Cocoa butter tempering gone bad?

[Lin]

I was wondering if anyone has ever had this happen before. My bf ordered 3 lbs of cocoa butter online. There was some sort of problem and so he had to wait and the seller sent nearly 3.5 lbs to make up for it.

So last night, we went to temper and break it down for easy use. I've done this many times before but with smaller amounts of cocoa butter. I noticed on some of the chunks a strange porous texture on the outside in some areas. Didn't think too much of it and figured it would be gone after tempering. Tempered with a crock pot due to the large amount, and tempered shea in my oil/wax melting pot at the same time. I'd tempered cocoa butter in pyrex doing a double boiler method before.

It was super late when we finished, so we loosely covered the cocoa butter and left it on the table to slowly solidify. When going to remove it from the molds we found it looking funny. None of it looks perfect, the best pieces have a bit of bloom on them and what really concerns me is this large amount with that same porous structure on the top. Releasing some from the molds the bloom is on all sides, not just the exposed to air ones. If it was just the bloom I'd either ignore it or re-temper, but this strange porous stuff has me Kitten Love-ing. Anyone had this happen before? Is it the butter? How to get rid of it? The butter is actually from the same exact seller where I've bought quantities of 1-1.5 lbs and never had an issue with quality before.

I'll try to see if I can get it to show up in a photo...

 

[CaraBou]

Any pics to post? I have never had anything funky like that but I'm interested to see what you're talking about. I'm also curious what the vendor might say about it.

 

[Lin]

I sent my bf to take the pictures, so they aren't great. You can kind of see though where some just look to have bloomed a bit, and some look like something worse. It looks kind of like foam I realized. That probably describes it better than my attempt at conveying the porous nature. There was definitely no foam on the surface of the butter after pouring.

 

[Lin]

No one? I've stuff to make and don't know if I should use the butter or not. I can't afford to ruin a batch of stuff and waste the other ingredients. I don't have all of my christmas presents done... And its after the new year. I had to wait until this butter arrived to make some stuff because I didn't have enough left of mine after the bf and I made soap last time. My friends knew the presents would arrive late, but I don't want them arriving in February. Some personal stuff happened right before Christmas that threw a wrench in my plans.

 

[TVivian]

Hmm.. I've never melted cocoa butter and cooled it in tins without mixing it with other oils first. If I had some I could melt and cool it like yours and see what happens, but I don't have any on hand right now.

 

[Lin]

I have a small piece from my last batch, I'll see if I can take a photo of it to show the comparison to this. Tempered the same way only this was crock pot and I don't have my own crock pot so I've done it double boiler in pyrex.

 

[cmzaha]

Your butter will be fine. This can happen when the butter does not cool fast enough. When I make balms with butters I always cool them in the fridge. I have one supplier I purchase butter from if I need it quick and I always have this with their coco butter. They melt the butters down to pour into gallon hdpe containers and the top of the butter always looks like this. I assume it is the stearic and palmitic acids not cooling quick enough and crystalizing, or it is stearic streaks. You will have to melt it down again anyway just make sure you get it warm enough to melt all the fatty acids and cool down quickly. Kokum butter is horrific for doing this and actually blooms into a powdery feel on the top.

 

[Nylonknot]

The cocoa and shea butter I buy from Whole Foods and Sprouts always look like this. I am pretty new to soaping (about 6 months) so I thought this was normal. Lol!
I've made a lot of lotion with these butters and they've been great for the last 3 months. I've given them as gifts and no one would complain - and my mother would complain if there was something off.
I think it's fine.

 

[Lin]

Cocoa butter is supposed to cool slowly, which is the opposite of others. Its due to the different types of crystalline structures that cocoa butter forms. So in this case, its possible the weird form is from cooling too quickly, especially since its the edge pieces that seem to be the worst.

Shea, coconut, mango, etc if they cool too slowly some parts will solidify separately and it results in a grainy product. Thats why I always check or temper the butters to make sure they're smooth and even. I cool them in the fridge or even freezer for this, and thats what we did with the shea. But cocoa butter is supposed to cool slowly at room temperature after a proper temper to ensure the correct crystalline structure. Its why you have to temper chocolate, due to the cocoa butter in it. Without the right crystalline structure of the cocoa butter the chocolate will have blooming, appear dull instead of shiny, and not have that crisp structure thats stable at room temperature but melts quickly at body temperature with a smooth texture. Cocoa butter alone needs to be tempered as well to achieve the correct crystalline structure for that same easy melting at the body temperature (and not melting at too low of a temperature) with a smooth feel.

Cocoa butter when its mixed with other butters changes the form, the same rules don't apply. But your end product will be affected if you started with properly tempered cocoa butter or not.

 

[judymoody]

Can I ask what you are making with the cocoa butter? Depending on the application, your tempering results might not be an issue.

