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

[Chocolot]

Todays fun was with old cocoa butter. Kerry got me thinking. I bought 55lb of cocoa butter at a very good price, but it was several years old. It was all in one block and I had to chip off what I needed. I hammered off about 10 lbs

and put it in a black bucket with a lid and paced it outside in the hot sun. Periodically, I poured off what was melted. It was 98F when I started to play.

I cooled down to 93, added 2% EZ temper silk and stirred until 91F. Poured into old jelly jars. After about 5 minutes, put in fridge. Second batch, before I seeded, I poured one jar without any silk. I really didn't think there would be much difference, but as usual, I was wrong. The jar that wasn't seeded, set up, but as you can see, it did not contract away from the jar, and is mottled.

The jars that were seeded with silk, are in beautiful temper and will even slide out of the jar.

My plan is to just put the jar of CB in the EZ temper and leave it for a day or two. I think it will be an easy way to get silk.

Edited June 23, 2015 by Chocolot (log)

[keychris]

... I think I have something wrong with me. That's remarkably sexy

[Kerry Beal]

Ruth - put both jars in there - the one with that's mottled and the one that looks so gorgeous and see if they temper the same or not.

 

My theory - as I mentioned before a few posts ago - is that cocoa butter that is heated above the melting temperature of all the crystal types and allowed to simply cool without seeding - will contain mostly form IV crystals initially, which will give streaky chocolate when used as seed. In a couple of weeks of just sitting - the form IV will transform to form V.

[Chocolot]

Ruth - put both jars in there - the one with that's mottled and the one that looks so gorgeous and see if they temper the same or not.

 

My theory - as I mentioned before a few posts ago - is that cocoa butter that is heated above the melting temperature of all the crystal types and allowed to simply cool without seeding - will contain mostly form IV crystals initially, which will give streaky chocolate when used as seed. In a couple of weeks of just sitting - the form IV will transform to form V.

Do you want me to put them in now, or wait a few weeks?

[Kerry Beal]

I'm thinking both - each kind now to prove that it needs to either be seeded or to sit.

[Chocolot]

Kerry asked me to experiment, so I did. Each sample is from the same block of cocoa butter. The red spatula is from cb that has been in the EZ for several weeks, blue is from tempered cb that I did a few days ago, green is from untempered cb from a few days ago.I poured the cb into glass jars and allowed them to set up. Yesterday, I put a jar of each tempered and non tempered cb in the EZ. Stirred them once last night and again this morning.

I measured the chocolate and put the same amount of silk in each one at the same temp. This only took a few minutes.

Stirred a few times and spread out. 

 

I can't tell any difference between the cb's. Untempered did as well as tempered. Interesting that the spatulas still have areas where the seeded chocolate didn't get. Shows dramatically the difference between tempered and non tempered chocolate. From this very unscientific experiment, I don't think the EZ cares what shape the cocoa butter is in. Tempered or non tempered was the same.

[Kerry Beal]

Interesting - so the fellow who was having trouble with his temper may have simply been due to adding the silk at 35C instead of 33.5C.

[keychris]

If I have 4kg of couverture at 45C, how do I cool that down to working temp without generating crystals? If I just leave it to sit, it will take an hour, surely (I've never tried it!).

[Kerry Beal]

If I have 4kg of couverture at 45C, how do I cool that down to working temp without generating crystals? If I just leave it to sit, it will take an hour, surely (I've never tried it!).

I don't just let it sit - I do some stirring - and with a large quantity I might even put the bowl in the fridge to speed up the cooling. Since you aren't going to take it below 33.5 you aren't generating form IV and lower crystals. Without seeding you aren't going to create enough form V to temper the chocolate. 

[Kerry Beal]

Exciting happenings today with the EZtemper - Alleguede and LukyJess are at the Fine Chocolate Industry Association meeting in NYC to show it off. Reports coming back seem positive! 

[adey73]

Kerry when you were playing with water based ganache, years ago, would you add the 'silk' before the water/oil or after?   

[Kerry Beal]

Kerry when you were playing with water based ganache, years ago, would you add the 'silk' before the water/oil or after?

I'd make the ganache as usual - cool to less than 33.5 and add the silk then.

[Alleguede]

We are home from the FCIA were we presented the EZ temper officially to the public. It was a great success and really interested the artisan, bean to bar as well as journalist from around the U.S.

Interesting discussions are on the way to be able to use the EZ with extracted cacao butter from direct beans.

Many leads to venture through

Ruth : I have a feeling your cacao butter was actually enough crystallized. But in the long run it might transform to form 6.

[Chocolot]

Ruth : I have a feeling your cacao butter was actually enough crystallized. But in the long run it might transform to form 6.

 

Hey Cowboy, The CB was totally melted and then allowed to set up. When it was in the EZ, it was very soft, but worked. What do you think is going on?

