EZtemper - The Help You Need to Achieve Perfectly Tempered Chocolate FAST!

[JoNorvelleWalker]

@Tri2Cook thanks for your kind words.  I hope your confidence in my skills is not misplaced.  I can't promise but I hope to try a batch of nibs before the weather warms.

 

[Tri2Cook]

9 hours ago, Kerry Beal said:

He’s coming to Toronto in early April - contact him as ask him to bring and we’ll ship up to you.

Then I'll definitely have to get an order together soon. The temptation to order from the other site came from wanting, even though I'm a bit behind the curve on it, to try the Peru Ucayali River nibs. But Bhavhani has enough variety to keep me entertained. 

[Avachocolate]

22 hours ago, akonsu said:

@pastrygirlthank you very much, I missed that information. It says that on the eztemper web site as well. Not that I am arguing, I am only trying to understand: is this essential to keep the silk soft? Why not make a powder from it when it solidifies, like Mycryo?

@akonsu....yes, you can make silk with a sousvide circulator, I have done it successfully...either keep it soft (somewhat inconvenient due to the floppy nature of the sousvide bags) or shave it with a microplane (which basically ends up being Mycryo anyway....so just buy the Mycryo)

Having said that it is definitely much easier to use the EZtemper, and I agree with Kerry about the electrostatic issues with the shaved "silk".

I use Mycryo in my everyday tempering for chocolate production...it can have some melting or clumping issues but with enough practice you can get around that...I make molded bonbons all the time and don't have any problems with them at all.

But for convenience sake I will most likely switch to the EZtemper sometimes this year as I have used it before and like it a lot.

 

[YetiChocolates]

Anybody else see this before? This is cocoa butter I have thrown in “as is” into the EZ Temper overnight @ 33.4 degrees. Sign of junk cocoa butter?

[Kerry Beal]

Am I seeing what I think? Little chunks of crystals? That's old cocoa butter with form VI conversion. I've had it confirmed at the University of Guelph. 

 

You can try melting it out - take it up to around 60º C. Place in a scrupulously clean container, let cool and harden at room temperature before putting back in the machine. If you have some good silk - you can seed it when it cools to around 33.5. I've had some that was too far gone and there was nothing I could do to save it. 

[YetiChocolates]

12 hours ago, Kerry Beal said:

Am I seeing what I think? Little chunks of crystals? That's old cocoa butter with form VI conversion. I've had it confirmed at the University of Guelph. 

 

You can try melting it out - take it up to around 60º C. Place in a scrupulously clean container, let cool and harden at room temperature before putting back in the machine. If you have some good silk - you can seed it when it cools to around 33.5. I've had some that was too far gone and there was nothing I could do to save it. 

 

Yes, little chunks of crystals. Thanks for the info  @Kerry Beal, I’ll try heating it up to 60 and see if I can melt them out. 🤞🏼

 

Since we’re sort of on the topic, anyone have a good supplier for cocoa butter? I got this batch from Divine Specialties based in CA, and the price was nice, but obviously the results are less than optimal. I’ve used Cacao Barry in the past but all the suppliers I can get it from are expensive. Thoughts? Other options besides Cacao Barry that are decent?

[Kerry Beal]

I've been getting Shokinag in 10 kg boxes from my supplier who also gets me Belcolade in 4 kg bags - either of those are great (but not sure where you get in the states). Puratos handles Belcolade in the US.

[YetiChocolates]

1 hour ago, Kerry Beal said:

I've been getting Shokinag in 10 kg boxes from my supplier who also gets me Belcolade in 4 kg bags - either of those are great (but not sure where you get in the states). Puratos handles Belcolade in the US.

 

Thanks for the info Kerry, I’ll look into Puratos

[JoNorvelleWalker]

Not sure it helps but I buy organic cocoa butter from nuts.com.

 

[YetiChocolates]

34 minutes ago, JoNorvelleWalker said:

Not sure it helps but I buy organic cocoa butter from nuts.com.

 

 

Do you use it in the EZ Temper? 

[JoNorvelleWalker]

17 minutes ago, YetiChocolates said:

 

Do you use it in the EZ Temper? 

