Rajala
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Posts posted by Rajala
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How do you temper the cocoa butter? 32° seems fairly warm. But with a room at 16-17°, having issues with too liquid butter when it's sprayed in the mould - the cocoa butter can't be tempered correctly.
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This is my saffron bonbon with orange and vanilla marzipan.
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52 minutes ago, Kerry Beal said:
What's the unit you are looking at?
https://www.novasina.ch/labstart-aw/
This one - https://www.novasina.ch/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/005371.00_Spec-Sheet_LabStart_EN.pdf
The distributor thinks this low end version will be enough. I told them I don't need it to be PERFECT. An extra decimal is 800 EUR more.
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Btw, I also have a question. I've been looking at a unit for around 2000 EUR. But how do you even find reviews of these things? It's not like I can go to Amazon and read what people thinks about them.
Like I don't want to put down 2000 EUR without knowing if the units measures well etc.
@Muscadelle I don't know, it's jsut a guess. But I would mos def let it set for a day before measuring it. It should be in the temperature that it will be stored. Different temperatures give different aw readings, so if you measure it just when mixed it will be way hotter than when it would be inside your bonbon.
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On 3/28/2018 at 2:16 AM, VistaGardens said:
I also have a PawKit. Found it on Craigslist for about $500
I know I reply to a post which is super old. But a Pawkit for $500? Wow. Lucky you.
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37 minutes ago, Kerry Beal said:
Were you reading about it in Wybauw?
Above 70º invertase becomes in activated (it's an enzyme, a protein) however I don't believe that invert sugar suffers the same fate. I think there was some confusion.
Yep, that's the one I read it in.
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1 hour ago, curls said:
@Rajalaif tabling is your preferred method, keep doing it and enjoy. If I recall correctly, tabling is also the method that @Chris Hennes prefers.
I like it because I think it's fast. I can be sloppy and get chocolate in strange places, some times - but I also want to learn the other ways so I can understand and help others.
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So I was reading about invert sugar in ganaches. I also read that heating invert sugar above 70° will stop it from helping lowering the AW of the product. What happens above 70°? Does some sugar stuff melt?
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37 minutes ago, Jim D. said:
So you didn't try the seed method? It's so much less messy. Or perhaps you enjoy playing with chocolate? 😄
Not yet! But I will try it also, I want to learn all methods.
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Okay, I did another test an hour ago. Going down to 27,1° before pouring the chocolate back in to my bowl. So it was probably even less than 27°, when reheating. All shells except one contracted from the mold. When everything else fails, listen to Kerry?
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1 hour ago, Jim D. said:
Why not try using seed? Since it rarely (if ever) fails, at least it would restore your confidence. And it's so much less messy than tabling.
Why not? I've never tried that earlier.
What are your pro tips when it comes to seeding?
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Nope. Not the thermometer. But it's still so bizarre. How can I basically forget how to temper chocolate? I have no idea. But I will go for 27° instead. See if it'll work.
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3 minutes ago, Kerry Beal said:
So I would work down to 27 for dark and 25 for milk. Reheat dark to 31 for dark and 30 for milk. As it starts to thicken over time push temps as high as 34.5 for dark, 32.5 for milk.
I'll give it a go if I fail with the other thermometer.
It shows a ,5 difference just when I measure the "air" of the room. That's quite the differene for chocolate. But not sure if it always was like this or not. 3,5 hours left of the work day. Will temper after that.
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6 hours ago, Jim D. said:
Which tempering method are you using?
I melt the chocolate to 50°, pour EVERYTHING on my counter top, work it down to like 28° and then up to 31-32° in the microwave oven. I don't save a third of it or so. I guess this is a bit strange? But it always worked for me.
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37 minutes ago, pastrygirl said:
I like a much cooler kitchen, around 18 C. My tenants are all bundled up and probably hate me but if the chocolate is happy, I'm happy.
I'd say don't rush the un-molding, give everything time to fully crystallize.
I normally handle chocolate at 21-22°. But I got the idea to have it at 20° just to see if I got better results, and I just fail with everything. I tried to mold with Caraïbe minutes ago and it doesn't even set. Someone suggested that maybe my thermometer is off? Might be I hope so, because I can't really understand how I lost the ability to temper chocolate otherwise.
One thing is for sure, I'm going back to the roots with using small pieces of paper just to check if it's tempered and if not? Well, start over.
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Those images look to be the same image. Weird that Chocolate World haven't updated their images for some of the older models yet.
However! Yesterday I tried to temper again, regular room temp at around 21,7°. One single shell contracted from the mold. I'm either losing my mind or the chocolate is messing with me. I'm gonna try with some classic Caraïbe today and see if the result gets better.
