On 9/9/2021 at 1:56 PM, jedovaty said:I can't get rid of that shiny spot where the chocolate first hits the mold. Here's what I've tried:
- super clean the mold
- extra polish on mold with super soft microfiber cloth
- more expensive, professional mold
- two tempering methods (bowl over hot/cold water, silk)
- bringing the mold to 90-95F
Attached photo shows my typical result (photo with 4 bars) and the best results so far (photo with 3 bars). The best result came from the mold being at roughly 90F this time. The chocolate I make is from home-roasted beans, using a little cacao butter and sugar, no other ingredients. I usually do silk tempering right in the wet grinder, but have wanted to improve the "snap", so changed recently to pouring the contents into a bowl, heating to 130F for complete melting, then chilling to roughly 93-95F, adding grated silk, mixing like crazy, then pouring into the molds, smack on the counter rapidly several times, and into the fridge to chill quickly, ~30 minutes.
I make chocolate in kitchen ambient range 60-75F, and humidity typically averages around 65%, although it can be as low as 40% or high as 80%, since I keep my windows open and live near the ocean.
Can it get any better, or is this the best one can accomplish at home?
I'm 5-6 years into this hobby and finally starting to tweak these finer points
Asked a chocolatier about this, and they said it could be solved by either spraying a clear coat of cocoa butter first or experimenting with your environmental conditions, cooling process, and working temp.
I asked about coating the cavity the same way you would for a bonbon shell and they said it would not work. Easy enough to try out and make sure, though.
