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Post by bambi on Apr 15, 2020 13:45:26 GMT -5
Hi there,
I hope somebody can help me, I help manage a small family run chocoate business. We've been experimenting for a couple years but still haven't been able to finalize the product perfectly. We've started from scratch, bean to bar and have all the equipment in our shed. We've had may problems with sugar bloom, and storing it as it's tuned out whiteness on the top, not sugar bloom though (not entirely sure what it is). Recently I've tried putting the tempered chocolate into the fridge to set then immediately then it's placed into plastic bags in a cool and dark place but am I doing this wrong? I feel as though some condensation is getting through, must we always put dark chocolate in tin foil?
70% cocoa
Thank you
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Post by Ben on Apr 16, 2020 8:37:43 GMT -5
Hi Bambi.
This could be many things. There's a lot of discussion of tempering and storage in this forum. I'd highly recommend looking back through the posts as it's likely that your issue has been addressed.
Can you give us more information about your tempering, cooling, and storage processes, including temperatures at each step? Also, please post pictures of your bars showing the problem you're having.
Are you actually seeing condensation form, or just bloom? Condensation means that either your bars are too cold or your environment is too humid, or both. A refrigerator is too cold for leaving bars to set completely. If that's the only way you have to cool them, you'll want to minimize the time in the fridge to what is absolutely necessary (maybe 10 or 15 minutes). If the fridge is used only for setting chocolate, you could try adjusting it to its warmest temperature or get a temperature controller to turn off the fridge when it hits a certain temperature. Ideally, the temp would be around 55F and would have a good amount of airflow.
Foil is not necessary and has nothing to do with whether your chocolate blooms or not.
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Post by bambi on Apr 21, 2020 5:21:09 GMT -5
Hi Ben, Thanks for the quick response. With regard to the process, I'm currently leaving the conching machine on for around 16 hours before adding the cocoa butter and sugar in. The conching machine temperature fluctuates between 30'c - 40'c throughout the process. When transferred into the tempering machine, we lower the temperature down to 27'c then add it straight back into the conching machine to raise until 35'c to then pour into molds. We'd then leave the molds in the fridge (ranging between 3-7 degrees) around 4 hours to then be packaged and stored inside the house in a cool and dark place. Before putting the Chocolate in an air tight container, the chocolate doesnt have any marls on but once in, the sugar bloom rises over a week or so. The last image of chocolate contains orange favouring, perhaps that's the reason it's different? I appreciate the advice, I'll take a look at all the forums on here. Rebecca
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Post by Ben on Apr 21, 2020 9:52:47 GMT -5
A few questions:
When you say conching machine, are you referring to a stone grinder? Why do you move it back to the grinder after going into the tempering machine? Why not leave it in the tempering machine to warm back up? It's quite possible that residual heat in the grinder is continuing to warm the chocolate after you start molding.
Is the bloom only on the surface or throughout the bar? If you rub your finger across the bar, does the bloom wipe off? I ask because that looks like fat bloom to me, not sugar bloom.
Are you testing the temper before molding the bars to make sure that the chocolate is actually in temper?
I see a couple possible problems with your process:
First is your tempering temperatures. 35C (95F) is too hot. Try keeping it below 34C (93F). On a side note, I never cool my chocolate down as low as 27C (80F). I'm generally more in the 28C (83F) range.
Second is cooling. As I mentioned in my last post, normal fridge temps are too cold--especially for cooling for hours. My cooling cabinet hovers around 13-14C (55-58F) and the bars are generally only in there for 30 minutes.
Let us know if any of this helps!
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