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4 minutes ago, ChristysConfections said:
Thanks for that feedback, @Rajala- I get the sense that it’s what I’m looking for in a chocolate. I thought about getting some from Chocosphere, but it looked like it was going to be expensive to ship it to Canada (maybe more so because I wanted it quickly). I’ll explore that option again.
Yeah, It'll probably cost a bit. But if this is your business, maybe it's a worthwhile investment when you realize it's your favorite milk chocolate ever?!
It's weird though, they don't seem to have this chocolate as a bar. It's usually easy to grab a bar to test a variation out.
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2 minutes ago, Muscadelle said:
My advice would be to use less sorbitol (half of it) and make sure your ganache is tempered
I'll try that together with less cream. When I made some calculations, it seems like it's a little bit too much sorbitol.
I'll report back later.
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1 minute ago, Kerry Beal said:
One comment - change one thing at a time as you work to sort this issue. If you change a bunch of things - you'll never discover what the problem is/was!
Haha, good idea. I always try to rush things. And I would believe you would tell me "you can't rush chocolate"?
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Is there anything one can do about the contraction marks? Or or do I have to live with it? A chef once told me; "a cake always have a front and a behind." - I guess you can apply that to bonbons as well then?
I'll try your suggestion. I'll lower it to 14° when I put them in the fridge next time. I'm gonna do a new test soon. This time going down to 27,5° and heating the molds to around 25-26° just as a test.
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3 minutes ago, Jim D. said:
They definitely are not always soft, but don't usually set up as firmly as a dark- or milk-based ganache. I think balancing the ganache is the key. For that I use a formula calculating amount of cocoa butter, fat, water, etc. When I have my Christmas chocolates more under control, I'll run your recipe through it and see what it says. It is based on Melissa Coppel's and Ramon Morato's formulas, but is annoying to the degree that it requires you know amounts of the categories in each product you use, and, as we know, labels often don't provide all that info.
Yeah, I've been working and reading about Morató's formula quite a bit. But I'm more and more thinking that the bonbons should last maximum a month or so (I do don't sell these things), but I do measure AW of any ganache I make to make sure that it's not at 0,9 or so.
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6 minutes ago, Jim D. said:
I read somewhere (probably eG) that overtempered chocolate does not release well from molds. I don't know if that is true, but it might be a clue.
I think it is so that the over tempered chocolate contracts before it hits the mold. And if the chocolate don't contract... We know the story.
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1 hour ago, teonzo said:
I suppose that at this stage you know how to temper chocolate and check if it is tempered or not.
If you are making multiple molds then the answer could be this: you did not stir the bowl after emptying the excess chocolate from the previous molds. After pouring chocolate in the mold it starts crystallizing quicker than when it's in the bowl, mainly due to the drop in temperature becoming in contact with the mold. Then you let it rest for a bit of time before emptying the excess, so it crystallizes even further. Result: the excess chocolate that gets poured back in the bowl has many more crystals than the chocolate that was left in the bowl. If you don't stir it, then with your next ladle you risk picking a part of chocolate that has few crystals (the one that was always left in the bowl) and a part of chocolate that has lots of crystals (the excess that went back in the bowl). Some cavities will be filled with the one with few crystals, these will contract normally; others will be filled with chocolate with lots of crystals, these will not contract much.
The volume contraction is given by the crystallization: the more cocoa butter changes from non-crystallized to crystallized, the more contraction. If you start with chocolate with lots of crystals, then the contraction will be really small.
The one in your last photo has 2 different stages: shiny chocolate (the one which was always in the bowl) that contracted, non-shiny (the one that fell as excess) that contracted really few.
Solution: stir the chocolate in the bowl (just a couple rounds) before each time you pick up a ladle.
Teo
Thanks Teo. I usually never check my chocolate, so I'm thinking that it's not tempered properly now. As I wrote, it's much colder than normal, so maybe I'm off with the temper for some reason here. I just made a new test and went down to 27,5° with my dark chocolate - with much better result. Still 5 of the shells didn't contract successfully. I wish I could figure out why certain shells behave like this. I'm only doing one mold right now, testing things out.What do you guys think about this? That little streak below the spot reflection. It's not a reflection but some kind of mark on the shell. Dirty mold? Something else?
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1 hour ago, teonzo said:
You should switch from 100 g cream to 75 g. If a ratio works for dark chocolate then you can bet it won't work for white.
To rescue the bonbons you can't cap, try spraying chocolate (the one you use for the shells) until you have a barrier thick enough to avoid troubles.
Teo
I'll try with 75 grams. Thanks. I guess it was too long ago I made a white ganache, because I can't remember it being this soft.
Spraying Chocolate: Equipment, Materials, and Techniques
in Pastry & Baking
Posted
There's a difference in spraying with an airbrush though. The amount of color is less than using a brush or whatever. Also, some would argue that you temper the cocoa butter while spraying.