Process 13: Tempering 2

Hello my fellow chocolate lovers,

I am Takanori Chiwata, the chocolate engineer of COCONAMA CHOCOLATE.

Today, I am going to introduce different ways to temper chocolates.

Last time, I had the chance to talk about the purpose of tempering is to form the cacao butter crystals into form V.

Broadly speaking, there are 3 ways to temper chocolate.

1. By adjusting the temperature

2. By adding chocolate shavings into melted chocolate

3. By adding previously tempered cacao butter powder into melted chocolate.

1. By adjusting the temperature: Heat dark chocolate in a bowl over a pot at over 40℃ and melt the chocolate completely. Then you repeat placing the bowl over cold water for about 5 seconds and mixing it, gradually cooling it down. You can continue these steps relatively fast until down to 32℃, when the cacao butter crystal starts forming. However, from here and on you will need to be quite careful. Chocolates can easily change by 1℃ or 2 ℃ so take it nice and slow. Also, be sure to cut down the time to put the chocolate bowl over cold water to one or two seconds. When the chocolate is down to 26℃, put the bowl over warm water for one or two seconds, gradually increasing the temperature again. Once the chocolate is warmed up until 29℃, mix it with spatula for about one minute, and your tempering is completed.

Some of you may have encountered a scene at a chocolate shop,where they spread melted chocolate over marble counter and mix it with spatula. What they are doing here is decreasing the temperature of melted chocolate. Marble has a nature to keep things at a low temperature, so they can cool down chocolates relatively fast. Additionally, by using the marble counter, you will not need to worry about the water getting into chocolate like when you put the bowl over cold water(as we should never add water into chocolate).

2.By adding chocolate shavings into melted chocolate: This is a way you could use to temper a store bought chocolate. You could easily temper chocolate when you add shavings of store bought chocolate into melted chocolate. It may sound easy, but it requires quite an effort to grate the chocolate. To temper 500g of chocolate, finely grate 150g of the chocolate and heat the remainder of it up to 39℃. Then add the chocolate shavings into the melted chocolate a little by little and melt the shavings by mixing them together. By the time you add all the chocolate shavings, the chocolate should be down to 29℃ and tempered. Then mix the chocolate for about one minute and your tempering is completed.

The store bought chocolates are already tempered with a V form cacao butter crystal. The chocolate shavings you made consists of V form cacao butter crystal, so they will melt at temperature between 39℃-32℃. However, the chocolate shavings you have added after the chocolate had cooled down to temperature below 32℃ remains with the V form cacao butter crystal, allowing the tempering process to be completed.

 3.By adding previously tempered cacao butter powder into melted chocolate: There is a product     called “MyCryo” released by the company called Cacao Barry. This product consists of 100% cacao butter, and is even tempered to form V form cacao butter crystal. All you need to do is add this powder to a chocolate cooled down to 30℃ by 0.5% and the tempering will be completed. Remember to mix well for about one minute after adding this powder. This is the most easy method, but the trouble for this method is that the cacao butter will increase by 0.5% of the original chocolate and that “MyCryo” is expensive as well.

The common thing these three methods have is that, we all mix the chocolate well at the end. We don’t just mix the chocolate for homogenization purpose, the energy created when mixing the chocolate aids forming the V form cacao butter crystal. The more you mix, the more crystals there will be.

Were you able to get a grasp of different methods of tempering?

All we have to do is form the V form cacao butter crystal, so some are experimenting for a new way to form V form cacao butter crystal by using things as ultrasonic waves and sound waves. Maybe it will be in the near future when we can temper chocolates by playing music!

Next time, I would like to talk about “different types of chocolate you can make from a tempered chocolate”. Don’t miss it!

With hopes that you will be able to encounter the perfect chocolate just for you,

Takanori Chiwata