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

[Kerry Beal]

I think I envisioned it as something (for the part where it simply tempers chocolate) that would bridge between tempering small quantities by hand and the Selmi.  It can also be used to seed a wheel machine before attaching the enrober. 

 

I guess it has changed my habits with the Selmi - this year I didn't bother to fire up the Selmi for my easter production - just seemed like too much trouble to drag it out and clean it afterwards.  

 

I have used it - just as you suggested - with a couple of melters when I need larger quantities for the Luxury Chocolate Show. Removed all the stress associated with tempering at the last minute in a busy venue.

 

Tomorrow, as I mentioned above,  Anna N and I are headed to a charity event - we will take it along to temper white and dark chocolate - then into squeeze bottles to have the participants decorate those honking big truffles and the dipped oreos.  

[Kerry Beal]

I posted a bit on the Valrhona workshop in Chocdoc Goes to France - but not all the details as it wasn't really mine to share.  

 

I'll do some white chocolate tonight to show you.

So did some white chocolate tonight and videoed it - but have absolutely no clue how to edit or upload.  I'll see if I can save a few images to show how well it worked. Nope can't figure it out - will need help.

 

I cooled about 1 kg of white chocolate to 33.5 - added 10 grams of the cocoa butter silk. Tested the temper before and after adding the silk. The test from before the silk was partially melted after about 30 minutes, the post test was in perfect temper. 

 

I went for a thin shell. I was able to unmold the chocolates in about 30 minutes - they were perfectly shiny and fell out of the mold. 

 

Went down to take a couple of pictures - please excuse the bubbles and out of focus!

 

 

[Jim D.]

Kerry,

Thanks for the experiment.  Impressive that the chocolate for that shell was never taken down to anywhere near 29C/84F.  In the particular case of Valrhona Opalys, I have concluded (from many unfortunate episodes with chocolate that refuses to come out of an upside-down mold) that Valrhona's working temperature is too low.  What brand of chocolate were you using in the photos?

 

Since the issue of over-crystallization always comes up with making shells over an extended time, do you have any information on the impact of using the EZtemper silk and keeping the chocolate (I am thinking of white now) at 33.5C/92.3F?  In other words, does it take longer to over-crystallize or is the time about the same?  I can't imagine it would be safe to take the chocolate above 33.5C/92.3F when it starts to thicken.

[Kerry Beal]

I'm using Belcolade - and it was the bottom of a bag that had been open for a while so was a little thicker to work with than I like because it tends to take on moisture.

 

You can hold at 33.5 or a bit lower (I'm sure I mentioned above that I've noticed when you add the seed - temperature tends to drop about 1º C - likely due to latent heat) - it will take longer to over-crystallize - but will still happen.  I'd probably be adding more untempered 33.5 C chocolate when that happens rather than trying to take it higher than 33.5.

 

I'm going to add my notes on the Valrhona tempering to the molded chocolate thread for you.

[Chocolot]

So, a few weeks ago I cleaned out the pan on my enrober. It has been some time since I did this. There was a thick goo of chocolate that I scraped out.

 

Not wanting to waste this, I decided to try to salvage it. I heated it up to over 120F. Stirred and stirred. It was thick, so added  some melted cocoa butter. I got the temp down to 93F, added 1% silk from EZtemper, stirred a few times and poured out. 

 

I am more than happy with the results. Considering the volume (2300 grams) and the latent heat, I thought it turned out great. I can now use it for ganaches. 

I just can't believe what the silk does. I have seen it many times, but I'm always surprised when it actually tempers the chocolate so easily. Thanks Kerry!!!

 

[Alleguede]

Kerry,

Thanks for the experiment.  Impressive that the chocolate for that shell was never taken down to anywhere near 29C/84F.  In the particular case of Valrhona Opalys, I have concluded (from many unfortunate episodes with chocolate that refuses to come out of an upside-down mold) that Valrhona's working temperature is too low.  What brand of chocolate were you using in the photos?

