What is tempering chocolate? Why is chocolate tempered? Chocolatier Simon Knott answers your tempering questions, and explains why it’s such an essential step.
As you’ve started to delve deeper into chocolate craft, you’ve probably started to wonder, what is tempering chocolate?
Until now, perhaps you’ve simply melted your chocolate and poured it into molds. Doing this will create chocolate treats that are perfectly fine for your kids or a sugar-hungry hubby, but it is far from chocolate-shop perfect.
If your chocolate suffers from a dull finish, soft texture and sticks to the mold, then these are issues that can be avoided by tempering chocolate. Ultimately, tempering is the line that divides amateur cooks and professional chocolatiers.
In this introductory article, professional chocolatier Simon Knott explains what is tempering chocolate, and why is chocolate tempered. He also touches on tempering methods, so you can comfortably cross into the realm of crafting pro-quality chocolates.
What is Tempering Chocolate?
By Simon Knott, Chocolatier
For fans of chocolate, its appeal lies in its flavour, creaminess, melting quality, and snap, making it one of the most appealing sweets worldwide.
Chocolate tempering can be viewed as a process that controls and improves the quality of chocolate in several ways. By encouraging the growth of the most stable type V cocoa butter crystals, the stability of the chocolate texture is markedly improved.
Why is Chocolate Tempered?
The process of chocolate tempering achieves several qualitative and sensory benefits:
- A good snap
- Shiny surface (gloss)
- More stable at room temperature
- Storage stability
- Smooth mouthfeel
- Better dipping performance
Good Snap
With the well-organised crystal structure of type V crystals, the chocolate has good physical rigidity, which means it breaks with a satisfying snap. Untempered chocolate will break without sound and have a crumblier texture.
Shiny Surface (gloss)
When molded, tempered chocolate creates a glossy mirror finish on the exterior. The crystal structure forms a smooth, hard surface, which reflects light well, making it shiny. Untempered chocolate doesn’t reflect and appears dull.
More Stable at Room Temperature
Tempered chocolate is more robust and has a tighter crystal structure. A piece held in the hand is less likely to melt than untempered chocolate.
Storage Stability
Temperedchocolate’s robust physical properties mean the component ingredients are locked in place. Blooming, where cocoa butter migrates to the surface to create a white coating, is less likely to happen in tempered chocolate.
Smooth Mouthfeel
Tempered chocolate’s fine crystal structure helps it melt faster and more uniformly in the mouth, giving it the smoothness and creaminesspeople value so much.
Better Dipping Performance
Dipped tempered chocolate items, such as truffles or pralines, will produce a neater and more robust coating. The shell will set more quickly and be stronger when containing the filling. It will also have a better shine and an enjoyable resistance to bite.
What is Tempering Chocolate Technique?
Methods for tempering chocolate
The seeding method is the simplest form of chocolate tempering. Couverture chocolate is melted in a bain marie to 122°F (50°C)-131°F (55°C). Then, the temperature is lowered to 84°F (29°C), and a third of the total chocolate weight is added as callets (buttons or wafers) or chopped chocolate, which is stirred through the melted chocolate.
This added tempered chocolate melts into the liquid chocolate, seeding it with type V crystals as the temperature decreases, creating uniform-tempered chocolate. Lastly, the temperature of the chocolate is raised to 90°F (32°C) as its working temperature.
Tempering can be achieved by hand with a little practice. Alternatively, you can invest in a small business or domestic tempering machine, to automate the process.
Models of budget chocolate tempering machines that I recommend are:
Revolution 2 Chocolate Tempering Machine
- Handles up to 1.5lb of chocolate, ideal for home use
- $649 USD
- View full details, purchase and see product images on Amazon
Chocolate World Wheelie Tempering Machine
- 2 sizes available – 14kg and 30kg
- Price on application
- View full details, request price and see product images on the website
ChocoVision
- Handles up to 680kg, ideal for small businesses
- £525.00 (UK)
- View full details, purchase and see product images on the website
For more tempering machine help, you can read my related articles below:
RELATED: Do You Really Need a Chocolate Tempering Machine?
To learn how to temper chocolate by hand, check out this article:
RELATED: How to Temper Chocolate by Hand
What is temper chocolate? Choosing the right chocolate
To eat chocolate at its best, it is vital to source a good-quality brand made from premium ingredients. Couverture chocolate is often recommended as it contains more cocoa butter, equating to better-quality tempering and mouth feel in finished products.
And remember, tempering chocolate isn’t a one-way street! If you temper a batch of chocolate but don’t need to use it all at once, you can simply remelt and use it just as you would new chocolate. You can even re-temper it if required. The only change that is taking place is the type and quantity of crystals it contains – when it is remelted, it reverts to untempered chocolate.
What is Tempering Chocolate? The Science
The food science behind tempering chocolate is complex, but unless you are interested, you only need to understand the basic mechanisms to successfully temper chocolate.
When learning about the process, it is easy to become bogged down in scientific theory when your time is better spent practising a few simple techniques.
Chocolate tempering creates good crystalline structure
We tend to think of foods with crystalline structures as having a crunchy texture, such as butterscotch or sugar, but in some foods, the crystals are so tiny that when eaten, you experience a smooth texture. Chocolate is a good example, where the diameter of the cocoa butter crystals ranges from only 0.01 mm to 0.1 mm.
By a quirk of nature, cocoa butter crystals bond together and naturally stack in layers, linking end to end. Cocoa butter crystals are formed when the constituent fatty acid molecules connect as the chocolate cools. These smaller crystals dissolve more quickly in the mouth, resulting in chocolate’s trademark melt-in-the-mouth texture.
Cocoa butter evolved in cocoa beans as a rich food source to nourish germinating beans. Cocoa butter is made up of a combination of three fatty acids: palmitic acid (26%), stearic acid (34.5%), and oleic acid (34.5%).
Cocoa butter crystals can combine six different crystal forms. Type V crystals are the most stable, creating chocolate with the best physical structure and stability. Chocolate tempering simply optimises the production of these type V crystals.
Conclusion
We hope you’ve enjoyed this introductory article by chocolatier Simon Knott, on what is tempering chocolate and the science.
For any serious chocolate crafter, whether you are making chocolate at home from bean to bar, or molding chocolates from storebought couverture, tempering is an essential skill that will ensure better texture and appearance of your chocolates.
To learn more about tempering chocolate, and how to do it, browse through our other tempering articles here:
- How to Temper Chocolate – Hands-On Tutorial
- Tempering Chocolate Sous Vide: How To Guide
- How to Fix Chocolate Tempering Fails: Troubleshooting Guide
- Do You Really Need a Chocolate Tempering Machine?
Happy chocolatiering!
