nav[aria-label="Primary Navigation"] { padding: 0; & ul { list-style: none; width: 100%; display: flex; flex-direction: row; justify-content: start; align-items: start; gap: 30px; padding: 0; & li { margin: 0; } & ul li { list-style: none; } } }

Sous Vide for tempering chocolate

douglas_bd

Has anyone ever tried using a sous vide setup for tempering chocolate? My previous attempts with microwave, gas burner, heat gun etc. have worked ok, but proven difficult to maintain for a long period of time. While it may start perfectly tempered, it either stiffens up or loses temper before the work is complete. I don't do it enough to commit to a tempering machine, but it occurred to me that maybe you could use a sous vide setup for some extremely consistent results, and then maintain the chocolate at the proper temp for an extended period of time in an open top container in the water bath. This seems relatively straightforward, but I've never heard of it being done...

Find more posts tagged with

Recipes Q's

Comments

Chris_Young_80640

@Brian_Douglas It can indeed be done. The basic idea is to vacuum package your chocolate, heat to 122 °F / 50 °C or so until you've melted all of the crystals that comprise the chocolate. Then cool it to 82 °F / 28 °C to start the chocolate seeding. Then rewarm it to 90 °F / 32 °C and hold it there as you work with it.

In practice, I find it useful to add a big handful of already tempered microplaned chocolate once the molten chocolate hits about 95 °F / 35 °C to start seeding the correct crystalline form in the chocolate.

This process will give you a very high quality chocolate temper that is easy to work with because it's not over-tempered. But if all you need is to soften chocolate to a spreadable consistency, but without having it lose its temper, then you can bag solid, properly tempered chocolate and just hold it at 90 °F / 32 °C until it softens. It'll be very thick because you have so many crystals still, but you'll be able to spread it out.

Chris_Young_80640

@victorwol with the melting step, the mixing is unimportant. During the cooling, slight reheating, and then hold step you'll need to put the chocolate in a metal bowl and use a spatula to mix. The bowl can be set into a waterbath—but you must be careful to avoid getting water into the chocolate.

dpietranczyk_49940

So I've gotten this correct..

1. Bag chocolate and drop into a bath set at 122F.

2. Open the bag and pour it into a bowl and cool to 82F

3. Set the bowl in a waterbath at 90F for working with

After this it can be cooled completely solid and rewarm it to 90F when I need it?

I think I'm also confused about the microplaned chocolate. At what point does that go in? Once the chocolate has cooled from 122F down to 95F and then seed it down to 82?

Chris_Young_80640

@dpietranczyk – Usually you can add the seed crystals (microplaned tempered chocolate) to the chocolate once it cools to 35 °C / 95 °F, then keep stirring and let it cool to a working temperature of 32 °C / 90 °F.

If I need an absolutely perfect temper, then I'll allow the chocolate to cool as far as 28 °C / 82 °F after I've added the seed, and then warm it back up to 32 °C / 90 °F to begin working with the chocolate.

dpietranczyk_49940

@Chris Thanks so much for sharing all of this information with us and responding so quickly to our questions. I'm sure at some point it must feel like kids tugging you in different directions, asking you a million questions, whilst you are trying to build this site. "Daddy tell me this, tell me that, play with me". I really really appreciate it!! Chefsteps is unbelievable.

Chris_Young_80640

@dpietransczk – You're welcome. Thanks for being part of the community.

Kyle_Tingey_21300

I am looking to make my own chocolate from scratch. Is there another way of forming the correct crystalline without seeding it? I assume you will have to temper much longer while gradually changing the temperature. Is this correct?

trev_teich

So, I'm making an element out of the Eleven Madison Park cookbook. It's aerated chocolate. It says to put chocolate and grapeseed oil in an isi and temper at 82F with a circulator for 1.5h. Doesn't seem to be melting at all. Thoughts?

Brendan_Lee_56950

what page is that on trevor?

trev_teich

I'm going to try 122F then 82F then 90F

trev_teich

Another qeustion. When tempering with sous vide should we set the temp 2ºF above the temp we want?

trev_teich

So I did the @Chris method to temper the chocolate. It worked well. However, the chocolate can not be handled without melting in ones hand. I left a peace out at room temp 74ºF and has not melted. So, yay! Weird that I feel I may have found one of the very few errors in the EPM cookbook. Still thinking I may have done something wrong in the beginning, but can't think of what for the life of me.

Brendan_Lee_56950

Maybe it's just a difference in the chocolate you were using compared to what they were using?

Brandon_34695

That is a good point, they claim to use Mast Brothers, which doesn't have any emulsifiers (e.g. soy lecithin) in it. The ingredients listed on their unflavored chocolates are: "cacao, cane sugar"

Jim_Meyers_13140

I just did this with my Anova circulators and it worked great. I wanted to be precise with all three temperatures but I only have two circulators, so this is what I did:

1. Set bath 1 to 122F
2. Set bath 2 to 91F
3. Put chocolate in ziplock and place in 122F bath until melted
4. Reset 122F bath to 82F
5. Open bag, add some micro-planed chocolate and reseal
6. Slowly add snow (blizzard today) to bath until near 82F, then let is settle down to to 82F on its own
7. Move to 91F bath

I used the chocolate for three hours, removing the bag when I needed some and putting it back to maintain working temperature.

Pepijn_31744

@Trevor Teich, I don't have the Eleven Madison Park cookbook myself; I'm assuming the recipe is similar to what I found here. I think in the cookbook they mean for you to add molten chocolate, charge it and set it in a bath at 28 C (82 F) to temper it. Melting store-bought chocolate at that temperature won't work since it should already be tempered. 28 C is below the required melting point of the beta 2 and beta 1 triglycerides (32-34 C and 34-36 C resp.). Melting the chocolate at 45 C should break down all the crystals.

TL;DR: Recipe should read, add molten chocolate & oil to siphon, charge, temper at 82F, dispense foam and freeze

trev_teich

So, I did use the correct chocolate for this recipe (Valrhona Equatoriale 55%) as the recipe calls for. The recipe you have a link to is not as detailed and differnt from the book. I used the method Chris used and worked well. Basically the book is wrong.

Tim_Roth_78505

I've been experimenting with less involved methods that don't require dipping the temperature of the chocolate below the point at which beta (V) crystals form. I've read some blog posts that suggest that simply melting the chocolate at around 90 degrees is enough to temper, but I encountered issues with high viscosity and, in one case, visible bloom that I suspect are due to overseeding phenomena or similar (though to be fair, my kitchen was in the 40-50 F range at the time, so cooling rate could have been another major factor). However, I had fairly consistent results by melting the chocolate at 122 F and cooling to and holding at 90-92 F for many hours. It's not as quick as other methods, but it allows you to plan ahead, melt the chocolate in the evening, and then let it cool down from 122 over the course of the day (or overnight, etc.) such that it can be worked with later. This should give you some flexibility with preparing fillings for dipping while the chocolate tempers, as many of them require overnight cooling anyway. Full disclosure: I don't have anything quantitative on the tempering results I've gotten from this other than a mild snap and decent gloss from samples taken at ~12, 24, 36, and 48h time points. The chocolate also doesn't melt immediately upon being touched.

TL;DR: To make this even more hands-off, theoretically you can just melt the chocolate at 122 F and then change the bath temp to ~90 F and let it sit for 12+ hours. This makes the process even more hands-off, although it does mean planning ahead.

Susan_Weaver_750142

I was searching on the same Chocolate tempering machine since last many days and i got it and as per my experience i have shortlisted some best tempering chocolate machine. you can have a look and go through it before taking and making it yours.