Post by jimphils on Feb 19, 2011 6:12:52 GMT -5
Hi ; since my Santha arrived last month I have been making great chocolate, burning my fingers with the hot trays out of the oven, getting husk up to my eyebrows winnowing the beans with a hair drier and staying till very late humming fondly at the rhythm of the Santha as it goes conching the mass. When I started I was ready for disappointment, after all, how was I daring to even try to emulate the Hersheys and cadburies of this world?. But the results have totally blown me up : delicious all-natural handmade bars with only local beans and sugar. The 70% dark is astoundingly deep and the milk receipt (37%) rich and creamy. If you ask me, I wouldn’t change them for all the Cluizels that used to be my favourites. And I’m now completely spoiled and unable to try the usual commercial stuff I enjoyed.
So far, so good. But I must admit I am struggling with the tempering. I have tried everything I have found in this website, short of buying one of these expensive table top revolations: hand tempering (what a mess) ; seed tempering (which I don’t like since I have to add someone else’s choc as seed), tempering with the Santha and the “turbo” system. None of them give my bars the gloss I look for. My bars have a nice snap and don’t melt at touch, so there must be some degree of tempering but the appearance is somewhat dull and sometimes they bloom, particularly using polycarbonate molds (funny that with the cheapo plastic ones they look much nicer).
I guess room temperature (usually over 30C/86F) and high humidity (over 50% almost all the time) are the main culprits, so here you have me transferring my Santha to my air conditioned living room for tempering, much to the annoyance of my wife. But still the problem doesn’t go away.
Take for example my last batch of milk, 2lbs of yummy Filipino beans, roasted for over 35mins in my oven at 140C (i have been following Brad’s advice for roasting, thank you so much), that after winnowing and ground in my champion yielded a bit over 1.5lbs that I conched in my Santha for 30 hrs., the recipe Liquor 37%, cocoa butter 20%, sugar 28% and powder milk 15%.
The mix run nicely at 113F and i brought it to air conditioned room for tempering (room temp. 72F). I took off the top and the lid and let the rollers run for 1 minute every 15 mins controlling as the temperature went down. After around 2hrs the chocolate had reached 88F but as usual, at this temperature it became musky and thick and starting solidifying in the walls. At 85F it was a thick paste and i stopped the cooling. Without putting the lid on i turned the Santha on so to warm up the mix again up to 90F. I know its high for a milk but there is no way the chocolate was workable below that. And actually I had to keep the Santha on till it was 92F, or else the chocolate wouldn’t be runny enough for me to be able to spread it on the molds with the ladder. So in a way i tried to temper at 113/85/92F. The result? Delicious bars with a good snap and consistency that don’t melt at touch but have no gloss, but a somewhat dull appearance and some bloom spots for the poly molds.
That recipe should give me over 37.5% fat content (not including milk), so i don’t think i need to use any emulsifier, which i don’t want at all. The problem is that the mass becomes just too thick at around 85C and doesn’t completely recover fluidity as i warm it up a bit. I guess the problem might be too much moisture in the mass.
Could i try to dry it somehow? Or could i just try to add some additional butter at the last stage of tempering to make it runnier. I must admit I am getting a bit obsessed now about tempering, which is so alien here in the tropics. But a way must be and I will find it.
Sorry for the long post. Any help, any comments will be much appreciated.
Jim
So far, so good. But I must admit I am struggling with the tempering. I have tried everything I have found in this website, short of buying one of these expensive table top revolations: hand tempering (what a mess) ; seed tempering (which I don’t like since I have to add someone else’s choc as seed), tempering with the Santha and the “turbo” system. None of them give my bars the gloss I look for. My bars have a nice snap and don’t melt at touch, so there must be some degree of tempering but the appearance is somewhat dull and sometimes they bloom, particularly using polycarbonate molds (funny that with the cheapo plastic ones they look much nicer).
I guess room temperature (usually over 30C/86F) and high humidity (over 50% almost all the time) are the main culprits, so here you have me transferring my Santha to my air conditioned living room for tempering, much to the annoyance of my wife. But still the problem doesn’t go away.
Take for example my last batch of milk, 2lbs of yummy Filipino beans, roasted for over 35mins in my oven at 140C (i have been following Brad’s advice for roasting, thank you so much), that after winnowing and ground in my champion yielded a bit over 1.5lbs that I conched in my Santha for 30 hrs., the recipe Liquor 37%, cocoa butter 20%, sugar 28% and powder milk 15%.
The mix run nicely at 113F and i brought it to air conditioned room for tempering (room temp. 72F). I took off the top and the lid and let the rollers run for 1 minute every 15 mins controlling as the temperature went down. After around 2hrs the chocolate had reached 88F but as usual, at this temperature it became musky and thick and starting solidifying in the walls. At 85F it was a thick paste and i stopped the cooling. Without putting the lid on i turned the Santha on so to warm up the mix again up to 90F. I know its high for a milk but there is no way the chocolate was workable below that. And actually I had to keep the Santha on till it was 92F, or else the chocolate wouldn’t be runny enough for me to be able to spread it on the molds with the ladder. So in a way i tried to temper at 113/85/92F. The result? Delicious bars with a good snap and consistency that don’t melt at touch but have no gloss, but a somewhat dull appearance and some bloom spots for the poly molds.
That recipe should give me over 37.5% fat content (not including milk), so i don’t think i need to use any emulsifier, which i don’t want at all. The problem is that the mass becomes just too thick at around 85C and doesn’t completely recover fluidity as i warm it up a bit. I guess the problem might be too much moisture in the mass.
Could i try to dry it somehow? Or could i just try to add some additional butter at the last stage of tempering to make it runnier. I must admit I am getting a bit obsessed now about tempering, which is so alien here in the tropics. But a way must be and I will find it.
Sorry for the long post. Any help, any comments will be much appreciated.
Jim