 

Since the issue of over-crystallization always comes up with making shells over an extended time, do you have any information on the impact of using the EZtemper silk and keeping the chocolate (I am thinking of white now) at 33.5C/92.3F?  In other words, does it take longer to over-crystallize or is the time about the same?  I can't imagine it would be safe to take the chocolate above 33.5C/92.3F when it starts to thicken.

Jim D

The opalys white chocolate is not the thinnest in his kind especially to mold bonbons.

The EZ temper s process is to keep at the perfect temperature crystallized cacao butter. As the crystals in chocolate need temperature curve to be melted and created and ... The eztemper gets that done and well done

[pastrygirl]

Couple more questions to understand how this changes production.  Do you still have to melt your chocolate to 120f then cool it before adding the silk, or do you just melt it to 95f?  Once the chocolate is tempered, does it behave the same as if you seeded it by hand and there is a few degree range where it is tempered and workable?  It sounds like the working temp is higher, but is there the same few degree range?  Currently I seed and temper by hand with either a 6kg melter or a bowl and bain marie.  I keep an eye on the temp and warm it up with a hair dryer if it cools off or starts to thicken.  Not doing all that stirring and waiting sounds fantastic, but will I have to re-learn how my couvertures act?  Or is it really just that easy? 

[Chocolot]

Couple more questions to understand how this changes production.  Do you still have to melt your chocolate to 120f then cool it before adding the silk, or do you just melt it to 95f?  Once the chocolate is tempered, does it behave the same as if you seeded it by hand and there is a few degree range where it is tempered and workable?  It sounds like the working temp is higher, but is there the same few degree range?  Currently I seed and temper by hand with either a 6kg melter or a bowl and bain marie.  I keep an eye on the temp and warm it up with a hair dryer if it cools off or starts to thicken.  Not doing all that stirring and waiting sounds fantastic, but will I have to re-learn how my couvertures act?  Or is it really just that easy? 

 

It is really just that easy. Every time I use it, I get ready for a fail. Just the pessimist in me, I guess. It just seems so unbelievably easy!! You still need to melt out any bad crystals, but then you can walk away and wait for the temp to drop. Since you are working a few degrees above the "normal" temps, you have that much more time to work with the chocolate. You will still have to warm it up occasionally, but it seems to last longer. I think Kerry suggests you add more warm, untempered chocolate to warm it up. With the ugly mess I played with yesterday, (above) I really thought I would have some problems. Nope, just followed the same plan. Just stirred in the silk, waited a minute and poured into the pan. Easy!!

[Kerry Beal]

You still have to melt and cool - but only cool to the higher temperature (it still works fine if you just melt to 33.5 and add it - but it will over temper more quickly).

 

The range you can work in for milk and white is greater - so essentially 33.5 down to whatever you would normally allow - and you can heat it up again as you currently do with the hairdryer when it starts to thicken. And you can heat back up to 33.5.

 

Oops - thought I'd posted this reply yesterday - must have forgotten to hit post.

Edited June 5, 2015 by Kerry Beal (log)

[pastrygirl]

Thanks, Ruth and Kerry.  Hard to believe its just that easy!  I can't afford any more toys right now, but knowing this is out there is going to make me resent all the time I spend stirring and seeding.  Oh well. 

 

Meanwhile, I propose we re-christen Kerry as  the Chocolate Witch Doctor for coming up with this voodoo magic.

[Kerry Beal]

Oh - I like that!  Much better than nicknames I've had in the past!  

[Kerry Beal]

Finally figured out how to edit the video (sort of - I've clearly got a long way to go) and now I'm going to see if I can figure out how to put it up here for Jim to see how I tempered the white chocolate.

Edited June 6, 2015 by Smithy
Member request (log)

[Jim D.]

