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Post by doclogic77 on Apr 6, 2010 22:58:31 GMT -5
Wow was that frustrating. I put hours into my first batch. I was very pleased with the final product out of the Santha. Great flavor...very smooth. I am using an entry level revolution tempering machine and it came out horrific. I couldn't get my truffle molds to set. Soft...gooey...a sad end to an otherwise good experience. From my reading I am thinking it has to be the temp and humidity. I haven't kicked on the AC yet this year but the house has been in the low 80's and the humidity has been 60+. From the more experienced guys here...was that the issue?
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Post by Brad on Apr 7, 2010 1:23:41 GMT -5
Lots of problems. 1. Room temperature needs to ideally be in the mid 60's 2. Revolation tempering machines don't allow you to go low enough with the bottom temperature. Among a number of tempering machines I own, one is a Rev 2. I found the best use for them is simply keeping the chocolate at a specific temperature, and keeping it agitated. These are the magic numbers you MUST hit for fail safe tempered dark chocolate: 120 then 79 then 90.
My suggestion is to temper by hand, and then use the Revolation to keep the chocolate at a specific temperature and keep it agitated (of which it does both those tasks well).
Cheers. Brad
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Post by run222 on Apr 7, 2010 9:04:17 GMT -5
You did not mention if you seeded with tempered chocolate. I have a Revolution 1 machine (the most basic and cheapest one from Chocovision). I found when I used seed chocolate (I just use chocolate from a commercial source, for my last batch I used 70% dark from Green and Black), I got good results, the chocolate was nice and shiny with good snap and no bloom. Almost looked professional!
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Post by doclogic77 on Apr 7, 2010 15:05:25 GMT -5
You did not mention if you seeded with tempered chocolate. I have a Revolution 1 machine (the most basic and cheapest one from Chocovision). I found when I used seed chocolate (I just use chocolate from a commercial source, for my last batch I used 70% dark from Green and Black), I got good results, the chocolate was nice and shiny with good snap and no bloom. Almost looked professional! I did use a seed chocolate but not sure if it was the kind I needed. That could have been an issue as well. I used guittard melting chocolate to seed. But, after reading some more on that chocolate last night...I don't believe it's a tempered chocolate. It's processed differently so it doesn't need tempered. I'm sure that could have been an issue. Ugh...I'm not going to like this tempering thing.
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Post by Brad on Apr 7, 2010 22:20:29 GMT -5
Doc;
Look at the ingredients in your "melting chocolate" Are there any fats other than cocoa butter, and what are the percentages?
Honestly, seeding's a P.I.T.A. although we "reverse seed" chocolate in our shop on occasion when our dipping machines are running low, and we need to keep going.
I like to keep things as simple as possible: Heat it. Cool it. Heat it. Done. (while stirring the entire time).
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Post by doclogic77 on Apr 8, 2010 14:04:04 GMT -5
Brad what temps do you use for milk chocolate? And in a business situation I would imagine tempering by hand would be very timely. Do you temper all your chocolate by hand?
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Post by Brad on Apr 8, 2010 16:22:52 GMT -5
Milk chocolate's a bit different, and due to the lower cocoa butter percentage, requires more crystal formation. This is typically why you'll see that milk chocolate generally tempers a couple of degrees lower than dark.
Having said that, I generally take my milk chocolate down to 78 degrees, and then back up to 88, hold it there for a while, and then bring the temperature up to around 90-91.
Commercially, we don't temper by hand. We go through too much chocolate every day for that. I have several tempering machines in the shop. Some temper as much as 50lbs at a time, and others temper 10-15 lbs at a time.
The only time we ever temper by hand is when my staff are working with the last 5-7lbs in our large machines, and they are making sampling callets/napolitans with it.
However the method I've described in another post (using a water bath) is VERY quick, and very effective.
Cheers. Hope this helps!
Brad.
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