Tempering with holely baffle

Chocolate makers,

I've recently starting using the X3210 with a holely baffle. Can anyone share the most efficient way to temper with (or without) seed with this setup? 

The instructions on the user manual and other processes discussed in this forum with regular baffle don't seem to work. Here's what I've been doing:

1. Add chocolate from melanger (110 F)

2. Hit dark button

3. Cool to 92 F

4. Add seed behind baffle (not that it makes much of a difference)

5. Wait 10 minutes until after fully incorporated, mix by hand.

The problem is that this process is slow and often causes chocolate to over-crystalize. Any tips?

Cheers!

Hi.  I will give you my experience with this machine and the chocolate I use. 

I use a very high quality chocolate from Felchlin, but I don't have any experience with bean to bar.  What I found was that the factory settings are too low to get a good finish.  If you are using the holey baffle, are you wanting to temper 15 to 17lbs? 

I melt to 115 F then I add seed that is IN temper to the back and take it to 90.1 F.  I do not let it run out of seed.  When it reaches 90.1 F I remove seed and hit the button again, and I make sure it stays at my working temp which is 90.1.  This direct temper method has worked really well.  The finsh is beautiful, and it can stay in temper without over crystalizing for a couple of hours.

I hope this helps.

Jayne

I do the same as Jayne.  It works every time but I dont do bean to bar.

If you make chocolate the entire tempering process definitely seems a lot less reliable. And each varietal you make is likely to have slightly different characteristics in regard to what they need to temper up nicely. Some varietals definitely fought me more than others.

In general, you don't need to use the holey baffle, although in theory it shouldn't hurt anything. I would make several suggestions. First of all, I would add the seed a little sooner than you are. Yes, anything over 94F in theory doesn't matter, but you want the melted seed working into your batch as much as possible. As soon as your chocolate temperature lowers in the 90's I would go ahead and throw in the seed. There's no downside to this. Second, once your temp gets down to the low 90's and you remove your seed you should then continue to cool your chocolate. I would recommend taking it down to the low 80's; you want at least 5F swing from the point at which you remove the seed, but 10F is even better. Then raise it up again to 89F - 91F, depending on the origin. And yes, at this point stir it well and leave it to agitate for 10 minutes or so. Finally, and especially if your molds are on the thicker side, place the chocolate in the cooler for about 10 minutes right after molding them up. Then put them on the shelf and maybe even put a light fan on them. And yes, this process will take a while. Depending on the amount of chocolate you're tempering, it can easily take 1-3 hours per batch.

As for over-crystalization, I rarely encountered that problem. But when I did it was almost always due to over-agitation and temps that were too low. So if this is a thing you are seeing consistently, stir a little less and raise the temps by a degree at a time and see how that works out.

One last thing - if you've got the budget consider looking at the "EZTemper" unit. I got one as soon as they came out, and all I can say is WOW. It is making my life a lot easier. 

I had thought that taking the temp down to the 80s F. was not necessary when one is using already-tempered chocolate as seed.  I would be interested to know why you think that makes a difference.

I experience over-crysallization far too often (particularly when using Felchlin Maracaibo and Valrhona Opalys).  With the Chocovision tempering machines, the user cannot control the agitation since the bowl rotates constantly.  All I have found to do is raise the temp gradually and/or add untempered heated chocolate to dilute the Type V crystals.

I am also interested in the EZTemper.  Could you say more about how it has helped you?

Jim - this may be the case with wholesale chocolate such as Valrhona, but it does not seem to be for bean-to-bar chocolate. At least that's been my experience. With bean-to-bar a number of issues come into play such as potential lack of seed (you don't have the tempered chocolate to use as seed until you make the chocolate and temper it, leading to a bit of a catch-22 situation), non-trivial differences in varietals, little or no added cocoa butter in the chocolate making process, etc. In general, I think those of us who make our own chocolate tend to struggle more with the tempering process.

