- You're probably wondering, Barry, why are you doing this?
(triumphant orchestral music) (air whooshes)
(bubbles pop)
Hi-yah!
Hello, everybody.
Hope you're well, welcome.
Today's video is all about chocolate tempering,
and if you wanna have a look at a video I did a while ago
about chocolate tempering, it goes into much more detail
about white, dark, and milk chocolate and why it happens.
And basically it's a formulation of sugar crystals
when you melt chocolate.
If you don't do it right to certain temperatures,
they all get crazy and angry,
and there's different reasons for it, some fats and stuff,
and your chocolate can essentially bloom and look patchy.
We've probably all done it by accident.
But sometimes you can end up tempering your chocolate
and it looks amazing.
It has that lovely hard finish, smooth,
and snaps really well,
a little bit like my Snickers the other day.
I kind of fluked that.
I did not temper that chocolate,
but I winged it, and it worked.
What we're gonna do today is test four different methods
of tempering chocolate and actually use two different types.
This is by Callebaut, it's a couverture chocolate,
which is what a lot of the pros use,.
It's expensive, but this is really good for tempering
because it is basically purely 33.6 cocoa solids for milk.
With dark, it gets more and more like that.
And it's that that really makes it work.
So that should be amazing.
At the opposite end of the spectrum,
we've got these basic chocolate bars
that I used to use for Giant Foods with James,
and they used to be 15 P a bar.
They're now 50 P a bar.
That is insane.
The four methods we're using.
One, we're gonna try and use the microwave
and just very quickly temper it in there,
or just melt it, I don't know.
This is the really funky thing.
I've got a sous vide.
This is something that basically,
a probe that warms water up,
and we can get the most accurate temperature.
Now I've heard good things about that method.
We're gonna go old school with the old pan
and simmering water with both the chocolates.
And I've still got this tempering machine here.
So I figured this is what the pros use.
Let's use this as well and compare.
Right, so these callets are basically like little pebbles,
little dot discs of chocolate already cut up for us
like chocolate chips.
So we don't need to do anything like that.
But in the interest of fairness,
our budget basic chocolate like this,
I'm all gonna slice it up.
(light playful music)
This is fun.
Okay, so apparently we take about 2/3
of the chocolate initially.
So that's my good stuff.
Cheap stuff.
So the critical temperature we're reaching today
is around about 44, 45 degrees C.
That's perfect for melting milk chocolate.
That's kind of like its melting point
to start that sort of sugar crystallisation process.
And that is what we're gonna do with both of these,.
We're gonna melt them first of all,
and then we add the seed, big word, which is down there.
That's our remaining stuff to bring
the temperature back down and formal it and go,
hey, this is what you're supposed to be like!
Get it?
So I think for this test we'll use
my computer-gaming controller mould
'cause I absolutely love it.
But we have to do one at a time, that's the only downside.
So we'll go, let's go for the rubbish chocolate first.
So every 30 seconds, I'm gonna take it out and stir it.
(light playful music)
All right, it might not feel like
it's doing too much right now, but it will.
See, it's a little bit melted on the side.
(light playful music)
Okay, that feels really, really hot,
but it's still about 15 degrees off of that melting point.
So it's only on 30 degrees at the moment.
In the past, I would've been like, yeah, that's melted.
I'm gonna use that, but really that's quite interesting,
the fact that you've gotta take it beyond
just melted, you know?
That's 40
one, two, three, four, five.
Okay, that's gone (laughs), that's gone beyond it.
But that's the downside to doing it in the microwave,
and I just did that in like an extra 15 seconds.
What you're supposed to do now is seed it.
So we're adding the other chocolate in.
Kind of cool it down instantly in a way.
Oh, you see this, that is all melted through now,
and it's looking, I don't know, it's kind of.
I can see like little lumps and specs.
But apparently if I leave this to rest,
and it'll drop around to about 30 C,
we are then got tempered chocolate.
So I'm gonna do exactly the same, with me posh bits, yeah.
(light playful music)
Look at the difference in texture, look how thick that is,
and look how smooth that is.
Wow.
This PlayStation one, this to me represents
slightly more modern than the NES controller,
which is what we're gonna put the cheaper one in.
That's the easiest way I'm gonna remember this.
And then this is the NES controller.
Look how chunky that is!
Oh my gosh, it's like oil.
All right, so here's the thing.
When it comes to tempering chocolate, a lot of people say
you should leave it at room temperature to set naturally.
