Yesterday i made a batch of chocolates that had an absolutely smooth texture when i removed it from themelangeur, i then tempered it ( i think i did it correctly because the batch i made before this was fine) andmoldedit and kept it in the fridge to set ( i'm based in India and dont have air-conditioning, so i have no choice). Today i tasted it and the surface had a gritty texture.

I read online that this is caused by sugar bloom and want to ask all of you who are much moreknowledgeableand experienced than me if this can be solved by re melting and then tempering the chocolate again.

I have made a couple of batches before this that i also set in the fridge anddidn'thave this problem.

updated by @chirag-bhatia: 04/21/15 12:39:21

If it really is sugar bloom, you'll be able to brush/wipe most of it off. Will it ever look as if it didn't sugar bloom in the first place? Possibly, depends on a lot of factors. If the product still has good snap, and you can brush most of it off the top w/o the chocolate melting when you touch it, it's probably sugar bloom.

Whenyou sayyou don't have air conditioning, and ifyou're in Mumbai, that makes me suspicious thatyouprobably have humidity mroe than 50% which makes tempering properly nearly impossible. I noticed this even in New York in the summers where I'd been tempering finethrough the winter, but when June hit with it's humidity everything I'd been doing the same all along stopped working. I put a little air conditioner in my kitchen and everything went back to normal as before.

If there's anywayyou can AC a small area whereyou temper this will help immensely, and still use the fridge for the final cooling after molding.

Humidity seems to be the biggest thing thatpeople ignore when tempering since it's not somethingyou think about with other kinds of cooking so much.

-Nat

____________________________

Nat Bletter, PhD

Chocolate Flavormeister

Madre Chocolate

http://madrechocolate.com

This doesn't always work so results may vary but take a small pen torch / flame and brush it with heat. We have a number of chocolate sculptures we keep out in public and when they get dull I flame them a bit and they come back to life.

A heat gun may also work, just start from a good distance and slowly work your way towards the object. It will not need a lot.

One last thought. Are you sure than you conched it enough in your melangeur? I have found that I have a hard time telling if the texture is smooth enough or not straight from the melangeur. There have been times when I thought the chocolate was done, but then after I tempered it, I found out that it was a little grainy.

That's not going to do anything to mitigate sugar bloom, and will likely only induce fat bloom i'm afraid...

Thanks for the advice Nat, yes i am in Mumbai and we have high humidity, the problem is I have faced this problem only with this particular batch.

i re-melted and tempered it.. ill wait a few days now and see what happens

thanks RW.. i conched it for 24 hours .. wen i tested it i set a little inmoldand tasted it after about two hours and it was fine..

From experience it doesn't seem to do anything of the sort. It allows sculptures to look natural again for up to 3 months. For a production issue it's not going to be a way to solve a real problem, however if you've got 1 out of 10 showing something of the sort then it may help let that piece slide while you hunt down your problem. As always the mantra should be 'always be testing.' Conditions will always sway what's going to happen the most I think but testing/trials and lots of documentation help figure that out.