Greetings~ So my husband and I have started working in the kitchen of our new chocolate shop. We've made some wonderful ganaches and toffees and wild marshmallows. However we have an entire rack of polycarbonate molds we are dying to use and the temperer is not working with us. We fired it up added the chocolate on the first day it was too hot we had realized. So I went back and read the manual and about the chocolate and the settings one more time. Day two, I made tiny frogs, they came out of the mold shiny and fine, I left them on the table and came back later and they had a few spots on them. The shop was air conditioned so that couldn't have been it? So we did the test on the back of the spoon after setting the temperer one more time... Spotty once it had set.

I am using dark chocolate, in a hilliards 80 lb temperer. Should I have to take the chocolate out since it was heated too high on day one? It was heated to 115. I didn't think I needed to take it all out, it was not burned. And how do I get this down? I am getting frustrated, I do have a separate thermometer so I know the temperer is keeping the right temp...It must be something I am doing. Any suggestions???

Also~ the molds... Do they need to be coated with cocoa butter or treated in some way before we use them to mold? I did read warming them would be beneficial, do you all do that? I am asking this because I am having a little trouble getting them out of the molds, but of course it was the chocolate described about so I am sure that is the issue...

Any thoughts or suggestions would so appreciated....( more than you know )

updated by @emily-woloszyn: 04/10/15 16:27:01

Do you have any lump chocolate behind the baffle? Turn the temp to about 90 and toss some solid chocolate behind the divider. Get the bowl spinning and leave it for about 15 minutes. Test the chocolate before using. It should set up in about 3 minutes. I'm guessing you heated the chocolate and turned the temp down, but never tempered it. You need to keep solid chocolate in the machine to seed the melted chocolate. As you use the chocolate, it will tend to over-seed and you might need to turn the temp up a few degrees. Good luck.

Thank you so much for replying Ruth! I will give this a huge try tomorrow since we are there all day cooking.

Last night we heated it to 100 then brought it back to 88... that was when we still got a tiny bit of grainy look to it. Not the bloom like we got from day 1 though. We almost had it last night. However, I hadn't added any lump to the back bowl so I will do that.

So apreciative of the response. Thanks again!