Chocolate Tempering Basics
#1 Jenny:
The charm of chocolate comes from its glossy, smooth, delicious appearance; the ample creaminess you can feel on your tongue; that crispy and crunchy bite; and the sharp snapping sound that you hear when you break a chocolate bar. Tempering of chocolate, when properly done, does that to your adored chocolate “fix”. Tempering is a method that involves melting of the chocolate, then cooling and allowing it to stay at constant and specific temperatures while working.
Chocolate tempering is a critical phase in processing cacao beans and in making chocolates because it needs to stabilize the fatty crystals contained in cocoa butter. Cocoa butter has several fatty acids that melts and solidifies at various temperatures. The tempering process makes the fatty acids form into crystals and maintain a uniform structure.
Chocolate tempering demands precision so this is a process that is could get tedious when manually done. If you’re tempering chocolate for the first time, it’s likely to be a trial and error experience because you need to familiarize yourself chocolate temperatures and you have to learn the skills so that you can improve and be a master in tempering chocolates.
One way to temper chocolate is to melt the chocolate then work it on a heat-absorbing slab and wait until the chocolate is cooled to desired temperatures before using them to make candies.
The secret to creating fine-standard chocolates is through correctly tempering the chocolates. The manual way of tempering, even when you’re good at it, is prone to other external elements. Consider these factors: hot temperatures in your work area, the presence of moisture in handling the equipments, the reliability of your thermometers, your ability to focus on the task at hand and so much more. Commonly, chocolatiers has to contend with problems not on tempering proficiency but on such inevitable variables that leads to lose of chocolate temper. Taking these in consideration, you can never be so sure of bringing out standard-grade sweets at all times.
This is why a chocolate tempering machine is there to ease these concerns off your shoulders. The machine will allow you to leave the chocolate for more than an hour and not be worried if the temperature is accurate or not. The tempering machine has a computer chip to regulate the temperature that automatically produces the desired hotness, coolness, and reheating cycles so that you will no longer need to do the tempering over again should you miss.
And one of the best advantage ever is that a chocolate tempering machine will provide you ample time to focus on the inventive side of chocolate making, as well as other things that you require to carry out in order to improve your reputation for excellent chocolate products!
