Press Bots

The Different Styles of Chocolate Tempering Procedures

January 28th, 2010

You will learn that chocolate has been properly tempered once you see that it’s shiny, creamy, and rich and once you bite into it; there is a sharp crispiness to that bite. Chocolate tempering is the stage whereby chocolates are melted , cooled down, and worked on at precise temperatures.

All manufacturers of chocolates temper their products before they cater to the buying public. If chocolate didn’t undergo the process of tempering it will be prone to blooming. This is the condition where chocolates have whitish-gray spots all over and feels crumbly to the tongue.

Chocolate tempering is very important in the processing of cocoa beans because during the procedure, the fat crystals that can be found in the cocoa butter are in the process of crystallization. Tempering makes the fatty acids stabilize and crystallize with uniformity.

Tempering that’s done manually can really be very intricate, most especially if you are just a novice in the process. You have to learn so many things about tempering before you can totally understand and correct any mistakes automatically.

You have to know what’s behind the chemistry in chocolate tempering. The fatty acids in the cocoa butter must form type V crystals alone during the process. These crystals are the ones that provide chocolate’s marketable features.

It’s also important that you know how to handle and maintain the different chocolate temperatures for each type of chocolates you’ll be using. As you probably know, chocolate is very responsive to temperature fluctuations. This is the very reason why a chocolate temper meter or calibrated thermometer is vital to chocolatiers anytime they work.

There are two different steps that you can do to be able to temper chocolates by hand. The first one is by using a marble slab and the other one is through the seeding process.

In using the marble-slab technique, you have to melt the chocolate first. As soon as it’s melted to the correct temperatures (according to the chocolate you’re using) you now pour the chocolate onto a slab and work it until you reach the desired cooling temperature. In seeding, all you have to do is combine chocolate bits (unmelted) with the chocolate mush so that the fatty acids will then be able to crystallize according to the form of the seeds.

The best, most efficient way to temper chocolate is by using a chocolate tempering machine. It’s been designed solely to perfect the chemistry behind chocolate tempering so it’ll produce as much type V crystals as is possible every time you start work. The machine can work on its own when tempering the chocolates; you do not have to regularly check on temperatures constantly as it will monitor and adjust these on its own.

Bookmark this! These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.