I have tried various ways to temper dark chocolate at home over the years, but 'silk' seeding is by far the best, provided one can reliably, efficiently and economically produce silk. I have used general-purpose incubators in the past, but those with the required temperature range and accuracy are quite expensive and do not provide consistent results because of temperature fluctuations within the large enclosure, making them 'not-fit-for-purpose' in my opinion. On the other hand, the few specialised cocoa butter incubators available from other manufacturers are prohibitively expensive for small-batch home chocolate producers/experimenters like myself.
Enter the affordable CocoPix! But can it produce silk reliably, compared to its more expensive alternatives? The answer is a resounding YES! I use various types of cocoa butter sourced from both equatorial and sub-equatorial regions that exhibit different β2 (Type V) polymorph melting points, and I have found that once I have set the temperature of my CocoPix accordingly, it produces the required quantity of silk after 24 hours, under no supervision, with 100% reliability to date. Also, once the optimum temperature setting has been established for a particular type/brand of cocoa butter, I have found that setting to hold 'true' with ambient temperature in the range of 15-23 degrees Celsius (c. 59-73 degrees Fahrenheit) over the 24-hour incubation period.