 

I might if I had an EZ Temper.

 

[YetiChocolates]

3 minutes ago, JoNorvelleWalker said:

 

I might if I had an EZ Temper.

 

 

Gotcha, I'll have to get some and give it a try, thanks for the info!

[Tri2Cook]

4 hours ago, YetiChocolates said:

Since we’re sort of on the topic, anyone have a good supplier for cocoa butter?

Kerry was my good supplier of my last cocoa butter purchase but I think that was a one-time thing where she found a good deal and offered it to anybody interested, not something she does on a regular basis. Other than that, I get it from chocolat-chocolat.

[YetiChocolates]

8 minutes ago, Tri2Cook said:

Kerry was my good supplier of my last cocoa butter purchase but I think that was a one-time thing where she found a good deal and offered it to anybody interested, not something she does on a regular basis. Other than that, I get it from chocolat-chocolat.

 

If only I was closer to Kerry 😉

 

And if only I lived in Canada I would order it from chocolat-chocolat, but since they cannot import chocolate (which I'm assuming cocoa butter falls into that category) I'm SOL on that option.

 

I ended up getting an order of Cacao Barry from Divine Specialities, mainly because they offer free shipping on orders over $99, so I got 2 3kg buckets, which will hopefully last a little while.  Doing a price comparison with all the suppliers I can get it from it was the most reasonable since I want it sooner rather than later.  

[Pastrypastmidnight]

On 3/8/2019 at 5:57 PM, YetiChocolates said:

Anybody else see this before? This is cocoa butter I have thrown in “as is” into the EZ Temper overnight @ 33.4 degrees. Sign of junk cocoa butter?

I got some Cocoa Noel butter like that. I upped my machine all the way to 33.9 and it was still lumpy. I had to melt it all the way out, let it solidify, then keep my machine at 33.7. I think it must have been a little old and formed type 6 crystals. I freaked out when I got my Cacao Barry cocoa butter because at 33.7 it melted almost completely. I lowered it one tenth of a degree at a time and found 33.5 is perfect. 

[Jim D.]

On 3/9/2019 at 2:43 PM, YetiChocolates said:

And if only I lived in Canada I would order it from chocolat-chocolat, but since they cannot import chocolate (which I'm assuming cocoa butter falls into that category) I'm SOL on that option.

 

I am not clear on the meaning. Are you saying Chocolat Chocolat cannot ship chocolate to the U.S.?  I ask because I just received a bag of Callebaut Gold from them, a product I wanted to try for a Savour recipe (it was more expensive from the one U.S. source I could find).

[YetiChocolates]

40 minutes ago, Jim D. said:

I am not clear on the meaning. Are you saying Chocolat Chocolat cannot ship chocolate to the U.S.?  I ask because I just received a bag of Callebaut Gold from them, a product I wanted to try for a Savour recipe (it was more expensive from the one U.S. source I could find).

 

Last year before the Niagara workshop I ordered a bunch of Zephyr and then brought it back across the border myself because on their website it said you could not order chocolate outside of Canada. Maybe they have since changed their policy?

[pastrygirl]

6 hours ago, Jim D. said:

I am not clear on the meaning. Are you saying Chocolat Chocolat cannot ship chocolate to the U.S.?  I ask because I just received a bag of Callebaut Gold from them, a product I wanted to try for a Savour recipe (it was more expensive from the one U.S. source I could find).

 

5 hours ago, YetiChocolates said:

 

Last year before the Niagara workshop I ordered a bunch of Zephyr and then brought it back across the border myself because on their website it said you could not order chocolate outside of Canada. Maybe they have since changed their policy?

 

Most of their chocolate says 'canada only', but I have bought cocoa butter through them 🤔

[akonsu]

Hello everyone, I have one more question about using EZtemper. (sorry, keep returning to this subject...) As I understand, tempering with silk (that EZtemper makes) is the same as tempering by inoculation (seeding) with callets, is this correct? In the below valrhona video he says that seeding produces temper which is unstable in the machine. Does this mean that the chocolate goes out of temper just by itself in the machine? Why does it happen only in a machine? Does anyone know what he is talking about? And the main question is, if so, then does this mean that I should use EZtemper mostly for tempering decorations and not for tempering chocolate that I use for covering or for making shells? Not that I have a machine though... I realize that people most likely use EZtemper for all sorts of purposes, not only for decorations, but my question is mostly a theoretical one: is tempering with the EZtemper product (silk) less reliable than tabling?

