by aleksandr nenoglyadov
How to temper chocolate
This post is about tabling method. The most popular one to temper chocolate at home.
What you need to know before we start:
1. It requires stone slab to cool down chocolate. You can also use metal bowls. The idea is to have something to cool chocolate down relatively quickly.
2. You will need some practice. Don't expect good tempering after the first try.
3. When we talk about tempering, we mean developing Form V stable crystals in cocoa butter and getting rid of the unstable ones.
1. It requires stone slab to cool down chocolate. You can also use metal bowls. The idea is to have something to cool chocolate down relatively quickly.
2. You will need some practice. Don't expect good tempering after the first try.
3. When we talk about tempering, we mean developing Form V stable crystals in cocoa butter and getting rid of the unstable ones.
Let's have a look on dark chocolate tempering process
Melting
First, we need to melt the chocolate to the temperature where all the cocoa butter crystals would be removed. For dark chocolate it's about 50C. To melt chocolate I use microwave (it can be water bath, but there is a risk to ruin chocolate with water). Don't forget to stir it periodically and not burn it. (Zone 1, see picture below)
Cooling
Pour 2/3 of the melted chocolate onto marble slab. Agitate chocolate constantly, but gently to create many Form IV and Form V crystals at this stage. (Zone 2 and 3).
Leaving only stable crystals
Return thickened chocolate to the melted one and stir. Such a way we get rid of Form IV crystals (Zone 4). At this point we have only stable crystals.
Testing
Test a sample using spoon. If you have normal room temperature (it's about 18-20C), it should be set within 1-2 minutes without streaks. If not, portion of the chocolate should be tempered again.
Such a curve helps to visualise tempering process and break it down into seperate phases.
Hint: If you're melting already tempered chocolate, there is no reason to melt stable crystals completely and reach 50C, as anyway you're going to form them again. In this case about 40C is enough.
I used that method a lot at home. I would say, it's a bit dirty and requires good technique. In addition to that your marble slab shouldn't be too warm (about 18C) to cool down chocolate rapidly, which means after making a few batches, it should be cooled down a bit. After some practice it's likely to achieve good and consistent results though.
My personal tip: if you work long enough with tempered chocolate and it becomes thick, I suggest to warm up part of the chocolate periodically above 34C to increase viscosity. What part exactly, comes from practice, I would say not more than 20%-30%. Always test a sample after such operations.
Next post will be about seed method. In my opinion, the easiest and good enough for home production. Stay tuned and subscribe to newsletter to not miss new posts!
My personal tip: if you work long enough with tempered chocolate and it becomes thick, I suggest to warm up part of the chocolate periodically above 34C to increase viscosity. What part exactly, comes from practice, I would say not more than 20%-30%. Always test a sample after such operations.
Next post will be about seed method. In my opinion, the easiest and good enough for home production. Stay tuned and subscribe to newsletter to not miss new posts!
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