Ganache: Tips, Techniques & Troubleshooting

[emmalish]

I'm going by memory here (which isn't reliable), but I thought Greweling has the cream and the chocolate both at about 30°... no? I've only done this method once, but I thought they were both the same temperature.

[Kerry Beal]

Not sure who's technique I'm following, but I start with tempered chocolate at around 30º C and cream at around 40º C.

When I was in Belcolade in Belgium Stef was teaching us to add part of the callets to the hot cream, and to be sure that it had cooled sufficiently that when you added the last of them and hit it with the immersion blender that there would be tempered chocolate remaining in the mix.

Click here for pictures.

Edited September 30, 2008 by Kerry Beal (log)

[schneich]

thats what the cold technique is about, to NOT lose the stable crystals... one of our patissiers just returned from a chocolate course in france and there it seems to be " a la mode" to add the the cocoa butter in form of mycryo at the very end of emulsifying...

[Desiderio]

I think earlier in this post, there was something about ( I have it copied in my recipes book ) making ganache pouring the melted chocolate into the "not so warm" cream infused etc etc. I remeber when first reading this i tryed it and I was very pleased with the result. Now for some times I have been using Greweling slabbed tecnique and its been working just fine. Today I have tryed the other ganache method and its very easy and I like the texture indeed, very smooth, set up nicely. I will compare with the other slabbed one. I dont have a question I was more sharing my experiments, I feel I need to do some changing for some things, and I though to try other recipes and tecniques, I have been using Schneich spread sheet to modify all my formulas, and I have to say its very nice, Thank you again for sharing that with us

[Shalmanese]

This has never happened to me before so I was wondering if some of you could help me diagnose the problem. I was making a ganache yesterday and it ended up with lumps of chocolate that steadfastly refused to melt. Small clumps of chocolate, maybe about the size of pine nuts stayed solid even after 5 minutes of stirring. When I checked the temperature of the ganache, it was 120F so it was definitely above the melting point of chocolate. The texture of the unmelted pieces was like peanut butter. I ended up fixing the problem by straining out the melted ganache & then going to town with a whisk to break up the clumps. I've never had a problem with ganache before so I'm curious what went wrong.

Here's my procedure:

Chopped up 300 grams of Ghiradelli milk chocolate with a knife

Zapped it for 30 seconds in the microwave, stirred, zapped it for another 30 seconds.

Put 200 grams of cream with orange zest, vanilla & orange liquer in the microwave until it just came to the boil, poured it over the chocolate

Let it stand for a minute or so, then started mixing.

I just finished making a dark chocolate ganache with almost the exact same procedure and it came out fine so I don't know what could have gone wrong.

[JeanneCake]

I make a triple chocolate mousse cake that calls for melting milk chocolate in cream over a bain marie. I've had the same thing happen when I use chocolate that is close to or just beyond the "expiration date" - I've only ever used Callebaut for this because it is all I can get for milk chocolate. The unmelted bits are like peanut butter - if I use a spatula to flatten them, they'll flatten, but they'll never melt. When I use "fresh" chocolate (for want of a better word), it melts completely and evenly.

I actually haven't made this in a while, which means my milk chocolate is going to have that problem because I last bought some for the holiday season last year!

[lorinda]

Like Jeanne, this has only happened to me when I used oldish chocolate, and on those few occasions, it was with white chocolate. Even though the white chocolate was not beyond the use by date, I had had it for a while. Now I store white chocolate in the freezer or fridge, and it hasn't happened since.

[gap]

Maybe a bit of water got in the ganache? A just-washed spatula or something similar?

[Lior]

It could have been that moisture got into the chocolate and the sugar formed crystals and then it gets just like that. I seems like these sugar crystals also have some cb fat or milkfat mixed in with them perhaps. They seem to melt when you squish them between your fingers, but not when you mix.

[Shalmanese]

I make a triple chocolate mousse cake that calls for melting milk chocolate in cream over a bain marie. I've had the same thing happen when I use chocolate that is close to or just beyond the "expiration date" - I've only ever used Callebaut for this because it is all I can get for milk chocolate. The unmelted bits are like peanut butter - if I use a spatula to flatten them, they'll flatten, but they'll never melt. When I use "fresh" chocolate (for want of a better word), it melts completely and evenly.

