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Post by itsallaroundyou on Jun 30, 2009 11:51:10 GMT -5
i'm very new to chocolate making, and even newer to tempering, but despite following the directions to temper i can't get chocolate with a consistent temper throughout. some pieces are snappy, some have glossy parts mixed in with swirls and blooms. most are too soft. here's my technique, could someone please chime in and tell me where i'm going wrong? i'll be as specific as possible. my set up: starting with solid, room temp, 70% dark (5% natural cocoa butter, 25% sugar) chocolate. verified accurate thermometer, rheostat controlled heating mantle (i'm a chemist too ) 1. heat from room temp to 118-120F to completely untemper/melt all crystal forms. temp is read in real time, with constant stirring. 2. at about 119F, immediately begin cooling in an ice bath (i've tried the freezer too with the same results) down to 80F. temp read as it was in heating, with constant stirring to avoid freezing chocolate to the walls of the bowl. 3. when it reaches 80F (and is very hard to stir), i put it immediately back into the heating mantle and begin heating to 90-92F. 4. when chocolate reached 90F, i withdrew some with a 60mL syringe and dispensed either directly onto a saran wrapped cookie sheet or into molds. my problems, i think, might be heating and cooling too fast, such that the temps i'm reading aren't quite representative of the whole mass. questions: are there time limits for each stage? if i wanted to heat super slowly (lets say an hour or so) from room temp to 120, then cool super slowly from there to 80F, then the same rate back up to 90F, would that hurt anything? this will ensure there is no overshooting of the desired temps. how much should i be stirring? should i preheat my syringe? if i over shoot the 92F mark by a few degrees, do i need to start over? once i successfully hit the 90F mark, what range do i need to keep it in? once they are in molds how should i cool them? (i've been leaving them at room temp overnight) sorry for the blast of questions..... thanks in advance
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Post by FeralOne on Jun 30, 2009 12:22:31 GMT -5
A pretty good rule of thumb with regards to hold times at each stage is 10 minutes (approx.). Bring it to your target melting temp. hold for ten, bring it to your lowest temp. hold for ten, bring it back to your molding temp. hold and stir very very well for ten. Then mold up your bars. "some pieces are snappy, some have glossy parts mixed in with swirls and blooms. most are too soft" ~Snappy=tempered, the glossy parts mixed with swirls is the tempered chocolate not being blended with the untempered chocolate, stir it constantly and don't stop stirring! The soft is obviously untempered. If this is all happening in the course of the same batch this is what is happening; The soft ones are the first ones you are molding up and not allowing the crystals to form completely in the mixture, during the course of molding you are getting some temper, but not stirring enough giving you the swirls, then at the end stage you are achieving temper because you have given the crystals enough time to blend into the entire batch. Edit to add~If the soft ones are coming out at the end of the molding, then you are heating too high and untempering the chocolate. It's like this: Starting with tempered bars and going to soft bars you are heating the mixture too much during the course of tempering. Going from soft bars to tempered bars you are not giving it enough time to form the crystals. Did that make sense? I have a hard time explaining things sometimes.... I personally use the seed method to make it work every time, but many people seem to have success with your technique. I also do it by hand. As to your individual questions; 1. Stir constantly, the whole time and don't stop stirring. 2. Preheat the syringe if you want but not too hot, up to the same temp as the chocolate. 3. If you over heat the chocolate you will untemper it and you will have to start over. However, each chocolate will have a different temper point and mold temp. Some of mine I have to cool down to around 85* (after the seed is added) and mold at 89*, some I only have to bring it down to around 88* (after seed temp.) and mold up at around 92*. It all depends on the recipe and bean. 4. The range you want to keep it in will depend on the batch you are working with, I can't answer this definitively. 5. This is how I let the bars set up also, it works pretty well with a cool room temp. If it's too hot in the room they can stick sometimes, just pop them in the fridge for a few minutes and they come right out of the molds. Don't worry about asking so many question, it's why we're all here. I asked a ton of questions before it finally sunk in. Andrea
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Post by itsallaroundyou on Jun 30, 2009 12:29:09 GMT -5
thanks so much andrea for the quick and thorough reply!
i am planning on trying again tonight and trying to heat very slowly to make sure i have time to hold at the desired temp for long enough.
what heating method do you use that allows you to hold at the desired temps?
thanks again!
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Post by FeralOne on Jun 30, 2009 12:40:40 GMT -5
I actually use a blow dryer and/or the oven set on warm to keep the temp where I want. I have gotten to the point where I don't need to check the temps anymore, I can tell by working with it if it's at the right temp. Just keep stirring to get the temper to blend well. I think the most important time to hold and stir is the final minutes before you mold up the bars, this is where the the crystals need to be perfectly distributed and the temps just right. It takes a while of working with tempering to completely understand what is happening. It's just one of those things that come with experience.
Good Luck!
Andrea
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Post by itsallaroundyou on Jun 30, 2009 16:22:58 GMT -5
i think i will try the hair dyer when approaching the final temp as i think it will allow me to have much more control.
i'm also gonna forgo the syringe for the time being to eliminate a variable and just pour it all out once the temp is where i want it. that way it should all be at the same level, tempered or not.
