Melanger experimentation

[Kerry Beal]

2 hours ago, keychris said:

Viscosity should decrease as your particle size gets smaller, iirc

Up to a point - once there is more surface area and each particle is surrounded by cocoa butter the viscosity will increase again

 

[Rajala]

Okay. It’s been running for 12 hours or more, and it’s more like a praliné than chocolate. I guess it needs to run even longer, or that I did something wrong.

[Kerry Beal]

How smooth are the particles? If it seems right - take it out - add a bit more cocoa butter and mold it.

 

K

Edited September 15, 2018 by Kerry Beal (log)

[Rajala]

I ran it even longer, not much change in viscosity. The particles are still noticeable, unfortunately. Not sure why. But rather than throwing it away, I'll at least try to make it more fluent by adding more cocoa butter and mould it.

 

This is what I did;

 

Caster sugar and blackcurrant powder, running for around 2 hours in the melanger.

I added the cocoa butter, and let it run for many hours more.  

 

No more steps than that. Any suggestions on what to do to improve before I try again? I don't understand why there would be particles here - when I make a praline I can get it suuuuper smooth. 

[Kerry Beal]

I think the seeds are a problem in a lot of fruits. I think they are the cause of the graininess in a lot of cases.

 

 

Edited September 16, 2018 by Kerry Beal
damn you autocorrect! (log)

[Rajala]

2 minutes ago, Kerry Beal said:

I think the seeds are a problem in a lot of fruits. I think they are the colors of the graininess in a lot of cases.

  

 

 

It's more about texture. The color of the blackcurrant is really dark, so you don't really see anything.

 

Here's a picture of it when it was running;

 

[JoNorvelleWalker]

Kerry may have meant "cause".

 

[Kerry Beal]

1 hour ago, JoNorvelleWalker said:

Kerry may have meant "cause".

 

yup - autocorrect strikes again - I would have spelled it colours

[keychris]

9 hours ago, Kerry Beal said:

yup - autocorrect strikes again - I would have spelled it colours

 

you mean you would have spelled it correctly then huh

[tikidoc]

Maybe the problem is too small of a volume? When there is not a lot of stuff in there, it tends to get caught up on the center part and wheels.

[Kerry Beal]

35 minutes ago, keychris said:

 

you mean you would have spelled it correctly then huh

exactly!

 

[Rajala]

Shouldn't the seeds just turn to "atoms" by the melanger?  

 

However, I added more cocoa butter and managed to get it fluid enough to mould with it. I'll post some pictures when I've filled the mould with a ganache, I'm thinking mango. Very fruity bonbons!

[jrshaul]

This is a bit out of left field, but has anyone tried using a melanger to combine clarified butter and powdered milk to make a smooth product? Something that could be added into other confections or frosting without adding water?

[Tri2Cook]

On ‎9‎/‎20‎/‎2018 at 6:25 PM, jrshaul said:

This is a bit out of left field, but has anyone tried using a melanger to combine clarified butter and powdered milk to make a smooth product? Something that could be added into other confections or frosting without adding water?

Probably way too late to be of any help but I just saw this. Running sugar through it results in a silky smooth powdered sugar sans the cornstarch in most commercial stuff so milk powder should do just as well. Enough heat is generated by the stones to keep the butter melted and flowing. I can't think of any reason why it wouldn't work.

[Tri2Cook]

I recently grabbed some of the PB&Me dark roast peanut butter powder. 100% peanuts with 1.5 grams of fat per 12 grams, so much lower (roughly 1/4) the fat of regular peanut butter. I'd like to use it in a batch of milk chocolate to get a chocolate peanut butter bar. I'm hoping the low fat content will help counteract the softening effect of introducing another fat to the cocoa butter to some degree. My question is, do you think I should replace part of the milk powder with it or add it in addition to the other ingredients? I'm not worried about lowering the final percentage of the chocolate because I'll be starting with a fairly dark milk formula. 

[Kerry Beal]

13 minutes ago, Tri2Cook said:

I recently grabbed some of the PB&Me dark roast peanut butter powder. 100% peanuts with 1.5 grams of fat per 12 grams, so much lower (roughly 1/4) the fat of regular peanut butter. I'd like to use it in a batch of milk chocolate to get a chocolate peanut butter bar. I'm hoping the low fat content will help counteract the softening effect of introducing another fat to the cocoa butter to some degree. My question is, do you think I should replace part of the milk powder with it or add it in addition to the other ingredients? I'm not worried about lowering the final percentage of the chocolate because I'll be starting with a fairly dark milk formula. 

