Thinning tempered chocolate for dipping

[six]

Hi folks. I'm quite new to this forum and also chocolate making. Loving every minute of it and finding this forum a god send! I am looking to somehow thin my chocolate a little in order to make my praline easier to dip. I use 60% dark from the Greneda Chocolate Company and it's far too thick to enable me to dip without getting into a righ old mess I've read cocoa butter and possibly veg oil?

Any ideas?

Thanks

Joey

[Mjx]

If your melted/tempered chocolate is that thick, it sounds like it may have seized, in which case adding something isn't going to be the solution. How's the texture?

[Chris Hennes]

I use cocoa butter when I need to thin.

[mostlylana]

Ditto cocoa butter. Don't use veggie oil if you need the chocolate in temper. Adding another fat will make tempering more challenging. It's definitely do-able, but if you're new to it - keep it simple!

[markwightman]

Cocoa butter definitely. I use up to 10% added cocoa butter to thin chocolate for dipping. I always add the cocoa butter before tempering.

-Mark

[Tri2Cook]

If your melted/tempered chocolate is that thick, it sounds like it may have seized, in which case adding something isn't going to be the solution. How's the texture?

If it seized we wouldn't need to make suggestions for making dipping easier/cleaner, we'd need to make suggestions for ways to make it possible to dip at all. Starting with "chuck it and try again".

[Chris Hennes]

Of course the only catch with cocoa butter is that it can actually be a pain to come by in small quantities. Are you working at a commercial scale, or doing home confectionery?

[ChrisZ]

I've seen cocoa butter sold in 50g bars but it's really expensive. If this is for a small, one-off thing at home then you can try just using white chocolate instead - it all depends on the brand and type of chocolate you're using, but as a generalisation white chocolate will have a higher percentage of cocoa butter than dark chocolate - so adding white chocolate will increase the overall percentage of cocoa butter in your mix.

In large scale operations, lecithin is used instead of cocoa butter because it's so much cheaper. A quick google search found this paper, which claimes that .35% lecithin is as effective as adding 8% cocoa butter.

[mostlylana]

Try ebay for small quantities of cocoa butter:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/1-LB-DEODORIZED-COCOA-BUTTER-UNSCENTED-/190413164829?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2c5582511d

I've linked to a deodorized one as the undeodorized will change the flavour of your chocolate.

White chocolate, due to the milk powder present, will not provide thinning. Usually white chocolate is much more viscous than dark chocolate.

[Edward J]

In large scale operations, lecithin is used instead of cocoa butter because it's so much cheaper. A quick google search found this paper, which claimes that .35% lecithin is as effective as adding 8% cocoa butter.

What that paper didn't tell you is that adding lecithin in quantities over 1/2 of 1% will make the chocoalate more viscous--thicker. If you read the label on virtually every couverture*, the lecethin is already added in at the factory--should be the second last or last ingredient on the list.

*Some of the really high end ones don't add lecithin, the sales price reflects the lack of it.

[Mjx]

If your melted/tempered chocolate is that thick, it sounds like it may have seized, in which case adding something isn't going to be the solution. How's the texture?

If it seized we wouldn't need to make suggestions for making dipping easier/cleaner, we'd need to make suggestions for ways to make it possible to dip at all. Starting with "chuck it and try again".

That was my point.

[six]

Thanks guys, no it's not seized, just too thick to get a nice thin coating. I will buy some cocoa butter and try that which I can get from HB Ingredients in the UK,

[Tri2Cook]

If your melted/tempered chocolate is that thick, it sounds like it may have seized, in which case adding something isn't going to be the solution. How's the texture?

If it seized we wouldn't need to make suggestions for making dipping easier/cleaner, we'd need to make suggestions for ways to make it possible to dip at all. Starting with "chuck it and try again".

That was my point.

In which case, the fact that dipping was still happening, albeit with unsatisfactory results, was the first clue that it wasn't seized.