Now, other people argue that it's good just to get
that initial set as quick as you can in the fridge.
So I'm just gonna put this in me fridge right there
to do its thing,
and I'll come back to it in about five minutes.
All right, just before (groans).
It's gonna get quite loud.
This is the chocolate tempering machine.
(machine beeps)
Milk.
So we're gonna start with the basic stuff first.
So this is gonna melt it to the 45 degrees
that we talked about.
And then I've got the remaining bit here,
which I'm gonna break up, which is gonna be the seed.
So I can just leave this for now.
It's gonna be a bit noisy in the background, you hear it?
Yeah, like a hair dryer (buzzes).
So meanwhile I can get my third method on the go.
So I've got the chocolate split up here,
old-school bain-marie style
that never really has let me down before.
Both going to 45 degrees,
and I got the spare seed down there.
Just to show you, some of this stuff that I had spare there,
I have leaving it at room temperature as well
just as a comparison without using the fridge method.
I'll do that for all of them.
(laughs) Look! (knocks on wood)
That's our tempered PlayStation controller, look at that.
And look, the fact that it's fairly good,
I'm not getting much smudging on me.
You know when you, like your body heat
sort of rubs off the chocolate?
Look, good!
And then this one,
that's been in there exactly the same time (laughs).
Wow, oh, look at that.
I mean, yeah, you can just about see that there.
And look, it's just the whole surface
of that is just clammy (laughs).
So tempering in a microwave
with the quality stuff kind of works.
So what's the point of the rest of this video?
(classic saloon piano music)
This machine just beeped, which means I add in my seed.
I don't know what I'm doing.
And that's gonna melt that up a dream.
Okay, this one's done.
(hoots) That was hot.
But what I'm gonna do is add in my seed again.
See, we're kind of getting this seed idea.
That is hot, whoa.
Okay this one.
It just looks so much more like chocolate.
That's ready to come off the heat.
In goes that seed.
(moaning)
Oh my gosh, that is like velvet.
Nearly done, this is the last bit.
It looks gorgeous actually.
This is the rubbish stuff. (machine beeping)
(gasps) There we go!
Press temper. (machine beeps)
(gasps) I think it's ready I just.
(gasps) Gosh.
Whoops.
Oh no, that's good.
I pressed the T button to acknowledge
that I didn't know what I was doing,
but I pressed the right button.
That's good!
The great thing about this machine, it'll stay now.
(machine beeping)
That, it's in temper.
The machine will stay in temper for as long as we like.
So for rubbish, basic, cheap chocolate,
that looks pretty good.
I like that.
Yeah.
So to compare the two side-by-side, I can't do initially
because the machine hasn't done the good stuff yet.
So what we'll do is we'll go for the NES-looking controller
for the cheaper chocolate again.
Look at that, oh my gosh.
(sighs) That's so nice.
It doesn't matter that you're about a 10th of the price.
I still love you.
I'm gonna stick this one in the fridge like before.
And just because I wanna.
I've got so many random moulds!
I just wanna see what this does at room temperature
because I'm doing that theory with the other ones as well.
Let me make some chocolate gummy bears, there you go.
You're probably wondering, Barry, why are you doing this?
One, 'cause it's the internet, isn't it?
Two, because if I can save you money
on maybe buying something like this
or doing the other methods.
And three, perhaps finding that the chocolate,
it doesn't matter, and you can get the naff stuff,
and it still works, then that's quite good.
I think.
Check this out.
This is the tempered chocolate on the machine
from the naff stuff.
I put it in the fridge just to get that set,
and can you see,
there's hardly any sort of speckles on that whatsoever.
(cries)
(groans) It's got a slightly duller finish to it.
And why does that feel so?
Mm, that's interesting.
It looks pretty good.
But that, look, can you see it coming off on my fingers?
(gags)
Oh no, can you see in the middle?
(moans)
All right.
It's time to add my seed.
Look at this, this is awesome.
This is like pro level stuff right now.
This is the professional machine with the top chocolate
done by an amateur.
Look how smooth that is compared to the other one.
That's almost like thick and chunky.
They're seeing a consistent thing here.
I think we'll give the Mega Drive controller.
That is a Mega Drive, isn't it?
Some love this time.
Look at this.
Come on now, come on.
Oh yeah.
I love that.
I literally wanna just be an Oompa Loompa
for the rest of my life.
Fridge initially to set,
and I'll do the gummy bears for room temperature.