 

konstantin

 

 

 

[ptw1953]

Hi Konstantin,

other with more experience than I will answer your overall question but I can assure you that EVERYTHING I make is done using the EZTemper;  bars of chocolate, moulded chocolates, easter eggs, hand-dipped chocolates etc, etc etc. Ad infinitum...

 

The silk produced by the EZTemper is the bees knees.

 

 

 

[Kerry Beal]

I’m not quite sure why he says that seeding isn’t stable in a machine - By extension he seems to be suggesting that tabled chocolate is stable in a machine -  which isn’t the case in some types of machines. Certain automatic tempering machines are constantly taking the chocolate in and out of temper in order to keep it less viscous over time. They use cooling and then reheating methods to temper the chocolate in the first place, and then shear the chocolate as it comes out the spout to get form V crystals.

 

Tempering with silk is indeed tempering by seeding - but just adds the perfect amount of the perfect seed vs waiting for your callets to melt out while your chocolate cools.

 

So the bottom line - with your current setup an EZtemper would work for small or large quantities.

[Jim D.]

14 hours ago, pastrygirl said:

Most of their chocolate says 'canada only', but I have bought cocoa butter through them 🤔

 

That's interesting because the Callebaut Gold also says "Canada only," but they shipped it to me without comment.

[Tri2Cook]

4 hours ago, akonsu said:

And the main question is, if so, then does this mean that I should use EZtemper mostly for tempering decorations and not for tempering chocolate that I use for covering or for making shells? 

Nope, it does not mean that. Anything you do with chocolate or cocoa butter that requires tempering will be done more easily via the EZtemper with at least equally good results. The silk from the EZtemper may seed the same way as using callets but there's no waiting for it to melt or fishing out what doesn't melt. It saves time, it's foolproof (unless somebody can convince me otherwise, I've never experienced a tempering failure using it and I've become so confident with it that I quite often don't even bother with a temper check anymore) and you always have silk ready to work with so last minute projects are easy. Having one isn't essential to doing chocolate work (very few of the tools we use are actually essential, the point of having them is they make the job easier or give better results) but I'd argue that, once you have one and start using it on a regular basis, it will become essential to you. You won't want to go back to working without one. 

[YetiChocolates]

2 hours ago, Tri2Cook said:

(unless somebody can convince me otherwise, I've never experienced a tempering failure using it and I've become so confident with it that I quite often don't even bother with a temper check anymore)

 

The only thing I've run into recently is a bad/old batch of cocoa butter that had some form VI crystals forming in it, I heated it up and retempered it with silk, but it still had some leftover form VI crystals in it, so there were times that my chocolate would be in temper and then go out of temper (pretty sure the form VI was the culprit).  I ended up doing was Kerry suggested and heating the cocoa butter up to 60C and melting all the form VI out and then put it in the EZ temper and "Voila" good silk! But other than that I am definitely with you on it being foolproof and not every doing a temper check anymore.  It is quite amazing!

[John DePaula]

So I have some Cacao Barry cocoa butter that has been sitting around for a couple of years.  It looks fine; it smells fine. It has been stored, sealed at cool room temperature. But as I said, it has been sitting around a while.  I placed a portion in my EZtemper and used the factory setting of 33.7 ºC.  After a few days, I got back to checking it. When I stirred it, the consistency is like thick frosting and it seems that there may be a few unmelted grains floating around.  I’ve read that for Cacao Barry, some people are finding that 33.8 ºC works best.  I’ve adjusted the setpoint of the EZtemper up by 0.1 ºC to 33.8 ºC. I’ll check it again in a few hours; however, is that sufficient?  Or do I need to bring the CB up to 60 ºC and allow to set at room-temperature before proceeding? And if I do that, should I start over at the factory setting of 33.7 ºC?