[tikidoc]

You can also get cocoa butter in reasonable amounts from most places that sell soap making supplies, although it would be hard to beat that ebay price.

[sigma]

Use mycryo.

[six]

aww a friend of mine gave me some Mycryo today, is it best to add it before you temper the chocolate?

Edited January 29, 2012 by six (log)

[DianaM]

Six, you use Mycryo FOR tempering chocolate. You melt the choc to 40-45, then cool it to 34 Centigrade for dark chocolate. And then you add the mycryo, the quantity should be 1% of the weight of chocolate (10gr mycryo for 1kg choc). Stir, stir, stir. Stir some more. When your chocolate gets to 32 Centigrade, you should have achieved temper.

As for thinning chocolate, I wouldn't dream of spoiling good chocolate with vegetable oil. Always use cocoa butter. The chocolate I use is already fairly fluid, so my usual ratio is 3% cocoa butter of the weight of the chocolate. I always add the cocoa butter when the chocolate is completely melted, at 43-45 Centigrade, and then I can judge pretty accurately if I have achieved the fluidity I wanted. Then I temper as usual by seeding, and use as needed.

Diana

[six]

Thanks Diana, next time I make an order I'll get some cocoa butter and give it a go. I did use some Mycryo last week to temper and it also make the chocolate a bit more fluid and owrked fine. Thanks for all the advice!

Joey

[curls]

I thought Mycryo was cocoa butter just in powdered form. Checked the Callebaut website and it says Mycryo is 100% cocoa butter. So why are people differentiating between cocoa butter and Mycryo?

[gap]

I'm pretty sure they are the same

[Kerry Beal]

The cost of mycryo often differs significantly from plain cocoa butter - but I recall someone here mentioning it was cheaper for them to use mycryo than obtain the plain stuff.

[DianaM]

Curls, you're right, it does come in powder form. I went to the Callebaut website as well, and according to it, Mycryo "is obtained through the cryogenisation of cocoa butter (freezing at very low temperature)." I wouldn't categorize it as cocoa butter, even though it is obtained from it. Maybe we're just having a semantic issue here.

The regular cocoa butter I buy comes in a block, which my supplier breaks into chunks and sells in 1 kilo bags. I've seen it also sold as chips, but have never used those. At my supplier, 1 kilo of regular cocoa butter is circa $18, whereas Mycryo is $17 for 550gr. So the price of Mycryo would be almost double that of the reg cocoa butter per kilo. If you look at the price in MostlyLana's ebay link, the price difference would be even more significant.

I'll ask the good people at Cacao Barry Canada for more info, see what they'll tell me.

[gap]

I think you'll find Mycryo is exactly the same as cocoa butter. You're basically paying for the convenient format it comes in (ie., ready to use straight out the box)

[Edward J]

(....sigh.....)

I'll explain just once more:

Mycro is pure, 100% cocoa butter. It is melted at 50 c and sprayed into a frozen chamber. Basically, it is pure beta 6 crystals. From my suppliers, I can buy deodourized cocoa butter for around $18.00 per kg, mycro costs about $28 for a 1 kg tub, last time I looked.

You can temper with mycro, but you HAVE to hit a very certain temp--34 or 35 I think, before you add 1% of the wieght of the couverture.

I'd rather spend the money on a really good quality couverture.......

[Sebastian]

Mycryo is a very, very expensive way to temper (or add cocoa butter). It's a per-crystallized cocoa butter that acts as a seeding agent (ie labor saving device for those who hand temper). It's 100% cocoa butter that is spray frozen in a cooling chamber to shift the crystallization envelope towards the higher end (much like freeze cone technology does for finished chocolate). As Edward notes, because it's precrystallized, if you add it to chocolate that is too warm, you'll just melt out the crystals and turn the whole thing into pure liquid cocoa butter, negating the reason for using it, so knowing how and when to use it are important. Personally, I'd just use regular good old fashioned cocoa butter and save the 60% mark up.