As for myself, for example, I've almost never experienced over-crystallization. Maybe once or twice. My biggest problem was getting my single origins to temper well at all. With a lot of trial and error, I finally found that I had significantly more success with the lower temp and larger delta. Maybe other chocolate makers here will disagree, but it's the only thing that ever consistently worked for me.

The EZTemper, at least so far, has changed my process in a very positive way. Here's how:

PREVIOUS TEMPERING METHOD
1) Melt untempered single origin chocolate in Rev Delta (or pour straight from the melangeur)
2) Go through custom-programmed tempering cycle (which depending on the amt of chocolate would take 2 hours or more)
3) Pour "tempered" choc into large molds (This first tempered chocolate was almost never tempered very well)
4) Take most of that first "tempered" chocolate and run it through the entire process AGAIN, setting aside some to use as seed
5) Pour the second tempered choc into final molds (This second tempering usually did the trick, but not always)

EZTemper METHOD
1) Melt untempered single origin chocolate in Rev Delta (or pour straight from the melangeur)
2) After melting, lower temp to 92º
3) Add 1% precrystallized butter by weight and stir. Wait a few minutes. You're done.

My previous method took 4-5 hours per batch, and gave me an 80%-90% success rate.
The EZTemper method takes less than an hour, and so far gives me a 100% success rate.

Significantly easier, faster and more reliable tempering sessions with less wasted time and less wasted product.
And while I am currently only using it with 5 and 10 pound batches, I see no reason why it wouldn't scale up.
So far I am very happy and very impressed.

Michael,

Thanks for those thoughts.  I had not realized you were speaking of bean-to-bar when discussing tempering.  I'm sure that makes a huge difference (particularly considering that you have no ready-made seed for the seeding methd).

That is an impressive tribute to the EZTemper (we should make sure Kerry Beal reads that).  Although many have said that it does make a difference even when one is using something like the Delta machine for "store-bought" chocolate, it would seem to have less of an impact on the latter process.  I work in such small quantities that in making a ganache, for example, I just melt the tempered chocolate slowly enough that it never goes out of temper.  But I have read enough to know that once I have the machine, I will find uses for it I never considered (you can see my resolve not to spend the money is already weakening).

Where is that 'like' button?

I think a lot of people purchase the Revolation machines not realizing that they depend on well tempered chocolate as part of the process - and as Michael points out - that's the catch-22 of bean to bar - if you could temper your chocolate you wouldn't need the machine!

It is possible to temper without seed in the Revolation machines. I do it with test batches regularly. I essentially just go through the same process I do in my Savage Bros: melt > cool to 82 > warm to working temp. As Michael says, it is not a necessarily fast process, but it can work.

Adding an EZTemper to the process would definitely make it faster and easier, of course. So much so, that I've given some thought to pressing some of the cocoa butter from a batch to use in the EZTemper and still maintain my 2-ingredient recipe.

I'll look forward to hearing from you Ben!  Out of curiosity what means would you use to press cocoa butter?

Therein lies the reason why I've only given some thought vs. executed the idea.  With my limited space, I don't have space for a real press and I'm not sure if one of the little olive oil presses would work.

Check this out -The making of cocoa butter

Not sure of the solvent though as I have no volume.

So I experimented a bit today - made some liquor from nibs in an Indian spice grinder, added water, then cooked down until it 'cracked' and the cocoa butter separated out.

I can't seem to get the pictures in order - but I ended up with around 20 grams of cocoa butter. You can see in the 3rd picture the butter starting to separate, then in the second one a little puddle of butter at around 11 o'clock. 

Potomac Chocolate:
Therein lies the reason why I've only given some thought vs. executed the idea.  With my limited space, I don't have space for a real press and I'm not sure if one of the little olive oil presses would work.

Here you go Ben - the finished product -  http://forums.egullet.org/topic/151287-eztemper-the-help-you-need-to-achieve-perfectly-tempered-chocolate-fast/?p=2030981