Guess it depends if you are looking at a milk chocolate bar with PB or a darker chocolate bar with PB.

[Tri2Cook]

8 minutes ago, Kerry Beal said:

Guess it depends if you are looking at a milk chocolate bar with PB or a darker chocolate bar with PB.

Leaning towards a milk bar for this round. I'm not at all concerned about a high (even for milk) final percentage in this case. I want the PB to shine through. Was thinking about starting with maybe a 40 - 45% milk formula and then adding the PB powder. Not really sure where to start with the PB powder so I was just going to start with what I think would probably not be enough and work my way up.

Edit: I'm also considering giving the fruit bar formula a try using the PB powder instead just to see if a PB bar sans chocolate works.

Edited November 15, 2018 by Tri2Cook (log)

[Kerry Beal]

16 minutes ago, Tri2Cook said:

Leaning towards a milk bar for this round. I'm not at all concerned about a high (even for milk) final percentage in this case. I want the PB to shine through. Was thinking about starting with maybe a 40 - 45% milk formula and then adding the PB powder. Not really sure where to start with the PB powder so I was just going to start with what I think would probably not be enough and work my way up.

Edit: I'm also considering giving the fruit bar formula a try using the PB powder instead just to see if a PB bar sans chocolate works.

 

Sounds sensible to me.

[Tri2Cook]

9 minutes ago, Kerry Beal said:

Sounds sensible to me.

Thanks. I think what brought on the hesitation and pushed me to ask here before starting is the worry of ending up with something overly soft (thinking about the meltaway formulas). The much lower fat content should help (I think) but I wondered if eliminating even more non-chocolate/cocoa butter content by replacing milk powder instead of in addition to the milk powder might help even more with keeping things snappy. One way to find out, I suppose... 

[Kerry Beal]

3 minutes ago, Tri2Cook said:

Thanks. I think what brought on the hesitation and pushed me to ask here before starting is the worry of ending up with something overly soft (thinking about the meltaway formulas). The much lower fat content should help (I think) but I wondered if eliminating even more non-chocolate/cocoa butter content by replacing milk powder instead of in addition to the milk powder might help even more with keeping things snappy. One way to find out, I suppose... 

YUP!

[pastrygirl]

3 hours ago, Tri2Cook said:

Edit: I'm also considering giving the fruit bar formula a try using the PB powder instead just to see if a PB bar sans chocolate works.

 

 

Should work, Valrhona has their Almond Inspiration, ingredients are sugar, ground almonds, cocoa butter & soy lecithin

[Tri2Cook]

On ‎11‎/‎15‎/‎2018 at 4:28 PM, Kerry Beal said:

Guess it depends if you are looking at a milk chocolate bar with PB or a darker chocolate bar with PB.

So this question got me reconsidering my original plan. I tossed 400 grams cocoa nibs and 200 grams melted cocoa butter in the machine yesterday. I let it run for a few hours then tossed in 400 grams sugar to end up with a basic 60% dark. Later today I'm going to start adding the PB powder and some salt until I'm happy with the result. Hopefully I'll remember to weight each addition so I have a record for next time... 

[pastrygirl]

1 hour ago, Tri2Cook said:

So this question got me reconsidering my original plan. I tossed 400 grams cocoa nibs and 200 grams melted cocoa butter in the machine yesterday. I let it run for a few hours then tossed in 400 grams sugar to end up with a basic 60% dark. Later today I'm going to start adding the PB powder and some salt until I'm happy with the result. Hopefully I'll remember to weight each addition so I have a record for next time... 

 

Is it customary to add that much CB for a basic dark chocolate, or is that only because you'll be adding dry matter later?

[Tri2Cook]

44 minutes ago, pastrygirl said:

 

Is it customary to add that much CB for a basic dark chocolate, or is that only because you'll be adding dry matter later?

I have no idea what's customary, I'm making about 75% of what I do up as I go. It's semi-educated guessing based on what information I've been able to dig up but quite often just guessing. But to answer your question, yes, I went with a higher proportion of cocoa butter to hopefully help counteract anything the PB powder may do to the final texture.

[Tri2Cook]

Out of the machine at 53% (ok, actually 52.6%). Looks like a milk but there's no dairy of any type in it, just nibs, CB, sugar, salt and the PB powder. I had to up the cocoa butter even more to solve viscosity issues after introducing the PB powder. It was going to be pretty difficult to mold as was, too thick even at well above normal working temps. Considered working in some lecithin but decided to stick with CB this round. Kinda hard to tell how the flavor will end up with it still hot right out of the machine. I'm gonna give it a few days rest and then get it tempered and molded and we shall see...