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Post by sugaralchemy on Sept 23, 2006 13:44:55 GMT -5
I would agree that more precision never hurts. That's what motivated me to develop this approach. Initially I did it by temperature, like you do, but after many batches, I found it to be pointless.
So long as it's completely un-tempered in the first step and plenty of crystals develop in the cooling, the only temperature that really matters is the final top temperature in the last step.
As for the cooling step, I take it to a paste... which means it is notably cooler than your 84.7. Basically, there is no real "lower limit" on temperature, the only thing you have to be concerned with is if it gets totally hard, you won't be able to stir it properly for the final heating.
Any updates from the original poster?
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Post by Howard on Sept 26, 2006 0:07:15 GMT -5
No updates. I'm now in the middle of moving my family from our home of eleven years. So re-tempering will have to wait a few weeks probably. But I am following the discussion and will post when I get a chance to re-try. Thanks very much for the advice and suggetions.
Howard
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Post by angioplasty on Sept 29, 2006 20:20:51 GMT -5
wow, there is a ton of great info in this thread. a few comments of my own.
I LOVE the recipie you give, especially with the vanilla, I am going to give it a try here very soon. I ran my batch probably 4 days before finally molding it. (Note: partially due to laziness and reading more info on chocolate)... I just put it into molds from the santha which was probably pushing 120 to 130 degrees, used the syringe, sucked it up and squirt into the mold, then right into the fridge.
I think I accidentally tempered the chocolate. it snaps when you break it, it has not bloomed one bit after several weeks and taste great. In fact for my next batch which will be this recipie I will use one of those as my seed to temper in the machine i bought to temper with.... i was afraid to use the rock method as it seems there are too many places to really screw a batch up.
Man there is so much info on this site to absorb and figure out it seems every time I think I am starting to understand something, something new like this comes along and re defines the world of chocolate.
thanks for the great info
aaron
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Post by Howard on Oct 10, 2006 10:37:23 GMT -5
I just put it into molds from the santha which was probably pushing 120 to 130 degrees, used the syringe, sucked it up and squirt into the mold, then right into the fridge. I think you've hit on something. I believe my chocolate has been cooling too slowly. This may allow for inhomogeneous currents of temperature to develop. I did not have time to mold all of my chocolate before I moved. So I took what was left, heated it gently to transfer into a smaller container and put it into the refrigerator. It's now 10 days later and the chocolate is still a lovely chocolatey brown and quite "snappy". Next time I mold, I'm going to put the molded chocolate directly into the refrig and see what happens. Howard
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Post by vivachoco on Oct 11, 2006 18:19:28 GMT -5
i have been following the threads on turbo tempering and other ideas, and find there is a lot of great info out there. I am fairly new to chocolate making (and i do it just for my own pleasure, not for a bigger broader, heavy volume chocolatiering), but after 12 batches of experimenting I can see some patterns emerging.
on tempering: i think the most TURBO of all tempering methods is the SIMPLE method.
My favorite is the old fashioned 'hand' tempering on hard (marble/granite/artificial) surface. I think it really is SIMPLE. Or maybe I have been very lucky.
I take the chocolate mass straight out from santha, as it so conveniently runs at about 112-118 degrees (i never heat the santha and i always start conching immediately after running the beans through the champion as the friction makes the resulting liquid already warm). Depending on ambient room temperature getting the chocolate to temper takes about 5-10 minutes. The cooler the room temperature, the faster the process. Alas apart from hot summer months, it has always been 5 minutes.
Apart from checking out the temperature as I stop the santha (or when roasting) I do not usually measure any temperatures any more. The moment when the temper changes in chocolate is so very clearly visible and you can 'feel' it as well. From the moment on when the chrystals start forming, the window to transfer the tempered mass to the 2/3 chocolate is so narrow that if you spend time testing or measuring - you are bound to have a hard unmovable mass in front of you.
I have had hardly any loss of chocolate mass when i use a silicone spatula to transfer the liquor from santha to a metal bowl and then the 1/3 to marble slab. Since the slab is elevated I can cleanly 'drop' all the tempered chocolate back to metal bowl after tempering. After molding I immediately transfer the chocolate to a fridge.
My chocolate has nice snap and gloss. I have never done extensive testing on what happens to it when left on a shelf for weeks (or a car seat, or a shelf in a store) - is it possible that my simple method would not endure the extensive abuse the chocolate could be subjected to in unloving hands?
SO if I would give any advice to new chocolate makers (from a novice to another): roast at low temperatures (i do 260 for 30-50mins) until bean cracks in your mouth like a nut, let the roasted beans 'sit' for 6-24hrs, go straight from champion to santha, straight from santha to tempering on hard surface, and from molding straight to fridge. when molding always have an extra metal bowl handy and coated with a thin layer of cocoa butter, so that if you have left over tempered chocolate you can poor it in and make sure you can get it out later (to be used to temper more chocolate or in truffles/baking. btw one add'l tempering method is to simply add some already made tempered chocolate to a new batch). and one more thing: when you coat your molds with melted cocoa butter and it almost instantly hardens to 'white' fat on top of the mold - this is a sign that you know that your ambient temperature will make tempering very fast and your molding time will be very short. if you want to buy yourself more time for molding, keep the awaiting 2/3 chocolate bowl in a warm water bath for a moment to make sure its temperature is not below 90.
anybody else want to share their favorite routines?
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