Melting chocolate without a dedicated melter

[Darienne]

Have to say that most of the chocolate which I 'melt' I do over water using a stainless bowl whose flanges far outreach the edge of the pot. So far, so good.

The other melting is putting the chocolate into the heated cream for ganache. Tempering in my Revolation except when away from home and then I use a Pyrex measuring cup in the microwave, once I have figured out the particular microwave I am using.

Not exciting, but it's what I do.

[Jaymes]

I've got a friend that always sets some sort of bowl (or cup or whatever she has handy) on the burner of her coffee maker. She's in a small apt with not a lot of room and often uses that burner to slow-warm things.

[paulraphael]

I'm in the habit of using a bowl over a saucepan of water. Water has never been an issue. Just keep it out of the chocolate.

Every pastry chef I know uses a microwave. It must work well.

If you're paying attention and have a responsive pan you use direct heat. I realize every cookbook says that doing so will cause a kitten to die. I'm just not often in that big a hurry. There are other things to do while the chocolate melts.

[cslas]

Ok, reviving an old topic with a question. For those who use a chocolate melter to melt their chocolate over night or several hours, does it not matter that the chocolate isn't being stirred? I know the other methods discussed here are melt the chocolate faster, but they also seem to require semi-regular stirring to avoid burning the chocolate. Also, could you use a crock pot in place of a chocolate melter to achieve the same thing?

[Kerry Beal]

Crock pot is too warm to melt chocolate - even on the lowest temperature you'll get lovely caramelized chocolate overnight.

 

In a melter - stirring doesn't matter - you give it a stir in the morning. If your melt temperature is a little high and your chocolate high fat - you might get some separation that will need to be stirred back in.

[cslas]

Thanks @Kerry Beal, good to know!

[Jim D.]

2 hours ago, Kerry Beal said:

Crock pot is too warm to melt chocolate - even on the lowest temperature you'll get lovely caramelized chocolate overnight.

 

In a melter - stirring doesn't matter - you give it a stir in the morning. If your melt temperature is a little high and your chocolate high fat - you might get some separation that will need to be stirred back in.

Yes, I melt in a dehydrator, and there is some separation, but a stir solves that. I don't generally melt white chocolate this way, however, because it just looks too terrible when melted, even though I know it's probably OK. But I'm not using so much of it in making shells that a microwave doesn't do the trick fairly quickly.

[JoNorvelleWalker]

4 hours ago, cslas said:

Ok, reviving an old topic with a question. For those who use a chocolate melter to melt their chocolate over night or several hours, does it not matter that the chocolate isn't being stirred? I know the other methods discussed here are melt the chocolate faster, but they also seem to require semi-regular stirring to avoid burning the chocolate. Also, could you use a crock pot in place of a chocolate melter to achieve the same thing?

 

If you are melting a kg or less a KitchenAid Precise Heat Mixing Bowl should do the trick.

 

 

Edit:  and if you ask it nicely it will temper the chocolate for you too.

 

Edited August 23, 2019 by JoNorvelleWalker (log)

[cslas]

So melting in a crock pot wouldn't work, but would it work for holding chocolate with a thermostatic controller?  I have one of these (below) for sous vide cooking. The crock pot plugs into it and it has a thermometer that goes into the crockpot. When the liquid in the crockpot hits a certain temperature it turns the crockpot off and when it drops below the temperature, it turns it on again. I've actually used it to sous vide cocoa butter silk before. 

 

[Kerry Beal]

That should work - I usually melt overnight at around 45º C.

 

[Madsandersen]

On 8/24/2019 at 10:15 PM, Kerry Beal said:

That should work - I usually melt overnight at around 45º C.

 

 

It doesn't seem very economic to me, melting overnight, when the time requirement to melt it before handling is so small? Do you experience greater fluidity when melting several hours or overnight? Or do you just find it more convenient when melting large quantities? What is the reasoning for doing so? 🤔

Edited September 28, 2019 by Madsandersen (log)

[pastrygirl]

49 minutes ago, Madsandersen said:

 

It doesn't seem very economic to me, melting overnight, when the time requirement to melt it before handling is so small? Do you experience greater fluidity when melting several hours or overnight? Or do you just find it more convenient when melting large quantities? What is the reasoning for doing so? 🤔

 

 

Volume. Sure, melting a few hundred grams in a microwave or over a bain Marie is pretty quick, but when I need 5-20+ kg for a day’s production I leave it overnight in my mol d’ art melters. 

[Kerry Beal]

20 hours ago, pastrygirl said:

 

Volume. Sure, melting a few hundred grams in a microwave or over a bain Marie is pretty quick, but when I need 5-20+ kg for a day’s production I leave it overnight in my mol d’ art melters. 

And the mold'art melters seem to require a long time to melt. 

[Elkyfr]

I will no longer use the microwave to melt chocolate.

[Margaret Pilgrim]

8 minutes ago, Elkyfr said:

I will no longer use the microwave to melt chocolate.

How so?

[Elkyfr]

1 minute ago, Margaret Pilgrim said:

How so?

Because chocolate, 50% sugar, loses fluidity the second time I reheat it, and the third time it is a dense paste.

[pastrygirl]

3 hours ago, Elkyfr said:

Because chocolate, 50% sugar, loses fluidity the second time I reheat it, and the third time it is a dense paste.

 

Would you like help with that, or did you just want to vent?

[Elkyfr]

6 hours ago, pastrygirl said:

 

Would you like help with that, or did you just want to vent?

 

This issue was resolved, but it gave me some headaches because I did not understand the root cause of the problem... Microwave burns chocolate. Now I use a cheap heater that works fine.