I actually haven't made this in a while, which means my milk chocolate is going to have that problem because I last bought some for the holiday season last year!

Ah, that's exactly what it is. This chocolate is at least 2 years old at this point. I was always told that chocolate might bloom but it never "goes bad". I guess that only applies to eating, not baking. Curiously, the dark chocolate has been exactly as old and it never had a problem. Is it something to do with milk chocolate?

[lebowits]

It is possible that you are "scalding" the chocolate by warming it in the microwave for 30 seconds at a time. Depending upon the power of your microwave, you could be burning some of the sugar in the chocolate which will cause small bits of burned sugar to "appear" throughout the mass. Try heating the chocolate more slowly. My rule of thumb is no more than 10 - 15 seconds at a time, stir, and then hit it again. Repeat the process until you have a smooth melted mass.

I learned this the hard way, admittedly with white chocolate, but it took me forever to figure out what the little bits that would melt really were.

[Kerry Beal]

It is possible that you are "scalding" the chocolate by warming it in the microwave for 30 seconds at a time. Depending upon the power of your microwave, you could be burning some of the sugar in the chocolate which will cause small bits of burned sugar to "appear" throughout the mass. Try heating the chocolate more slowly. My rule of thumb is no more than 10 - 15 seconds at a time, stir, and then hit it again. Repeat the process until you have a smooth melted mass.

I learned this the hard way, admittedly with white chocolate, but it took me forever to figure out what the little bits that would melt really were.

Might be interesting to chop the chocolate and pour the hot cream over without melting it first and see if the lumps are an issue.

Re the old chocolate, the milk components and lower amounts of antioxidants contribute to the shelf life of milk and white chocolate being much shorter than dark.

[ejw50]

I've had this happen too. If I have to leave it

melting for a lot longer, and it'll eventually melt.

then I use newer chocolate to seed.

Edited November 27, 2009 by ejw50 (log)

[tammylc]

120F is well above the ideal point of milk chocolate, so I vote for the burning theory.

[pringle007]

I agree with the above... I would say it might have something to do with scorching. Given that white chocolate is the most suseptible to this idea, that might explain why so many egullers have had the problem with white chocolate. Ive used chocolate two and three years old for practice in showpiece work and when trying to do new designs with colored cocoa butter and Ive never had a melting problem as described, so I tend to think the age of the chocolate is less of a factor than the 120 degrees. Why not bring your cream mixture to a boil and pour that over the chopped chocolate like Kerry suggests. Thats how I always make ganache, and by letting the hot cream sit on the chocolate for a few minutes before stirring, you'll find all the chocolate melts without the threat of scourching.

[Lisa Shock]

Microwaves often heat things unevenly, and if you are getting a temp in one spot of 120° I suspect that you've got much higher temperature points in various small spots in your bowl. I wouldn't microwave any chocolate to a temp over 110° just to be safe. (if you are microwaving it, which I would not recommend for ganache-making)

The ideal melt temp is between 104° and 113° for all chocolate. I don't like getting dark chocolate over 118°, and of course, it burns at/above 120. With white or milk chocolate you have milk solids which scorch easily and can coagulate into weird protein lumps just prior to scorching, so you generally don't want a temp over 115° -and closer to 110° is safest. Since you temped milk chocolate at 120° I can pretty definitively say that it was scorched.

Also, the usual procedure is to chop the chocolate and simply pour the hot cream over it. Heating both items may have added to your overheating issues.

[Shalmanese]

How is pouring 212F cream over chocolate any better than microwaving it to 120F?

[nicolekaplan]

1. pre-melting the chocolate is only neccessary when the ration of cream to chocolate is very low and it won't do the job alone.

2. the problems with melting chocolate in the microwave are: 1.it melts from the inside out so if you don't stop and stir after a short heat period the chocolate may appear to have not melted but actually will be burnt solid on the outside and melted on the inside. 2.microwaves are all totally different so 20 seconds in mine may be no where close to 20 seconds in yours. 3. the heat is not consistent and it may cook differently on different sides although a turn table should do the trick with this.

all this being said, the microwave is my favorite way to melt chocolate, it's neat, clean and avoids adding any moisture to the product. just proceed slowly and stir in between every heat period of approx 20 seconds or so.