[Alleguede]

I think that in the mix you still have enough crystals to allow a decent crystalization. you might have a shorter shelf life then with the the other. 

If you turn off the EZtemper, you will most likely end up with that kind of result. Unless you cool it down faster.

[Kerry Beal]

Adey - this is for you. Water ganache with the EZtemper.

 

 

"water" (which was Amoretti passion fruit syrup, grapeseed oil, cointreau) at 40 C, chocolate at about 30C. 

 

 

 

 

 

Was around 32C when I added the 1% silk.

 

 

On the right - before seed - on the left seeded. It's about the same amount in both cases - you can see more 'stand up' on the left. In about 15 minutes I could 'snap' the ganache on the left and bend the ganache on the right.  

 

 

Dark chocolate seeded with around 1% silk. 

 

 

After about a minute of stirring.

 

 

Made some shells - gave them around 10 minutes in the fridge.

 

Piped in ganache - gave it about 2 minutes in the fridge and it was ready to back off. 

 

 

Less than an hour later I was able to knock out what I had made.

 

 

 

 

 

Excuse the focus.

 

 

[Tri2Cook]

This thing is really impressive. I know you've already heard that from many people with much better chocolate credentials than me but the more I see being done with it, the more impressed I am.

[curls]

Drat, now I see another mold that I like. Was always wondering about that flower / daisy mold. Is it a 10 - 11 gram mold?

[Kerry Beal]

Drat, now I see another mold that I like. Was always wondering about that flower / daisy mold. Is it a 10 - 11 gram mold?

Something in that range I think.

[YetiChocolates]

I would love to go down and check out Ruth's sometime this fall after the season dies down (not here in WYO but everywhere else), but just seeing the results is making me lean towards an EZ temper in lieu of the auto tempering machine I was thinking about getting for the shop (and it would save me around 8k!)  Super impressed Kerry!

[Chocolot]

Willow, you are welcome any time! I have three Savage 50# semi-auto tempering machines and I won't be getting rid of them, but the EZ is really amazing. Tuesday, I had 50 molds to back. I had set my melters to about 5 degrees over ideal to hold over night. Next morning, I thought (wrongly) that if I lowered the temp and turned on the agitation, that by the time I was ready, the chocolate would be in good enough temper to back the shells. I tested and it was not ready. The temp was ok, but the choc was spotty. I opened up my trusty EZ, and not knowing how much chocolate I had in each machines, I guessed. I mixed the silk with some of the chocolate then poured into the machine. I did this for both dark and milk. By the time I had cleaned up the bowls, I retested, and both were perfect!  I backed over 900 pieces in less than an hour. 

 

 

While my photo is less than stellar, you can see that the top one in milk choc is spotty, second one ok. Second set is dark, and you can possibly see that the first one is spotty, but not the next one. These were taken less than 3 minutes after adding silk. I had about 20# of choc in each melter.

 

Come on down and we will get Casino Cassidy and Romina to come play.

[YetiChocolates]

I definitely would like to do that Ruth! Probably won't be until October, as I'm guessing I'll be needed for staffing until then, but would like to take some time off before I leave Jackson and head down, as the trip from Jackson to Ogden is much close then Wenatchee to Ogden.  I think I'd like to get a fancy tempering machine eventually (obviously), but to cut down start up costs initially I think this might do the trick and speed up production time when it comes to ganaches as well, so it's a win win really.  I'll probably start out with melters and then switch over to tempering machines once I start making $$ on the business.

[Chocolot]

Sounds like a good pan. I will be at Disneyland from October 12-19. Other than that time, you will be welcome.

[Kerry Beal]

New experiments are underway! I had a PM from Mark Heim, whom you might remember from our 2015 Chocolate and Confectionery workshop -  suggesting that I test out whether the EZtemper would serve as a the perfect little incubator for keeping already tempered chocolate in perfect condition for instant use when decorating molds, etc. He mentioned that he had seen Joseph Schmidt use an extremely expensive cabinet to do this - and suspects that the EZtemper would provide a low cost alternative.  

 

Unfortunately I haven't brought any 3D molds up north with me - but I'm sure I can come up with a substitute of some sort to test the theory. 

 

Results to follow!

[Kerry Beal]

Had a visit today from Lisabeth of Ultimately Chocolate and she was kind enough to bring a 3D mold for the experiments. So it's Christmas in July!

 

 

 

Dark chocolate, tempered, and placed in EZtemper at 33.8 for a couple of days - before and after stirring.

 

 

 

Ditto - white chocolate. 

 

Both were quite thick to paint with - but that actually was helpful for preventing a lot of painting outside the lines (something I've been guilty of since kindergarden). 

 

 

 

 

First trial with this mold - clearly not a very exciting effect. 

 

 

 

 

Better - but not yet perfect. 

 

 

Need to get a better variety of brushes - can see I didn't get into all the crevices I should have.