On 4/3/2023 at 8:25 PM, GRiker said:When talking about the temperature element of tempering chocolate Greweling mentions that after the chocolate is heated to above the temperature where all crystals are melted out, it's the "reality of tempering" (as I understand it the need to use the chocolate in the near future) that "in order to form crystals relatively quickly, the chocolate is usually cooled to well below 32C/90F during seeding." This lowering of temperature speeds up the formation of all crystals, then raising the temperature back to 32C/90F ensures that only the type V crystals remain, and more of them because the chocolate was cooled down.
He seems to suggest that while it's not practical to go from all crystals melted out chocolate (or cocoa butter) directly to chocolate in temper at 32C/90F, it is time that is the limiter, not that the crystals won't ever form.
Perhaps the residence time or the time that cocoa butter spends at the proper temperature for crystal formation during tempering is much shorter going from solid room temp. to being held 33.1C than the time to for those same crystals to form when going from liquid cocoa butter to held at 33.1C?
On 4/3/2023 at 8:49 PM, Kerry Beal said:I will leave the experiments to you.
Well almost 2 years and the acquisition of an EZ Temper later, I have done some experimenting.
I melted a quantity of cocoa butter. Filled two of the stainless steel containers that came with the EZ Temper. Sample 1: Left on the counter to solidify before putting it in the machine. Sample 2: Put right into the machine in its liquid state.
After 24 hours sample one was ready to use. Sample two was still liquid. It took some time for it to become more solid, but it never turned the same color and consistency of Sample 1. Sample 2 consistency is more like a soft jelly.
I used sample 1 to temper my chocolate for at least 4. - 6 weeks and now when I'm almost out of the Sample 1 (there's my motivation!), I decided to see if Sample 2 would temper my chocolate. Sure enough, used 1% by weight and it tempered the milk chocolate the same as Sample 1.
In this picture you can see the last of Sample one in a small dish and the unused Sample 2 in the stainless steel container.
My next experiment will be to see how long it takes a liquid sample placed directly in the EZ Temper to make usable type V crystals.
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On another note. This batch of cocoa butter in the pictures came from Chef Rubber. I have to set the EZ Temper to 33.7C to get the correct consistency.
Getting my next batch in, this cocoa butter from Guittard, I started from solid, but at 33.7C it nearly melted it all out. Just goes to show how differently cocoa butter can behave! Guess I won't be able to keep them in the EZ Temper at the same time.