[Lisa Shock]

How is pouring 212F cream over chocolate any better than microwaving it to 120F?

As I stated, milk chocolate scorches at 115°, so microwaving it dry to 120° is burning it -even if you are 100% certain that you have no hotspots. Even dark chocolate starts to burn at 120°. People melting chocolate to temper it, etc. shoot for temps of 104° to 113°.

But, you don't melt the chocolate for a ganache unless you are adding a really, really super-small amount of liquid.

The chocolate chunks are presumed to be at room temperature, which for candymaking is 72° or a bit cooler. The chocolate is usually in amounts equal to or greater than the cream.

The bowl is also at room temperature and serves as a considerably large heat sink. If it's a metal bowl, it conducts some of the cream's heat to the air and the table surface.

The cream cools fairly quickly as it is poured, and continues to cool as it sits during the waiting period in ganache making.

The chocolate chunks contain a lot of cocoa butter which is a fat. Fat is an insulator. It takes several minutes for the chocolate to get to the melting point because of the insulative qualities of the fat.

Hot cream poured on the exterior of chocolate is a much gentler type of heating than exciting individual molecules from the inside-out.

[merlicky]

In my experience there are two ways to end up with lumps of chocolate that won’t melt. The first is to get liquid in the chocolate. The second is to overcook the chocolate. However, I have never had a problem getting either of these to emulsify in a ganache.

If you have ever made caramelized white chocolate (the chocolate is heated to 200°-250°F) you would see the chocolate go through a phase where it is very chunky and grainy. However, with a bit of stirring and cooling these lumps go away. Also, I’ve typically noticed that overcooking causes grainy lumps as opposed to mushy lumps in the chocolate.

The mushy lumps I’ve run into typically are from water getting into the chocolate. The water ends up binding the solid particles together and you get that peanut butter consistency you described. However, when more liquid is added to make a ganache you can typically get these clumps to breakup and emulsify…though you might need to use an emersion blender to do the trick.

Bloom should not have this affect. The bloom is either the sugar crystals or the fat crystals being pushed to the surface. If it is left this way for too long the crystals on the surface can pick up off-flavors, however once melted they will reincorporate into the chocolate. So, the worst you could end up with is some not-so-nice flavor profiles.

[pastrygirl]

I made a batch of ganache (greweling's liqueur cream ganache with honey instead of glucose) on Tuesday and left it out at room temperature overnight. Wednesday when I wanted to scoop it there was a bit of fat bloom on the top and stirring turned up bb-sized lumps. These are not pieces of unmelted chocolate, it was totally smooth and I even used the immersion blender to emulsify.

Obviously there is some kind of crystallization issue, but I would like to understand what is going on and why. I didn't agitate as directed after it cooled to room temperature, but that has never seemed necessary before.

Insight, please!

[Kerry Beal]

I made a batch of ganache (greweling's liqueur cream ganache with honey instead of glucose) on Tuesday and left it out at room temperature overnight. Wednesday when I wanted to scoop it there was a bit of fat bloom on the top and stirring turned up bb-sized lumps. These are not pieces of unmelted chocolate, it was totally smooth and I even used the immersion blender to emulsify.

Obviously there is some kind of crystallization issue, but I would like to understand what is going on and why. I didn't agitate as directed after it cooled to room temperature, but that has never seemed necessary before.

Insight, please!

Can you squeeze one of those bumps for us and take a picture so we can see what it is composed of - ie fat vs sugar crystals?

[RWood]

I've had that happen to me before, and I have no idea why. My batch looked like fat had congealed. I reheated it over a bain marie and hit with an immersion blender. It came back together, and was fine after that. I had made the same recipes many times, and nothing like that happened before.

[Lior]

Interested to know if it was covered during the night?

[pastrygirl]

Surface was covered directly with plastic. That night I re-melted the batch and it set up smooth the next morning.

I'm imagining that if I had stirred after an hour as directed, the seed crystals would get more distributed and maybe this was the result of seed crystals gone wild and allowed to grow in place?

Gremlins, definitely gremlins