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18 minutes ago, akonsu said:

Hello,

I temper chocolate manually, by using a method similar to tabling. I melt chocolate in a microwave, then put the bowl with melted chocolate into another bowl with ice and cold water in it to start crystallization, and then I raise the temperature in a microwave again.

 

For the first several minutes after that the chocolate consistency is fine, but then it starts getting thick too fast.

 

I put the chocolate into a microwave for a few seconds every 2 minutes or so, to keep the temperature at the working level, but even though the temperature seems correct, I still get a lot of crystallization, it seems (is this even possible?).

 

I use white baking chocolate from Kroger (it is a grocery store in the US), this is not a couverture chocolate. I even tried adding cocoa butter to it to make it more fluid (before tempering), but the result is the same: this chocolate becomes very thick very fast. White chocolate is supposed to start hardening after a few minutes when it is spread on a surface, right? For me, it is dry to the touch after about a minute. This is too fast, so I cannot get good quality of the surface when I dip, etc. Same result for other brands of baking white chocolate. For dark chocolate this is less of a problem because temperatures are higher, but still...

 

How to manage this? If I melt extra chocolate to the degree when it has no crystals, I can add it to the tempered chocolate (this is what I heard others are doing), how much can I add to keep the mix in temper? I am afraid to add too much...

 

I would appreciate any practical advice, please.

 

konstantin

Can you tell us the temperatures you are working at for the various stages?

And yes you can add warm untempered chocolate to the tempered chocolate to dilute out the crystals - as long as you don't exceed the working temperature.