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Post by itsallaroundyou on Jul 2, 2009 0:25:33 GMT -5
so, i tried the hair dryer technique, and like it much better for its ability to dial the temp to where ever i wanted it. my first try was a perfect success....like i mentioned i didn't use a syringe or mold, i just poured it out onto a cookie sheet. it hardened up with no swirls, and very snappy.
i retried again, same technique to temper, but this time dispensed with a syringe into molds. all of them are speckled....what happened? i didn't preheat the syringe, but i didn't think that mattered that much--maybe it does? maybe the cold syringe and cold mold are the culprit?
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Post by itsallaroundyou on Jul 2, 2009 10:52:39 GMT -5
more info on the speckled batch: they were all shiny, even though they had tons of spots, and the texture was more gritty than the first batch i tempered....maybe i over tempered?
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Post by FeralOne on Jul 2, 2009 11:24:11 GMT -5
Speckled is usually sugar bloom, you probably got some water in your batch somewhere, possibly from the syringe (the ones like John sells?) since it likes to hold tiny bits of water in it around the point where the plunger stops. I don't like to use a syringe for molding up bars, to me it just takes more effort to use than simply using a spoon or ladle. I'm glad to hear you got a successful temper, it's so exciting the first time you get it right.
Andrea
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Post by chocogeek on Jul 5, 2009 12:05:57 GMT -5
It may be an oversight but I don't see you mention anything about seed chocolate. It should be added and mixed in when you reach your final temp. Constant mixing is important to eliminate streaking and inconsistent results. John has a detailed post on tempering here that covers the crystal structure of chocolate and rule of thumb for tabletop tempering: chocolatealchemy.com/illustrated-tempering/
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Post by itsallaroundyou on Jul 5, 2009 21:32:47 GMT -5
i didn't have much luck with using seed chocolate my first try, so i'm using the turbo tempering method, that uses no seed chocolate (unless i read it wrong).
i haven't tried again, but i think for my chocolate, that maybe 90-92 might be too high a temp, so i'm gonna shoot for 88-90 and see if that gets me better results.
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Post by beanless on Jul 6, 2009 0:20:07 GMT -5
I also use the 10min at each temperature rule after recieving great advice from this forum. My success with 75% dark chocolate tempering has been with molding at 90. Hope this helps.
Thanks also chocorock - I'll try the ladle for molding. Ali
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Post by itsallaroundyou on Jul 13, 2009 11:29:56 GMT -5
ok, well got back at it yesterday...this time with a batch of milk chocolate. didn't do molds or syringe, to reduce variables, just poured the whole batch out on a cookie sheet.....i would like to say it got it, but, there is very little gloss---so my question is: does the gloss only come from tempered chocolate cooled in a mold/against a really smooth surface? or should it be glossy all over regardless of where it is cooled?
i'm getting closer.....
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Post by FeralOne on Jul 13, 2009 13:06:28 GMT -5
www.chocolatealchemy.com/temperingmolding.phpJohn has some good pictures of the various stages, they aren't molded so you can see what it looks like. Also, milk chocolate doesn't temper the same. There is a lot more non cocoa ingredients in the milk chocolate recipe that interfere, the more dry ingredients, the less sheen and snap, from my experience anyway. Andrea
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Post by itsallaroundyou on Jul 17, 2009 12:07:34 GMT -5
ok, so last night tried again with another batch of milk chocolate. its time to start trouble shooting the temps that i'm trying to temper at....at this point i'm close but just not totally there (thanks for the link to the tempering pics chocorock ) are there rules for trouble shooting my results as far as which way to adjust the final temp i hold at (e.g., if its not glossy enough, adjust the final temp up 1 degree, etc...)? next time around i'll take pics of my results to post so i can see how far off i really am thanks again to all who've contributed so far... ps-beanless--i notice you are from NZ...my girlfriend and i are going next month and i was wondering if there were any local chocolatiers that you'd recommend?
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Post by Brad on Jul 17, 2009 13:53:54 GMT -5
Milk chocolate's tough to temper.
The following works for me 100% of the time with milk chocolate:
In a large stainless steel bowl, melt the chocolate over a pot of simmering water until the temperature is 120 degrees F.
Take the bowl off and cool the milk chocolate until it is 78 degrees F. STIR 100% OF THE TIME, AND USE A SPATULA TO PULL THE CHOCOLATE OFF THE SIDE OF THE BOWL AND INTO THE CENTER MASS. I generally do this method in the evening when it's cool, and use a blow dryer with the fan set on "cool" to blow air over the chocolate in the bowl while I'm stirring.
When you get close to 78 degrees, the chocolate will almost turn to a soft clay consistency, and will be difficult to get off the side of the bowl. IF YOU STOP STIRRING THE MASS WILL GO SOLID ON YOU, AND YOU WILL HAVE TO START OVER.
Put the bowl of chocolate back over the simmering water and STIR FAIRLY VIGOROUSLY being sure to pull the chocolate off the surface of the bowl and into the center. Heat until no higher than 90 degrees.
THE REHEATING SHOULD ONLY TAKE 2-3 MINUTES AT MOST.
Stir and mold.
MAKE SURE TO STIR THE CHOCOLATE AT ALL TIMES, EVEN WHILE MOLDING. I usually have someone help stir while I'm working with the chocolate in this manner. (in my shop all of our tempering machines constantly agitate the chocolate so I don't need help).
Let me know how you do.
Brad.
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