Many thanks for making that video, Kerry.  It makes the process very clear.  You could probably use this on the EZtemper website (an idea that has undoubtedly already occurred to you).

 

Jim

[Gingersnap]

 

Tomorrow, as I mentioned above,  Anna N and I are headed to a charity event - we will take it along to temper white and dark chocolate - then into squeeze bottles to have the participants decorate those honking big truffles and the dipped oreos.  

 

When you took it to a different location, how did that work?    

[Kerry Beal]

When you took it to a different location, how did that work?    

I have a little inverter for the car - just plug it in to that so it continues to work while I'm driving, then plug it in when I get where I'm going.   

[Chocolot]

I have a little inverter for the car - just plug it in to that so it continues to work while I'm driving, then plug it in when I get where I'm going.   

 

Where can I get an inverter for the car?

[ChocoMom]

Excellent video, Kerry!   I've moved the EZ temper to the top of my Wish List, after watching that. :+)

 

And, I second the revision in your nickname... your creation is magical indeed!!!

[Kerry Beal]

Where can I get an inverter for the car?

The one I use is a Kensington - this one.

 

Crisis I'm faced with today is powering the unit at an upcoming trade show where I thought I'd have power - but now it appears I may not. I have a little Cobra Jumpack - but it's 14V output - so I'm not sure that would be wise to use with it. I'm looking at some 12 V power packs to see if they would work for me.

[Kerry Beal]

Finally managed to get another video edited - making ganache with EZtemper. Now have a new camera battery and a larger memory card! Camera kept cutting out in the middle of things.

Edited June 14, 2015 by Smithy
Member request (log)

[Kerry Beal]

Well the 12 V power source I purchased didn't have the oomph required to power the unit - and the little Kensington inverter was also under powered. Thank god for hubbies with voltmeters - here's the cludge that works - not elegant - but functional. And when the 14V power supply is running down the inverter chirps to let you know. Just testing the number of hours I can get with a full charge.

 

[Kerry Beal]

Experiments in using chocolate instead of cocoa butter as seed continue - I haven't gotten my hands on a temper meter yet - so I'm just looking at the things I normally do to determine good temper.

 

 

This is a chunk of bean to bar chocolate I was sent to play with.

 

 

I melted some of the bean to bar - added EZtemper silk, poured it out overnight, broke it up and put it back in the EZtemper unit. 

 

 

Some I simply added to a container and put in the unit.  

 

 

I had around 1 kg of badly out of temper chocolate sitting around - so melted to around 45 C then cooled to 33.5. I split this into 3 bowls with 300 grams each. Added 3 grams of cocoa butter silk to one, 7 grams each of the bean to bar 'seeds'.

 

 

This is the addition of the bean to bar version that had been tempered, cooled and put back in the EZtemper.

 

 

On left - cocoa butter silk, in the middle tempered bean to bar, on the right - untempered bean to bar.  The two bean to bar were very difficult to mix - quite lumpy after adding the seed. 

 

 

After pouring out - smooth with silk, lumpy with bean to bar.

 

 

After a few minutes in the fridge.

 

 

Clean snap with the silk, a little less snap with the tempered bean to bar, less yet with the untempered bean to bar.

 

 

Minimal marking rubbing with finger with silk.

 

 

More marking with tempered bean to bar.

 

 

Most marking with untempered bean to bar - picture doesn't show it well though.

 

 

Take away message - cocoa butter is the best option to get great temper - you can use bean to bar - but it will not mix in well. You can get a bit of improvement by tempering some of the bean to bar and using that as your seed - but it is still firmer and difficult to mix in. 

 

One thing I might try next with the bean to bar seed is carefully heating after seeding or immersion blending to get rid of the lumps and see if that disperses the seed better.

 

 

[JeanneCake]

Sigh.  now i'm annoyed with myself for missing the promotion; your test about the minimal marking made me think of my dipped holiday cookies.  I'm not a chocolatier or confectioner so I don't want to temper a little bit of chocolate just to dip a pop or what-have-you so  I'm using pate a glace, but it marks and looks bad and I just live with it.  This shows I don't have to; when we are doing hundreds of cookies this will more than pay for itself.

