Incorporating too much air during tempering

[cc.canuck]

I'm relatively new to chocolate making but now that I've finally got the hang of tempering (by hand using the seeding method) I'd like to work on incorporating less air during the process.

 

I mainly make bars at the moment so I can tap out air bubbles after filling but I want to start making dipped biscuits and that's not going to work! I've watched oh so many videos of people stirring their chocolate while tempering and can't pick up any nuances that make their process different to mine, though they clearly have significantly less air in their mixture.

 

Any ideas how I could fix this problem or should I consider incorporating air bubbles into my biscuit design?

[Jim D.]

Are you stirring fast?  And what tool are you using?  There is no need to stir madly (as some people assert).  As long as the Type V crystals are being mixed in, a slower stir might be in order.  And if you are using a whisk or something similar, try switching to a spatula or anything that doesn't incorporate air.

[Kerry Beal]

6 hours ago, cc.canuck said:

I'm relatively new to chocolate making but now that I've finally got the hang of tempering (by hand using the seeding method) I'd like to work on incorporating less air during the process.

 

I mainly make bars at the moment so I can tap out air bubbles after filling but I want to start making dipped biscuits and that's not going to work! I've watched oh so many videos of people stirring their chocolate while tempering and can't pick up any nuances that make their process different to mine, though they clearly have significantly less air in their mixture.

 

Any ideas how I could fix this problem or should I consider incorporating air bubbles into my biscuit design?

Welcome @cc.canuck. I'm assuming with that moniker you are in Canada?

 

Can you show us a picture of the air bubbles you are getting?

 

 

[cc.canuck]

Canadian indeed! You caught me.

 

I use a rubber spatula and do a constant push pull motion (because I had read that that could help reduce air bubbles) with a regular scrape around the edge to bring that chocolate into the middle of the bowl. I do worry about not stirring enough so maybe slowing down would help.

 

Most of my pictures revolve around trying not to show air bubbles but I'll take some next time I temper!

 

It would be interesting to hear how many air bubbles a skilled stirrer usually incorporates. I'm assuming absolutely none is in impossible.

Edited April 28, 2021 by cc.canuck
Addressing a missed point (log)

[Kerry Beal]

11 hours ago, cc.canuck said:

Canadian indeed! You caught me.

 

I use a rubber spatula and do a constant push pull motion (because I had read that that could help reduce air bubbles) with a regular scrape around the edge to bring that chocolate into the middle of the bowl. I do worry about not stirring enough so maybe slowing down would help.

 

Most of my pictures revolve around trying not to show air bubbles but I'll take some next time I temper!

 

It would be interesting to hear how many air bubbles a skilled stirrer usually incorporates. I'm assuming absolutely none is in impossible.

So giving this a little thought today - I don't think I've ever introduced a lot of air bubbles into my chocolate unless I was intending to. Bubbles in irregular molds of course...

 

What chocolate are you using? Perhaps that's a component of the issue?

[cc.canuck]

8 hours ago, Kerry Beal said:

So giving this a little thought today - I don't think I've ever introduced a lot of air bubbles into my chocolate unless I was intending to. Bubbles in irregular molds of course...

 

What chocolate are you using? Perhaps that's a component of the issue?

Maybe. The bubbles are definitely worse for the dark chocolate than the milk and white, though I'd say all have so many bubbles that they're appearing on the biscuits.

 

Dark is Callebaut Sao Thome 70% 3/5 fluidity

 

Milk is Cacao Barry Papouisie 35% 4/5 fluidity

 

White is Cacao Barry Blanc Satin 29% 4/5 fluidity

 

[Kerry Beal]

Yeah - clearly there is something weird going on. 

[Muscadelle]

Can’t you just tap your bowl/pan full of tempered chocolate for a minute or two to get rid of most air bubbles? I get those a lot in my milk chocolate but not so much in my dark chocolate. It’s a little better when I use cocoa butter to temper, I guess that’s because it increases the fluidity just a notch.

[jimb0]

how thick does the chocolate feel by the time you're using it, out of curiosity?

[cc.canuck]

18 hours ago, Kerry Beal said:

Yeah - clearly there is something weird going on. 

I'll take photos and maybe a video next time I temper

[cc.canuck]

17 hours ago, Muscadelle said:

Can’t you just tap your bowl/pan full of tempered chocolate for a minute or two to get rid of most air bubbles? I get those a lot in my milk chocolate but not so much in my dark chocolate. It’s a little better when I use cocoa butter to temper, I guess that’s because it increases the fluidity just a notch.

Would it be fine to spend that long tapping the bowl? I worry that would make me end up with swirls on my dipped items, like I used to get by the end of doing sessions before I knew you needed to keep stirring 

[cc.canuck]

17 hours ago, jimb0 said:

how thick does the chocolate feel by the time you're using it, out of curiosity?

 

I tend to need to warm it back up to work with it after getting it into temper. Truest most of the dark chocolate.

[curls]

6 hours ago, cc.canuck said:

 

I tend to need to warm it back up to work with it after getting it into temper. Truest most of the dark chocolate.

What are your temperature ranges? It is starting to sound like your chocolate may be overtempered or too cold when you are molding and working with it. Pictures and/or a more detailed description of your process would help with troubleshooting.

