I'm trying to mold slabs of dark chocolate and I'm having problems lately.
It's not the first time I do this, I know how to temper chocolate, but I have a new tempering machine (water/bain-marie) and maybe I'm making mistakes.
What I use:
Chocolate: Cacao Barry Dark Couverture Mi-Amer (58%)
This looks like chocolate that wasn't tempered correctly and was too hot when poured.
What I don't understand is why it's perfect on the outside and not it the middle, I get it's a little bit hotter there, but t the point of making that big of a difference?
Could it be because I use trays and they are not suited to chocolate moulding? (I did it in the past without problems, but those are pretty flimsy)
Could it be because I use a wanter temperer and when I go from 40 C to 32 C, the water temperature doesn't drop as fast as an air temeperer and it reheats the chocolate in the bain-marie while I'm working?
Any help would be greatly appreciated, I'm getting tired of remelting half of my batches, hehe.
Your tempering is fine. Your poured couverture is not cooling down fast enough and is suffering from "latent heat build up", which is why the edges are in perfect temper, but the middle is out of temper.
Is the poured slab resting on a hot counter or a hot room?
Can you try to put the poured slab in the fridge for no more than five minutes?
Your tempering is fine. Your poured couverture is not cooling down fast enough and is suffering from "latent heat build up", which is why the edges are in perfect temper, but the middle is out of temper.
Is the poured slab resting on a hot counter or a hot room?
Can you try to put the poured slab in the fridge for no more than five minutes?
First, thank you very much for the fast reply. That might just be it.
I'm not on a hot counter or hot room, but I'm making 12+ trays, only the first 4 I usually put in the fridge (the ones perfectly tempered), the others are on a rack, after I remove the first 4 from the fridge, I take the other ones from the rack and put them in the fridge, however, the damage is probably already done even if they are cooling in a 22 °C room.
With my old tempering machine, my batches were smaller, so I didn't have this problem.
Thank you very much for your help, it was driving my crazy!
The chocMELTER warming tank has been designed specifically to heat and maintain chocolate temperature at a range of 20C - 60C (68F - 140F).
The system works with direct air based induction heating, applied from below and all four sides of the tray.
Equipped with a quality control system and a temperature sensor located "in the chocolate".
Etc.
This machine was built in close collaboration with the Barry Callebaut Academy, so we can also provide some insights about the specifics of the chocolate melting process.
If you're interested, you can contact us and we are more than happy to help. If not that's also ok and wish you the best of look for the chocolate tempering.
I did some research into Krea ch, and I am happy to report you have a wonderfuly designed and intelligent product.
However, your product is a melter and holding device, not a tempering machine. That is to say the user must manually temper the couverture either with the seeding (Impfen) method, or with the classic tableing method. Your machine will hold at a very consistent temperature, but the couverture will go out of temper regardless within a few hours, or even quicker if crystalized couverture crumbs are scraped back in to the tank.
Once again, it is a wonderfull machine, but the operator must know how to temper, and how to "troubleshoot" problems as they arise.
I would think you need to identify the type of bloom. I was taught that there's two types of bloom: fat and sugar. Fat bloom being separatation of cocoa solids from the cocoa butter due to over heating in tempering and/or dramatic changes in temperature while cooling. Sugar bloom is crystallization of the sugar. It's caused by condensation. Fat bloom can be reversed, but not sugar bloom.
Its fat bloom. There was no chance for condensation to form due to the mold only being refrigerated for a short tim, AND that the couverture had no opportunity to be exposed to humidity while it was still cast in the form.
You can also tell the difference by rubbing your fingers on the bloom.. Fat bloom feels greasy, while sugar bloom feels gritty on account of the recrystalised sugar.
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