Chocolate Tempering: Tips and Troubleshooting

[Kerry Beal]

Show us a picture of the mold you are using. Often if you just have the shell (for example a cup mold) - it will be very challenging to get it out even when perfectly tempered. Once filled a a bottom put on they will come out much more easily. 

 

There are some tricks to getting cup molds out. Freezer for 3 minutes, twist of the mold and pull out with your finger. 

 

Dark chocolate is the only one that really gives a good snap. Run your finger along the surface of the chocolate and see if it marks - well tempered (dark) chocolate doesn't mark much. 

[jauhe]

I've been experimenting with making bonbons for a few months now, and I'm running into an issue when melting the chocolate. In the beginning I wasn't running into any issues, but recently when I melt the chocolate in the microwave, most of it melts, but there are little grains or bits that never melt. If you smoosh them against the side of the bowl they disintegrate and go away, but otherwise even heating to very high temperatures, they never melt on their own. The consistency of the rest of the batch is fine (I could strain them out and it would work fine). I've had seized chocolate before, but that seems to affect the whole batch when it happens (not just little bits), and I've been very careful to avoid any contact with any drop of water. I thought maybe they were little overheated/burned bits, but I took brand new chocolate, melted it in 15 second increments on 50% power, and I still got the same result. Any tips on what I'm doing wrong here?

 

   

[Kerry Beal]

How old is the chocolate? Has the package been open to the air/moisture?

 

 

[jauhe]

It's about 4 months old. It melted in transit and then re-hardened. I opened the package, cut it into smaller blocks, and put each in a sealed ziploc bag. I'm in a somewhat humid climate, but I've been just taking it out of the bag to cut off a block, then resealing it. Is brief exposure to humidity enough to do this?

[Kerry Beal]

It can be if the humidity is high enough. 

[jauhe]

It's maybe 70% humidity on average in the kitchen where I cut and microwave it, but everything else is done in an air conditioned room with low humidity and temperature. I can try with a new bag never letting it leave the air conditioned room. Is there anything else other than humidity to look out for that can cause this graininess?

[Kerry Beal]

Just thinking back to lumpy chocolate I have had over the years - it usually comes down to either age or moisture has gotten into it. When it came to you melted was the bag fully sealed?

[jauhe]

Interesting, ok. It's a Callebaut 823 block, and yes it was fully sealed when I got it. I'll pay more attention to moisture next time. This definitely isn't an issue of temperature then (overheating in the microwave, or sitting a hot truck during shipping, or things like that)?

[Jim D.]

When chocolate is overheated in the microwave, you will know it.  It usually has a terrible smell and little bits of burned chocolate in it.  And, as a side note, this can happen more easily than you might think.  I use very short intervals of microwaving at the beginning of the process.

 

I have had melted chocolate that looks like your photo.  Often it just goes away during the process of tempering.  In a few extreme cases, I used an immersion blender on it, and the chocolate smoothed out quickly.  Just be sure to keep the blender blade immersed in the chocolate to avoid air bubbles.

[gap]

Yup, I second the immersion blender. I've had to do it a few times. Not sure why, but it fixed the issue.

[SweetandSnappyJen]

Hi folks!

 

I've recently dabbled in running some kid bon-bon making birthday parties and they've been really fun (would NOT recommend for under 12 though:) I'm trying to cut time by tempering the chocolate in advance (pre-party) and then keeping it at 32 in the melter. It's usually a good 45 minutes before the shelling happens, so by that point, the chocolate is incredibly over-crystalized. I'm trying to streamline this process a bit, and so far all I've come up with is about 5-10 minutes before shelling, adding some untempered melted chocolate at working temp. But I'm just wondering if anyone has any other suggestions for doing advance tempering, without having to futz with it until its ready to be used.

 

Thank you!

Jen

[pastrygirl]

You could try holding it at 33-34 so it doesn't crystallize so rapidly.  Or at 35-36 and demo how cooling and agitating encourages crystallization. 

[Kerry Beal]

7 hours ago, SweetandSnappyJen said:

Hi folks!

 

I've recently dabbled in running some kid bon-bon making birthday parties and they've been really fun (would NOT recommend for under 12 though:) I'm trying to cut time by tempering the chocolate in advance (pre-party) and then keeping it at 32 in the melter. It's usually a good 45 minutes before the shelling happens, so by that point, the chocolate is incredibly over-crystalized. I'm trying to streamline this process a bit, and so far all I've come up with is about 5-10 minutes before shelling, adding some untempered melted chocolate at working temp. But I'm just wondering if anyone has any other suggestions for doing advance tempering, without having to futz with it until its ready to be used.

 

Thank you!

Jen

The untempered chocolate you add to it can be quite warm - just make sure that you don't go well over the working temperature when you add it. When added to over tempered chocolate you can take milk up as high as 32.5 and dark as high as 34.5

[gap]

Another quick/easy option might be an EZtemper ... although you pay for the convenience. Maybe not an option if you're just doing the kids parties, but if you use chocolate a lot in another capacity, it can be a real time saver

[Kerry Beal]

A guy who started out doing kids parties (untempered chocolate into the freezer) just bought his 5th EZtemper.

 

[SweetandSnappyJen]

9 hours ago, gap said:

Another quick/easy option might be an EZtemper ... although you pay for the convenience. Maybe not an option if you're just doing the kids parties, but if you use chocolate a lot in another capacity, it can be a real time saver

Absolutely!  I do have one, the best!

[Kerry Beal]

3 hours ago, SweetandSnappyJen said:

Absolutely!  I do have one, the best!

You can hook it up to a battery and take it with you.