Agar agar cold oil spherification help!

[alewifee]

Hi everyone! I had my first practice for my Skills Ontario competition last week, and struggled to figure out where I went wrong with my chocolate agar pearls. I was reading a thread by @pastrygirl from 2015 and tried following that recipe. I'm thinking that perhaps my oil was too warm? It had only been in my school's walk-in freezer for ~1 hour before I tried for the first time. If anyone has any suggestions, I would really appreciate it!

[Kerry Beal]

What went wrong? Did spheres simply not form?

 

If you think that it wasn't cold enough - does the school have a blast chiller? If you are at Niagara College - I know they have one.