judyjeu

Thanks everyone for such quick responses! To answer a few questions - I don't think my chocolate is bad (no water touched it, wasn't refrigerated), although I have previously used it to dip chilled truffle centers so maybe it's possible the centers had some condensation. I have gone through the tempering process several times with my chocolate, so it is well "used" - but from what I understand that's not supposed to be a problem. On my last attempt I used a 2nd thermometer to make sure my ACMC wasn't way off, and they were pretty close (usually within 1 degree, occasionally 2 degrees briefly). My seed chocolate is Callebaut block, so it is definitely tempered. Based on your feedback, it sounds like I'm adding my seed at too high a temp and also not giving it enough time to form the beta crystals at the lower temp. (Although adding seed too early doesn't seem like it would hurt anything if you still have unmelted seed at the end - i.e. all your seed wasn't melted at too high a temp, is this correct?) And given that my machine is always agitating the chocolate, it seems that although my chocolate might not be tempered as soon as it drops to 89, it would eventually become tempered after more time just from the agitation, which I didn't find to be the case. This is what I'll try next: melt at 120F, hold for a while, drop temp to 93 and then add seed chocolate, drop to 82, hold for 10 mins, bring back up to 89, hold for 10 mins, then remove leftover seed. Is that leaving the seed chocolate in too long? I know it might be; I guess now I'm paranoid I'm not seeding enough so I'm trying to stack the deck in favor of that. If this doesn't work then I'll try starting with fresh tempered chocolate instead of my very used untempered chocolate, and see if that works. At least that will eliminate one variable. Thanks for your help!

Hi everyone - I've been making truffles for a number of years (hobby-level) using my Revolation 1 to temper the chocolate and dip the centers. More recently I've been using molds. Throughout this time I've stayed quite amateur/ignorant about the tempering process since the machine did it for me, although I had a high level understanding of what the machine was doing. I recently outgrew the Revolation, so I bought an ACMC Tabletop temperer. I've tried to temper four times in a row and failed each time, and I'm getting desperate. I've read everything on tempering out there (including these forums) but can't figure out the problem. I hope you can help. Environment: 68F degrees (20C), 50% humidity Chocolate: Callebaut bittersweet. Manufacturer recommends: 113-122F (45-50C) melt, 81F (27C) seed, 88F (31C) working temp. Chocolate is not tempered (already used a few times), except for seed chocolate. Trying to temper about 1.5 lbs at a time. 1st attempt: Followed ACMC directions - melted to 115F (46C), held for 10 mins, added small pieces seed/tempered chocolate (2 oz) directly to melted chocolate, cooled to 82F (28C) (seed completely melted), held for 10 mins, raised to 89F (32C), held for 10 mins. Tempering failed. My theory: perhaps I didn't add enough seed chocolate as I later read it should be 25% of total chocolate. 2nd attempt: Same as previous but this time added 6 oz of seed chocolate in medium sized chunks. Removed chunks when reached working temp - the removed chunks were 8 oz of chocolate (had melted chocolate stuck on it), so it doesn't seem like much if any seed melted. Tempering failed. 3rd attempt: Tried the Revolation since this worked for me in the past. Revolation melted at 110F (43C), cooled to 86F (30C), I added 4oz seed (only 1/8 oz melted & the rest removed), raised to 89F (32C). Tempering failed again. (The revolation uses preconfigured temps which are not adjustable.) At this point after some research I concluded my problem could be that using the chocolate many times over without tempering it meant I had lots of "bad" crystals that needed to be melted out, so I should use a higher melting temp for longer. (And Greweling recommends melting at 122F/50C.) I also realized I didn't need to do both seed chocolate and the raise-lower-raise temp cycle. 4th attempt: Back to the ACMC. Melted at 120F (49C) for 2+ hours. Dropped temp. Added 6oz seed chocolate when temp dropped to 113F (45C) - medium/small chunks, most added behind baffle and some added directly to melted chocolate. Dropped temp to 89F (32C). Pulled out remaining seed and tested temper right away. Result: Failure again. Chocolate seemed thicker (?). At this point I've started to question whether I am even correct in thinking it's not tempered, but I'm pretty sure it's not. Using the Revolation for years, I always just assumed it was tempered, so I didn't get good experience in learning characteristics of tempered chocolate. And generally it seemed to be tempered, since I could use molds with the Revolation and the shells would release OK. Generally with the Revolation I was starting with tempered/fresh chocolate, whereas in these attempts I'm not. Maybe that makes it more difficult. Here are the symptoms I'm noticing that make me think it's not tempered: 1) If I smear a small blob on a flat surface, it dries very dull and is somewhat soft if I break it. 2) Not drying fast. 3) Not releasing easily from molds - I have to refrigerate/freeze, then whack the heck out of the molds multiple times to get the shells out, breaking half in the process and a bunch don't come out at all. Those that do come out look pretty good though - shiny on the outside and snap well. When dipping centers, works OK but seems thick (centers are chilled though), surface is matte but not horribly dull. So...... any ideas about what I'm doing wrong? I'm grateful for any help you can give. Sorry, I know this is yet another "I can't temper" post, but I've read all the previous ones and still can't figure out my problem. Thank you!!