[Kerry Beal]

57 minutes ago, Elkyfr said:

 

This issue was resolved, but it gave me some headaches because I did not understand the root cause of the problem... Microwave burns chocolate. Now I use a cheap heater that works fine.

I microwave chocolate on a daily basis - I’ve had it burn two or three times only. What sort of container are you using? 

[Elkyfr]

4 hours ago, Kerry Beal said:

I microwave chocolate on a daily basis - I’ve had it burn two or three times only. What sort of container are you using? 

 

I am careful not to burn the chocolate in the microwave, I use a silicone container...it melts and I temper it well, the first and second time.

 

The problem is when I want to use it over and over again, because I don't eat it... I recycle the chocolate over and over again, and the microwave modifies it and makes a thick paste.

 

I tried the bain-marie, and I could recycle the chocolate well. So I finally bought myself a small electric warmer that I can choose temperatures for and is perfect for keeping chocolate warm.

[pastrygirl]

Like Kerry, I often melt chocolate in the microwave, in glass/pyrex.  My microwave is not particularly powerful (900w?) so 60% power is usually safe but you might need to go down to 50 or 40% with higher wattage.  Length of time proportional to amount of chocolate. 

 

White chocolates and Valrhona's fruit inspirations thicken and scorch much more easily than dark or milk so I'm extra-careful with those.  Strawberry inspiration is the weirdest, I guess I blame the product and user error over the heat source 🤷‍♀️

 

But I'm usually melting chocolate to be mixed into ganache & used immediately, if you need to keep it in temper for a while, a melter/warmer and a heat gun or hair dryer will be really helpful.  I hope that works better for you!

[Kerry Beal]

when you decide you need one - grab one of these martellato minichoc

[Elle Bee]

I have a Wolf oven with a Proof function and am hoping I can successfully use it to melt larger quantities of chocolate overnight while keeping the chocolate in temper, so that I can have it at the ready for making slabbed ganaches the next day. (By "larger quantities" I mean about 3 Kilos, which for me would be enough to make four 9.5x9.5x1/2" slabs, with some chocolate left over.)

 

Greweling's recipes for slabbed cream ganaches call for having melted tempered chocolate at 30C/86F (for milk chocolate). Last night I started testing a smaller amount by putting 800g of tempered milk chocolate in a glass casserole dish and setting the proof temperature at 30C/86F. The chocolate is a 50/50-ish mix of E. Guittard Eclipse du Soleil (41% milk) and Callebaut 823. Twelve hours later the chocolate was soft, but very thick, so I turned up the proof temp to 89F. It started melting better, but when I checked the temp of the chocolate with a probe a bit later, it was hovering between 32C/90F and 91F so I turned the oven down to 88F. Now it seems much thicker and less melty again. So here are my questions, in no particular order:

 

1. Anyone have any experience melting chocolate in a proofing oven? And if so, what is your process?

 

2. Those of you who use Greweling's slab method with the cream cooled to 40C/105F, how fluid is your chocolate when you add the cream to it?

 

3. In the event my chocolate ends up getting warm enough to go out of temper, should I just pour it into my Rev 2 temperer and retemper it before mixing it with the cream? Or can I just go ahead and mix it with the cream without retempering since I will also be adding silk to the ganache to make it set up faster? (I have several jars of silk ready at 33.5C in my sous vide container.)

 

4. How long can I hold it in the oven like this? I think some of you with proper melters can keep your chocolate in there for long periods... like days, maybe?

 

5. Should the container be covered or uncovered? I think real melters have covers, but do I need to worry about condensation forming under the lid?

 

Thank you to anyone who may have some answers for me, and also a general thanks to all the knowledgeable people who make this forum such a valuable resource. 

 

 

 

[Jim D.]

3 hours ago, Elle Bee said:

2. Those of you who use Greweling's slab method with the cream cooled to 40C/105F, how fluid is your chocolate when you add the cream to it?

This depends so much on the chocolate you are using.  Mine is usually flowing easily, though certainly thicker than the cream.  If melted chocolate is noticeably viscous, I would say you have a problem, probably with humidity in the work space.

 

3 hours ago, Elle Bee said:

3. In the event my chocolate ends up getting warm enough to go out of temper, should I just pour it into my Rev 2 temperer and retemper it before mixing it with the cream? Or can I just go ahead and mix it with the cream without retempering since I will also be adding silk to the ganache to make it set up faster? (I have several jars of silk ready at 33.5C in my sous vide container.)

First, although Greweling says that chocolate used for a slab must be tempered, not everyone does that.  I have used it tempered and untempered and have not (to be honest) noticed any difference.  If it is out of temper and you are adding silk later, then it will be tempered.

 

3 hours ago, Elle Bee said:

4. How long can I hold it in the oven like this? I think some of you with proper melters can keep your chocolate in there for long periods... like days, maybe?

Sometimes I hold mine in my Mol d'Art melter for days, but I definitely don't trust it to be in temper after such a long time.  It will almost certainly be overtempered.  As you probably know, there are several methods of bringing overtempered chocolate back into temper; all involve melting some of the excess Type V crystals.

 

3 hours ago, Elle Bee said:

5. Should the container be covered or uncovered? I think real melters have covers, but do I need to worry about condensation forming under the lid?

When I leave chocolate in the melter overnight, I cover it so that the heating process is more efficient.  When I am making shells, I leave it uncovered (so that I can dump excess chocolate into it), but I take the cooler ambient air into account when setting the temperature.  Unless you experience very humid conditions in your work space, I don't see condensation as a problem--if it is, you would need to take more drastic action to lower the humidity.

[Elle Bee]

@Jim D. all very helpful, thank you! 😘