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Post by dipstickspretzels on May 20, 2006 6:44:16 GMT -5
Hello! I'm pretty sure this is not the exactly perfect forum for me or this question, so could you help direct me?
I have started a business in the gourmet pretzel field and to date have been using my combination of chocolate just fine. I recently had a huge order that will continue through summer, and am experiencing bloom, which has never happened.
Before I elaborate. Do I post business things here, or is this strictly for making chocolate. If I shouldn't post them here, does anyone know of a good forum for those of us using already made chocolate in our products?
thank you...christy
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Post by Alan on May 20, 2006 8:28:26 GMT -5
The bloom is probably due to you heating the chocolate up to a higher temperature than you used to. If you have changed chocolate brands, then you may have ended up with one that has a higher viscosity at a certain temperature, this could have tempted you to heat the chocolate a bit more so that the viscosity would be lowered for better dipping, and this would possibly lead to loss of temper.
Regardless of whether the above is true, the key is that you can't take the chocolate temperature too high, or the tempered cocoa butter in the chocolate will end up melting and you will end up with no temper and some bloom. Usually this will be 90-91 degrees. Try to stay under this temperature range. It would be to your benefit to find a couverture with a larger amount of cocoa butter in it, and some lecithin. Maybe you could try chocolate in the 60's range such as Guittard's L'Harmonie.
What chocolate are you using right now, and have you recently changed chocolate types? Also, are you baking the pretzels yourself?
C-L
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Post by dipstickspretzels on May 31, 2006 10:04:13 GMT -5
Hello! Sorry it took me so long to reply, I was waiting for an email notification and never got one. Anyway, no I have not changed chocolate brands. I have used Merkens since the beginning. I think what happened is that I had thrown several in the freezer on a metal pan to get them to set quicker, but it was quite a bit warmer in the environment I was working in, so the instant temp drop was too much. now I just place them near the a/c for a quicker, but not too quick cool. Hopefully as my business grows I'll be able to achieve more sophisticated measures! I don't bake the pretzels myself. that would take longer and actually cost more, plus I get more consistency with buying them. thanks again for the input! do you know of any other sites like this one, but for those of us just making confections for business? have a great day!
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Post by chocdoc on May 31, 2006 21:55:07 GMT -5
You might want to look at www.eGullet.org an online forum for foodies. The pastry and baking forums are full of chocolatiers, it is a nice community of folks.
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Post by sugaralchemy on Jun 1, 2006 4:25:52 GMT -5
I would concur about checking out eGullet - they have a ton of stuff on there!
This forum exists to help with chocolate production, and things related to it. You're more an end user working with already made chocolate.
Assuming your technique is the same, why don't you contact the manufacturer? They might have changed their formula, or even shipped a slightly defective batch. I've caught suppliers shipping bad batches of ingredients out more than once, and they've always been happy to correct it once I demonstrated the problem. Sometimes they're aware of the issue, other times they're not. (I actually have a replacement shipment of something en route right now)
From a formulation standpoint, I might suggest you could try incorporating more lecithin into your chocolate when it's melted, but honestly, I have no idea if that would help unless I knew the specifics of your chocolate. Think like 0.2-0.5% of the chocolate weight added from a liquid lecithin which can be found at various health food stores and such. Just trying it with 1 lb of the chocolate is a fairly small risk if it doesn't work out. Be sure to mix it in well. Higher levels of lecithin may actually slightly increase the viscosity, so do keep that in mind if you experiment, particularly up past 0.5%. Lecithin also modifies the melting texture a little, which is interesting - you might play with it a bit.
Other than this, there's not much you can do except play with your tempering temperature, technique, cooling, etc. If you made your own chocolate, I would have a myriad of other suggestions, but I don't even have a list of ingredients of the pre-made chocolate you're working with.
Best suggestion: hit eGullet and see what they have to say, they probably have done a ton more with "technique" than most of us around here.
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