Tempering tiny amounts of cocoa butter

[Chris Hennes]

I've got a whole bunch of these tiny (½ oz) jars of colored cocoa butter, and as I discovered last weekend they are badly enough out of temper after all these years that they don't really give me a nice glossy finish, and don't release well from non-dome molds. I'd like to re-temper them, but they are such a small amount I'm not sure what the best way to do it is. I prefer to table chocolate, but I fear these are just too small so the working time will be unmanageably short. I have no usable seed cocoa butter whose temper I am confident in. Any advice?

[pastrygirl]

You obviously need an EZ temper. 

[Chris Hennes]

If @Kerry Beal will send me one for free I'd be happy to use it  Alas, it's not really in my chocolate budget at the moment.

[pastrygirl]

So the issue is you need to create seed.  How about melt, put in fridge til it starts to set around the edges, stir.

 

Do you have any white chocolate that is in reliable temper that you could use for seed? 

[Chris Hennes]

I don't trust the temper on anything I've got in the house: I've been on a multi-year hiatus from making chocolates. With larger amounts of chocolate this is no big deal, I just table it (a process I enjoy immensely anyway, it's like playing in the mud as a kid). But I just don't think I can table such a small quantity, the temperature will change too quickly.

[Goober]

You can temper it with Mycryo. It will still cost you money, but considerably less than a tempering machine.

 

https://www.cacao-barry.com/en-OC/chocolate-recipe/technique/tempering/mycryo

[Lisa Shock]

When I was in culinary school, the chocolate classroom had lots of partial bottles of colored cocoa butter of indeterminate age. The instructors had us just microwave the bottles (without caps) on low, then pour out as much as were going to use (often ¼ tsp or so) onto a silicone mat and just swipe it around, gather, and swipe around again with a small palette knife type spatula. A minute or so of motion always worked for us.

[Kerry Beal]

Have you got a larger amount of plain cocoa butter that you can table to make your seed?

[Chris Hennes]

3 hours ago, Kerry Beal said:

Have you got a larger amount of plain cocoa butter that you can table to make your seed?

Yes - I didn't even think of trying to do it in two steps. Good idea.

[felipetruji]

I'd use the microwave to melt, then a cool water bath to cool (or in the fridge shaking form time to time), and then a quick 5 second microwave boost.

Cooling let some cristals form, just don't let it set, then when you heat again only your good crystals remains

[Tri2Cook]

2 hours ago, felipetruji said:

I'd use the microwave to melt, then a cool water bath to cool (or in the fridge shaking form time to time), and then a quick 5 second microwave boost.

Cooling let some cristals form, just don't let it set, then when you heat again only your good crystals remains

A tiny amount of cocoa butter such as being discussed here isn't going to stay fluid enough to shake after a few seconds or so in a cool water bath or the fridge.