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Post by rockandroll00 on Jun 20, 2010 22:59:53 GMT -5
Hi - first post here but I desperately need some help. We're having a problem with our cocao butter sticking in our molds and cannot figure it out. The chocolate is in perfect temper prior to filling the molds. We had an issue with the A/C in our store and it *seems* like this is when the problem started - so we tempered (or retempered) the cocoa butter. Black and white seemed to actually work - made chocolate with them and they came out fine - today, no such luck with any of the other colors. I've attached a pic as well. So here's what we do: Decorate the mold with the appropriate design Let the cocoa butter sit in the mold at room temp, which is about 70 degrees F for 20-30 minutes Pour in tempered chocolate to make the shell Let the chocolate sit in the mold at 70 degrees F again for approx 20 minutes Fill with ganache, wait about 20-30 minutes, seal off the bottom, wait 20 or 30 minutes, refrigerate for about 10-15 minutes and dump. Other variables. We're using the "elephant" air compressor with various guns When the A/C went out - our chocolate was in our humidity-controlled storage unit Chocolate is E. Guittard and the cocoa butter is Chef Rubber (different collections). I'm sure that I've left out some details but if anyone can help out, I sure would appreciate it! Thanks much for your time, Brian Attachments:
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Post by Sebastian on Jun 21, 2010 5:21:32 GMT -5
1) how do you know your chocolate is in 'perfect temper'? 2) are your moulds clean? what temperature are they upon filling? 3) what temperature is your cocoa butter being used for decoration, and how did you get it to that temperature? 4) what temperature is your ganache upon filling?
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Post by rockandroll00 on Jun 21, 2010 23:20:01 GMT -5
1) Purely by sight and texture. We have a Hilliards 80# temperer which has been working pretty well. We've made molds of just solid chocolate, both white and dark and there is no streaking whatsoever, and have good shine to them. 2) The molds are clean - wiped out by hand (man does that stink!) with paper towels, q-tips, cottonballs, anything and everything. Temperature upon filling is room temp, so about 72 degrees F. 3) Cocoa butter is around 90 degrees F - based on reading various forums and articles, it seems most people are running it at between 86 and 90, with one person stating she used it at 93 F. We got it there by microwave, in 20 second increments until it was thoroughly melted and then smaller increments to until between 86 and 90. 4) When we WERE using ganache (because of all the problems with this lately, we haven't been making ganache - just solid until we get it to work again)...when we were making ganache we would make it and put it in a glass bowl with saran wrap sealing it up for about 20 minutes at room temp before piping. I've attached a pic of tonights fiasco. There were a couple of things we did differently tonight. 1) We presprayed the molds (polycarbonate) with a mixture of 60/40 (cocoa butter/chocolate) from a suggestion on another forum. 2) We used compressed air in a can as opposed to our little compressor which we don't believe is providing enough pressure...looking at getting a new one. The other day some molds DID come out, however there was no shine to them...I'm wondering if maybe the cocoa butter is just bad? Does that happen? We're using Chef Rubber Jewel Collection mostly. Thank you for your time and your help! Brian Attachments:
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Post by Sebastian on Jun 22, 2010 20:02:09 GMT -5
Cocoa butter will not go bad (well, it CAN, but realistically it won't. not under the conditions you've got it stored at). What i'm inclined to believe happened (based on what i know at this point) is when your air failed, it got hot. Hot enough to detemper the cocoa butter completely. There's a certain amount of tempering that can occur during spraying, but the ability of the gun to spray temper depends on the state of the cocoa butter it starts with. If you've completely detempered the butter, it's unlikely to be tempered as it's spraying. You may need to melt your cocoa butter, table it (temper it), and put it back into the container and allow it to solidify. Then go ahead using it like you'd done previously. I don't believe it's overtempered based on what i'm seeing.
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Post by rockandroll00 on Jun 22, 2010 21:59:09 GMT -5
Thanks for your reply - we actually did retemper the cocoa butter as a precaution but that didn't help. We think now we've overcrystalized the chocolate - that our temper wasn't good after all just based on reading and the results.
Will post more after we troubleshoot this and hopefully it can help someone else!
Thanks again, Brian
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