Level: Novice
Read Time: 4 minutes
Chocolate Bomb season is here and oh the joys of tempering chocolate! I use Callebaut, white, milk and dark. I use a microwave and heat in small increments but sometimes i still get issues going out of temper. I am just learning about other options to help with that but i don't understand why i should choose one method over the other?
I was told that here are my options:
Cocoa Butter
Cocoa Silk
Powdered Cocoa Butter/Silk
I don't understand if they are all the same thing? If not, why should i choose one over the other?
Well that season is upon us, and this is the perfect segue to announce that Cocoa Butter Silk is available again.
As to which on you use I think depends upon your budget and desire of lack thereof to do it yourself.
Cocoa butter. I would not recommend this. In theory it can work….but it can also fail and you really have no control which way it will go. When it works it is because it just happened to naturally form enough Type V crystals. You would use it by adding some amount to chocolate at about 90 F (for dark, 88 and 86 respectively for milk and white) and stir it until melted. Please note, those all should drop about 2 F when you add the butter so you are in a good working temperature range. In theory any crystals that are not Type V will melt and you will have a crop of V that can replicate and temper your chocolate. But you literally have no way of knowing how much Type V is in there. If there isn’t enough Type V, Type VI will start to form and bloom will follow.
Cocoa butter Silk. This is my personal choice. You can either buy it from us (see above) or make your own. I like this MUCH better the just cocoa butter as it is basically pure Type V crystals and because of that you can (and should) add it to your chocolate at 95 F and pour up between 92 and 93 F. An additional perk here is the temperature does NOT change with chocolate type. It is ALWAYS a 95F addition and 92-93 F mold up.
Powdered Silk is just Silk. If you don’t want to grate it, then go for this one. I personally don’t see the big deal about just grating your own. I was about to comment that you will pay more for that convenience compared to ours but I see they are now about the same price depending upon where you shop. Previously the price was nearly double what we sell. That said, ours is both Fair Trade and Certified Organic and that isn’t the case with the powdered stuff that I can see.
There you go, nice and simple. Don’t use just cocoa butter. Chunk Silk and powder silk are identical functionally. I’ll also add in you can make your own Silk for MUCH less, basically the cost of the cocoa butter, assuming you have a sous vide.
There are a couple other things I want to mention. Surface appearance for Silk does not matter like it does in chocolate. This is aimed at those of you who are making it or see white bits on ours. As long as the Silk was mayonnaise like, that is ALL that matters. Don’t overthink it. Also, now that the weather is changing, you might need to change your tempering technique slightly. Personally I use this method year round.
Temper your chocolate by your choice of methods.
Mold your chocolate
Place it in the refrigerator 8 minutes or until it just looses its wet gloss. Pull it out. If your room temperature is 70 F or under, you can let it set up. If it is over 70 F, let it set out 8 minutes and repeat this cycle until the chocolate is under 75 F.
Don’t be tempted to just leave it in the refrigerator thinking more is better. It is not. It can force Type IV to form and bloom will follow.
Further, if you follow this technique, you don’t have to worry about humidity AT ALL. Humidity does NOT affect tempering. Moving cold chocolate to a high humidity room where the chocolate’s temperature can condense moisture is the issue. But doing this refrigerator cycle you are not letting the chocolate get to cold so you avoid the issue.
And one last thing. You mention using a microwave. I know lots of people do that and you didn’t say when you use it. It is fine, albeit a little slow, for melting your chocolate you absolutely should not use it to raise the temperature of your seeded chocolate. The hot spots can destroy your seed. The same goes for heating over boiling water. The surface can get WAY too hot and again detemper your chocolate. Warm water only.