And also realised that my handwriting,
because I don't really write very much anymore,
is slowly turning into hieroglyphics.
So now we're going back to the bain-marie method.
That cooled down, perfect timing for me.
And I'm just warming, this is the cheap chocolate,
back up to 29, so we're nearly there.
It's literally just pushing it up by another two degrees,
which all the other methods don't do,
but I did this method before
on the other video I referenced,
and it worked really well so.
There we go, 29.
Couverture chocolate.
Cheap chocolate.
Both at the same temperature.
Look at the difference!
Wow.
I'm excited for this one.
Because this is the tempered machine
Mega Drive controller mould that's just gone firm (exhales).
Come on.
(laughs)
(knocks on wood)
That looks brilliant
I'm really happy with that.
Right, let's move that out of the way just for a minute.
And we're gonna bring back that combination
of the NES and the PlayStation again.
So this is the one that I've done bain-marie style.
And here is our tempered one,
which still has a few little bumps in it as well to be fair.
It's just a much smoother pour though.
So I'll fridge these and gummy bear the others.
(box trumpets) (laughs)
It looks like a shower head.
Wow, look at that thing!
This is basically a probe to make a water bath.
It's called a sous vide.
I went to school with someone called Sous Vide.
That's a lie.
This basically will warm up the water
to the exact temperature that we want,
and it can stay there forever.
So we can take it up to that 45 C.
We can then cool it rapidly with ice,
and then bring it back up a teeny bit if we want to.
(pot trumpets) (snorts)
So I'm gonna submerge.
Oh yeah, get in there.
The chocolate.
So I'm gonna get all the air out.
(machine beeps) Hello!
Yes, set temperature, top right.
It's moving, okay.
45 degrees.
I give it an hour? (machine beeps)
Yeah, there you go.
Why is it going around in circles?
Oh my gosh.
Hang on.
This has been my life for like the last half an hour.
I've just been pressing the same buttons over and over.
Apparently once I get to one point,
it should just all stop flashing.
Oh why, ooh, ooh.
I just want you to stop flashing, oh my gosh.
Leave it with me.
Chocolate is one the way.
(gasps) (machine hums)
It's making a noise, it's making a noise!
It's going up.
We'll just get that to 45 C,
and then I'll probably submerge the chocolate.
Now when you sous vide chocolate apparently
you can take the bags out
and move it around with your hands as well
just to make sure that it's all circulated.
It's all about that temperature.
So we'll do that a couple of times.
I knew there was a reason I kept
this gadget lying around on the side.
Remember my pasta done, pasta done guy, huh?
I mean, I think this is why you vacuum seal it normally.
But he is weighing down the chocolate
so it's submerged under the water.
But whilst that's finishing off,
I've just gotta get those other ones outta the fridge.
So this is the bain-marie couverture chocolate.
Ah!
Nice.
And this is out cheap one, done in the bain-marie.
That's still not setting!
Why is that taking so long?
The difference of these, the strength.
Like, that's had way too long in the fridge
than it should have, if I'm honest,
but it's just brittle still.
Come on, it's such a tease.
It keeps.
There it is.
It's at 45 now.
(gasps) It just beeped.
But then, now, it can just stay there!
Look at that, that is amazing.
And what you can do.
Oh, there's still a few teeny lumps in it.
You can, I think this is called agitating it.
Oh yeah.
So they're back in there, okay?
And we're gonna agitate it
a couple more times until it's smooth.
Once it's at that stage,
we're then gonna rapidly bring the temperature down.
You could leave it to cool naturally or we could use ice.
Ice, baby, and that's what we're gonna do.
We'll take the water level down.
And our target temperature is gonna be 27 degrees.
Hello.
Nice.
Oh wow, it's cooling down quickly.
But we can accelerate this with the ice.
That's right, we wanna take you down to 27 town.
(machine beeps)
Ah, it's at the temperature!
So now this thing is gonna counteract against the ice
and melt it and warm it back up.
Brilliant.
(laughs) So now I can put my bags back in,
and they can kind of get used to being at that temperature,
and let it sit there for about five minutes.
Right, the chocolate has cooled.
We're gonna do this one at a time.
Our seed is going in.
But I can agitate that in with it so it all melts together.
(laughs) This really does feel hands on.
And despite the bags feeling way cooler,
it is actually breaking those bits down.
So chopping it fine really does help.
Oh, agitation.
I think we've got a little but of a problem (laughs).
