a mad robot down to 31,5°C measuring with the thermometer at all times 3. Poured the whole lot into a beaker with spout, like shown in Brad's video and filled three moulds 2/3 then topping up to full 4. Put the moulds in my well dried fridge as before at 9°C but this time for 30 minutes only 5. Removed the parts from the moulds, wrapped them in kitchen foil and put them in the cellar at 20°C The parts are 18mm thick and 86mm in diameter. Anyone has some ideas what went wrong this time? Longer in the fridge? Pre-crystallisation temperatures wrong? Too much stirring? Wrong mould filling approach? Bad idea to re-melt the prior pieces? Pre-cool the 7mm thick silicone moulds? These three look worse than the ones from the first trial in the other thread : ( Top Bottom Detail
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Post by Brad on Aug 20, 2019 17:00:21 GMT -5
The chocolate more or less looks properly tempered (setting aside your pour marks, the flat surface looks pretty good).
The problem you're running into now has to do with the insulative properties of your silicone molds. There's a reason why professionals don't use silicone or thick plastic to mold chocolate, and it's because it keeps the chocolate too warm for too long, resulting in the bloom you see. This is why the chocolate bloomed in the middle and not around the sides - too much heat was stored.
You could try cooling your molds first, but if too cold will "shock" the chocolate too. You are going to have to find that happy medium because your molds are custom made by you.
I know some professionals heat their molds slightly, and in fact my large moulding plant has ceramic heaters that the molds pass under before being poured, but they are cooled very quickly as the plastic is very hard and thin and transfers heat quickly.
Another option would be to drop your working temperature a degree at a time to find that happy medium and skip heating or cooling your molds completely.
Brad
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Post by amateur on Aug 20, 2019 23:30:40 GMT -5
Thanks, Brad; I had a hunch that it could be the moulds not having rapid heat transfer, so I'll try cooling them a bit. I can't afford vacuumformed moulds, because there'll be 21 different designs and only 4 bars off each in the end.
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Post by Ben on Aug 21, 2019 12:11:35 GMT -5
Note: I moved the last three posts from the Swiss chocolate fat bloom post here, since they're about amateur's tempering, not Swiss chocolate.
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