[Kerry Beal]

New issue being worked through. Old cocoa butter suffers from transformation of form V to form VI. So I've had a couple of folks who have put old cocoa butter in the unit and ended up with lumpy (and not particularly silky) silk after 12 hours. Increasing the temperature by 0.1 or 0.2 still leaves you with a silky background with lots of little crystalline lumps in it.

 

The first person who had this issue simply melted some additional old cocoa butter, cooled to 33.5 C, seeded with the rather lumpy silk and ended up with cocoa butter he was then able to put in the unit and produce silk that was silky as it should be and functions as it should when tempering.

 

I spoke with another individual who was actually using the same cocoa butter as the first person - explained what had been done and suggested he try it. Unfortunately he added the not very silky silk at 35º C so melted out all his form V and form VI crystals. He cooled the cocoa butter back to room temperature, then placed it back in the unit. The silk he produced was wonderfully silky but didn't temper his bean to bar chocolate (given the temperatures used he probably has cocoa butter silk that now contains predominately form IV crystals). He now needs to let his cocoa butter sit for a week or so in order for the form IV crystals to transform to form V which they will do.

 

So I've been playing around this morning to confirm that I can short circuit this wait time by seeding my melted cocoa butter with the EZtemper silk and be able to use it in 12 hours or so.

 

 

 

Just happened so have some 'older' cocoa butter in the unit - best before date on the bag 2013 - you can see it's lumpy with little pockets of form VI crystals.

 

 

Melted it to around 45C. 

 

 

Cooled to 33.5C - added around 2% or so of silk made from cocoa butter best before date of 2016.

 

 

Poured some into a container, cooled to room temperature and placed back in the EZtemper.

 

 

Made some little plaques with some.

 

 

A slightly bigger bar with the rest.

 

The plaques and bar were cooled in the fridge for 10 minutes or so and fell right out of the mold. 

 

Later this evening I will take the rehabilitated cocoa butter that is in the EZtemper and confirm that it works as it should to temper.

 

 

[Kerry Beal]

I realized that my child's last day at school is Tuesday and that I have no goodies prepared for the dozen or so teachers, educational assistants and volunteers who help in her classroom.

 

When I was making the video of making and cutting the ganache I had some camera issues (battery now replaced and larger memory card in there) and had to make the ganache over a couple of times because I thought I had recorded video that I didn't. So I had a couple of slabs of tasty ganache sitting around to use.

 

 

Melted around 1 kg of chocolate that has seen better days (a combination of various dark chocolates used for various projects, some of which spent way too long forgotten in the fridge and suffered from sugar bloom due to condensation), cooled to 33.5º C, added 10 grams of silk to temper it and started dipping.

 

 

 

These were dipped first - chocolate was still around 33º C, topped with the transfers, and placed in the fridge for a few minutes after the whole tray was dipped.  At about 30 minutes after I started dipping them I was able to remove the transfers and because the chocolate was warm when I dipped and it fully crystallizes so quickly with the EZtemper silk the transfers all worked. In the past I would wait overnight before removing the transfers to allow the chocolate to fully crystallize and ensure the pattern would transfer.

 

 

Playing with gold in alcohol I discovered that one of my little whisks makes and interesting pattern on the surface.

 

 

Twelve boxes of chocolates ready to go to school on Monday.  

[Kerry Beal]

 

Rehabilitated cocoa butter after 12 hours.

 

 

After 24 hours.

 

 

On the right 300 grams of chocolate tempered with 3 grams of rehabilitated cocoa butter, on the left with regular old EZtemper silk.  This is about half an hour after introducing the silk, and a few minutes in the fridge. It still feels a bit warm - but snaps cleanly and resists marking.