 

[Ancel]

We make our own chocolate from the cacao we grow, we're tempering today (I've snuck out to check the forum ), and we always place our bars directly in the freezer after pouring in the molds. They're in there for 15 minutes and then get unmolded and stored. The cacao butter - which makes up 45-55% of each cacao bean, and hence about 30% of our bars (figuring in the sugar), does perfectly well with this treatment. As does the cacao butter that is left at room temperature to harden in the utensils we use. I think with tempering the initial temperature changes, the melting, dropping and raising temps are what's important.

Unless there's some weirdness that been added to your original purchase, I think your c.b. should be fine.

 

[Lin]

Tempering chocolate is slightly different than tempering pure cocoa butter, I also stick chocolates in the freezer or fridge to harden. But the tempering with them can be done a few different ways, the easiest (and one I use) is introducing the correct crystaline structure back into the chocolate after you've melted them. Aka, adding back some chocolate chips after you've melted most of your chocolate, then the crystalline structure will mimic the correct structure in those chips. I consider the way you mentioned, raising the temperature then dropping it and raising it again more complicated. Or at least I've had bad luck with that in the past.

I don't know if cocoa butter can be tempered in the exact same way as chocolates, I've found some differing information when I looked into it in the past from chefs who use pure cocoa butter. So I've always done the "easy" way where the tempering is based on complete melt and reaching the correct temperature (to ensure its completely melted and all structure gone) and the slow cool to allow the crystals to form the correct structure. I have wondered about saving some correctly tempered cocoa butter (like the bit I have left from my last batch) and adding it in to the melted new batch of cocoa butter to introduce the same structures like in chocolate. Maybe I should give it a shot some time. I should probably get the hang of the raise/drop/raise method with chocolate before pure cocoa butter.

My bf will be using the cb for soap and shaving soap. I'll be using it for soap, body butter, lotion bars, hair conditioner, and lip balm. I think thats everything.

 

[judymoody]

I think that the only applications where tempering might be necessary are your body butters, lotion bars, and lip balm where graininess might be an issue. It shouldn't make any difference for hair conditioner or soap.

 

[Lin]

Yep, and thats exactly the products I'm concerned about and need to make. I don't have any of my body butter, lotion bars, or lip balm ready for the christmas presents. I didn't have enough cocoa butter left to make anything but one of my lip balm recipes, and of course I didn't get the lip balm TUBES for that recipe until a few days before christmas despite ordering them in mid Nov. The supplier is sending me extra to 'make up' for it. And we were supposed to get this batch of cocoa butter in about 2 weeks before we did. It arrived around the 20th. Then a death in the family, and only just tempered the new cocoa butter and shea butter the other day.

 

[lizflowers42]

We make our own chocolate from the cacao we grow

OMG, will you adopt me? I am very good at eating chocolate and could, umm, find something more productive to help you with

 

[Ancel]

Hey lizflowers42, sure, come on down

 

[Lin]

I bet your chocolate is amazing too. Not the crap we get here in the states.

I'm actually not a big chocolate fan, never have been. I like chocolate in stuff but it can't be too much chocolate. My roommate and boyfriend tease me about my 'rules' for chocolate ratio in what candy or brands of choc covered pretzels I'll eat. But thats also part of why I like making my own chocolates like truffles or peanut butter cups, so I can get the amount of chocolate just right so its complimenting and not overpowering.

Liz, just noticed this so *wave* heya fellow Hoosier. I'm from NW IN originally, currently in Indy.

 

[Ancel]

Lin, I didn't know that there was a difference between tempering chocolate and tempering cb. We make between 160 and 200 bars of chocolate a week, we temper by hand, and we use seed. I'll have to research the difference with cb, I've been doing it the same way, which is also how we temper our white chocolate. Interesting . . .

 

[judymoody]

Lin, I didn't know that there was a difference between tempering chocolate and tempering cb. We make between 160 and 200 bars of chocolate a week, we temper by hand, and we use seed. I'll have to research the difference with cb, I've been doing it the same way, which is also how we temper our white chocolate. Interesting . . .

I checked out your site and your products look terrific!

 

[Lin]

tempering pure cocoa butter is most similar to tempering dark chocolate as opposed to white chocolate due to the additives in white chocolate. But what I've read from chefs who use pure cocoa butter is that its still somewhat different but I wasn't able to find set guidelines for how they do it. When it comes to crafters who temper cocoa butter for personal care products, they do the melting and bringing it to approx 100 degrees and maintain that for 45-60 minutes and then cool slowly. So thats the method I've been using for the couple years I've been working with it. I'm debating taking some of the batch and tempering it like dark chocolate to see what happens, if it helps then I can do the rest of the batch.

For shea and coconut you want the opposite to cool it as fast as possible to prevent parts solidifying first and causing graininess. And of course shea is so temperamental where you don't want to heat it too high, too many times, too long... It takes a higher temperature though for everything to melt, around 175-180. I don't get it straight from ghana but from a middleman who gets it from ghana and also need to filter it. I prefer it this way so you know it hasn't been messed with too much/too many times with large batches being broken down into smaller ones etc. We just got 5 lbs and did it at the same time as the cocoa.