[cc.canuck]

4 hours ago, curls said:

What are your temperature ranges? It is starting to sound like your chocolate may be overtempered or too cold when you are molding and working with it. Pictures and/or a more detailed description of your process would help with troubleshooting.

That's the sense I'm getting! I'll upload photos next time I temper.

[Altay.Oro]

When dipping, I'm getting nearly 5-10 % of my bonbons with air bubbles ... I blow up them by tapping my fork on the surface of the chocolate or to the edge of the melter.

 

As mentioned here ... there seem to be three reasons for excessive air bubbles ...

1. Viscous chocolate,

2. Overtempered chocolate,

3. Excessive stirring ...

 

About stirring ... I do not stir at all when the melted chocolate cools down ... I put it down on a cold surface and I add my seed chocolate when my hands can not feel heat anymore from the melter pot ... I start to stir slowly with a spatula at this moment ... mostly in 5 minutes, and with a minimum amount of stirring, chocolate is ready to use ... check it, if not tempered stir a little bit more and recheck. Additionally, I don't put so much chocolate in melter ... I use 6 lt melter and fill half of it with chocolate ... with less chocolate, I generally observe less air bubbles + more manageable and easily / quickly tempered chocolate.

Edited April 30, 2021 by Altay.Oro (log)

[cc.canuck]

Thank you for all of the advice you've given so far. Really appreciate you all taking the time 😀

 

I did some tempering today with white chocolate. Here is a video of me stirring near the beginning of the process where you can already see my air bubbleage: https://youtube.com/shorts/39BZjT3JOhI?feature=share

 

And here is what I do:

 

1. Heat chocolate to 40 degrees in the microwave using short bursts of 20 seconds max and stirring fairly vigorously in between.

2. Leave chocolate to cool down to 34 degrees with minimal stirring.

3. Add in mycyro, stir in, and leave for a couple of minutes (I did use to use the seeding method but couldn't get on with it and it introduced the same amount of air bubbles for me if not more, probably because of the increased amount of stirring)

4. Stir like I do in the video linked above constantly until the temperature comes down to either 31 for dark or 28 for white and milk.

5. If I'm dipping, I'll do a few vigorous stirs in between dips because I find this stops streakiness

 

Hopefully something in the above stands out as an obvious mistake I can work on to help with the bubbles!

[Kerry Beal]

Could it be starting with the vigorous stirring while melting?

 

I'm not seeing anything too strange about your stirring in the video except I probably don't stir that much. 

[cc.canuck]

1 minute ago, Kerry Beal said:

Could it be starting with the vigorous stirring while melting?

 

I'm not seeing anything too strange about your stirring in the video except I probably don't stir that much. 

I wonder if I am over-concerned about burning my chocolate and could do with leaving it alone a little bit. I'll try scaling back the amount of stirring next time and see what happens. Or I could do the whole process and a vibrating table!

[Kerry Beal]

Just now, cc.canuck said:

I wonder if I am over-concerned about burning my chocolate and could do with leaving it alone a little bit. I'll try scaling back the amount of stirring next time and see what happens. Or I could do the whole process and a vibrating table!

Try the leaving it alone a bit more and see what happens.

[teonzo]

In this short video you are using the wrong movements.

If you keep the spatula in vertical position and move it full front, then you are going to add air behind the spatula path.

Similar when you scrape the bowl sides.

Instead of keeping the spatula in vertical position (90°), try keeping it at 45°, then move it with slow circular movements. You forearm, wrist and hand should be firm, you move only the upper side of your arm. Don't stir too fast. Scrape the sides of the bowl only when it's necessary (when the chocolate on the sides is becoming solid).

You just need to learn how to move the spatula to avoid adding air. Which means NOT doing the movements you make when folding whipped cream (or meringue) into a batter.

When you microwave the chocolate to melt it, there's no sense in stirring it too much. You should stir it as little as possible, ideally nothing at all. Run the microwave until the chocolate is starting to melt (most of it is still keeping it's shape, but some parts are melting), let it rest untouched for a couple of minutes, then stir it as little as possible to get it completely fluid.

Having said this, no matter what you do, some little bubbles will always get there. But they should be really few.

 

 

 

Teo

 

[cc.canuck]

7 hours ago, teonzo said:

In this short video you are using the wrong movements.

If you keep the spatula in vertical position and move it full front, then you are going to add air behind the spatula path.

Similar when you scrape the bowl sides.

Instead of keeping the spatula in vertical position (90°), try keeping it at 45°, then move it with slow circular movements. You forearm, wrist and hand should be firm, you move only the upper side of your arm. Don't stir too fast. Scrape the sides of the bowl only when it's necessary (when the chocolate on the sides is becoming solid).

You just need to learn how to move the spatula to avoid adding air. Which means NOT doing the movements you make when folding whipped cream (or meringue) into a batter.

When you microwave the chocolate to melt it, there's no sense in stirring it too much. You should stir it as little as possible, ideally nothing at all. Run the microwave until the chocolate is starting to melt (most of it is still keeping it's shape, but some parts are melting), let it rest untouched for a couple of minutes, then stir it as little as possible to get it completely fluid.

Having said this, no matter what you do, some little bubbles will always get there. But they should be really few.

 

 

 

Teo

 

This is incredibly helpful, thank you! I'll follow this next time.