Tempering help

I was wondering if you need to use seed chocolate to acutally temper?

Could you temper the whole batch? like say i bring the whole 5lbs of chocolate down to 80 F and then heat back up to 90 - 92 F?

I'm about to buy an ACMC machine and im in the tropics where the ambient temperature is 33 C. So I will have to temper in an airconditioned room where i bring the ambient temp down to 24C. I use a Santha to grind my beans and add my ingridients, and when i usually get the chocolate out of the santha the temperature is about 115F.

1 member likes this

▶ Reply to This

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Rosie on April 16, 2012 at 5:27pm

I'm definitely no expert but i noticed no one else had replied. As far as I've learned and experienced ambient temp of the room in which your tempering should be closer to about 20•. Also you can temper without seed by tableing.

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Brad Churchill on April 16, 2012 at 6:37pm

Ok... I'll help.

If you get your room temperature down to 24 degrees, using the ACMC (I own 6) will take absolutely FOREVER to cool and reheat. My suggestion is as follows:

Heat the chocolate in your ACMC to 120 degrees F, and make sure it's thoroughly heated.
Ensure that your motor is running and the bowl is spinning.
Reset your machine temperature to 90 degrees F, and begin to cool it.
When the chocolate gets to 105 Degrees, remove 1/3 and cool it using a cold water bath in your sink. DO NOT GET ANY WATER IN THE BOWL.
The temperature of the chocolate in your cold water bath should get to about 79 degrees F. It will cool very quickly, so make sure you are stirring the entire time. It should get thick like pudding, and begin to stick to the sides of the bowl.
Add the chocolate back into your ACMC and stir really really well, MAKING SURE THE WATER IS WIPED OFF OF THE OUTSIDE OF YOUR BOWL BEFORE YOU POUR IT BACK IN. This will not only bring the chocolate in your ACMC down to the working temperature, but will also seed the uncrystalized chocolate and bring it into temper.
Let the machine mix the chocolate for 10-15 minutes to ensure uniform crystalization before beginning to work with it.

That's it. Super easy.

Hope that helps.

Brad