One of them is working amazing,
the actual couverture chocolate.
Maybe it is just destiny and fate.
The other one's kinda seized.
This is just gone.
In the middle there's like congealed blocks of it
where it's gone together,
and like, hey, I don't like this.
But we'll still try, okay?
This other one, oh, smooth.
(light playful music)
Look at that.
That is not good at all.
(laughs) It looks shiny though.
Oh, look at the difference in that.
Oh, that is just pouring in like a dream.
Oh, way too much.
That'll do.
So that will go in the fridge,
and this was a mould I was playing around with earlier.
I'm gonna just make some LEGO men
with this tempered chocolate,
and leave that to room temperature and see what it does.
This is an example of some of the things
that can happen with temperance.
So these are the ones we did
right at the start with the microwave.
You see the sort of speckled finish on that?
That is the rubbish quality chocolate.
And the better quality one, look.
Hmm.
So based on that let's do some reveals.
These are the ones I left at room temperature as well.
You've seen the ones in the fridge already.
(chuckles) I love that.
There doesn't seem to be that much difference
other than the blemishes.
Now this is the cheaper chocolate one,
but we're not getting that clamminess.
Okay, so that's quite a good. (thuds on wood)
Oh no, it's still a bit soft.
Oh yeah, see?
Mm, it's okay though.
This is the better quality one.
(knocks on wood)
And you can see I'm trying to bend that.
That is not snapping.
That is the difference.
That is the power, Marty (laughs), of the sugar crystals.
This is the bain-marie ones.
This is the high quality chocolate one, room temperature.
Look at the shine on that.
So that's a bain-marie good quality chocolate
left to set, no fridge.
Weaker chocolate.
I'm wondering what this is gonna look like.
Oh wow, look at the shine on that!
That's actually really good.
Will it bend?
No, that's strong.
Wow.
That's strong.
(upbeat playful music)
Yeah, okay, strong.
Strong, strong, huh, Barry?
Well, if you are eagle-eyed as I've just spotted
in the edit, I must have got my paper filing system
round the wrong way because I screenshot something
a minute ago, it's basically the thing from earlier
in the video of which the room temperature
temper machine ones sat in.
That is those.
So the tempering machine ones were these.
That was not the bain-marie method.
Damn it.
So reminder, this was the tempering machine,
with the fridge and the cheap chocolate, and it broke.
The microwave and the cheap died.
Rest in peace.
And that was the bain-marie in the fridge
with the cheap chocolate.
So that's weird, isn't it?
The difference between putting it in the fridge, and not.
Hmm.
Microwave with expensive chocolate.
We liked that one, that was one of the first ones.
(knocking on wood) That's solid.
Temper machine and the fridge, again.
That's strong, that's strong.
And the bain-marie with the fridge
and the tempering was also good.
Well, this is a weird one.
This is the tempering machine left at room temperature.
I've just got those out, and they're both quite.
I mean, they've been out on the side for quite a while,
but they don't feel strong at all, either of them.
It's weird.
These are the LEGO men that I just made with the sous vide
tempering chocolate left at room temperature.
That is absolutely awesome.
And look, I'm trying to bend that, no.
And it won't (chuckles), it won't go at all.
That sous vide method is so strong.
Last but not least, the sous vide that we did in the fridge.
Can we get a decent NES controller out
with the cheap chocolate?
(knocks on wood) Not bad.
Oh, that's quite strong, I'm trying to break.
No look (grunts), I'm really giving that some.
Wow, I think we've got one.
That will do!
And then lastly, the PlayStation controller,
sous vide in the fridge briefly just to get that set on.
(groans) Oh wow.
(knocks on wood)
Oh my gosh (sighs).
Hello, I've no idea how we're gonna end this video,
but I did this epic ending about the bain-marie going,
how good that method was, but it was the tempering machine.
I've got them here.
And the cool thing was, that even with the cheap chocolate,
you get that really cool shine.
It's not clammy at all.
It's working perfect so it makes me really question
the whole cocoa percentage thing.
It's fine.
They're good.
They're both as good!
I don't know, I've had an absolute blast
doing this video today.
It's taken me absolutely ages.
I've got a mountain of chocolate
and washing up downstairs to do,
but I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.
Bear with me.
See you next time.
(upbeat hip-hop music) ♪ Check your level, player ♪
♪ No matter what your style ♪
♪ The kitchen's for me ♪
♪ Sideburns, moustache, goatee ♪
♪ Maybe all three ♪