If you haven’t been in a baking school, you probably haven’t heard about tempering chocolates, because the ones that you see on the shelves of your go-to confectionary are already tempered. However, if you’re a manufacturer, this knowledge will help you offer your customers the best experience by producing glossier, snappier bars, and candies.
How are tempered chocolates different from the untempered ones?
The key difference between tempered and untempered chocolate is in its appearance. While the tempered ones are uniform in structure, glossier, and more consumer-friendly, the untempered chocolates are filled with blooms and non-uniform, and except a few snack bars, they don’t look so pleasing. When a bar of chocolate gets older, it may lose the temper and develop these blooms, which appear as white films on the structure. This apart, the tempered chocolates are stronger, giving you the delight of that snappy bite, while untempered ones appear softer and mushier in the mouth.
As a chocolate manufacturer, you can use a variety of methods to temper chocolate to provide maximum satisfaction to your consumers. But investing in a chocolate tempering machine can speed up the process and reduce inconsistencies, besides ensuring large-scale productivity.
What is the science of chocolate tempering?
The cocoa butter in the chocolate is crystallized to give a definite structure to the bar or candy by exposing it to different temperatures so that all the crystals are more or less similar in size. One should be careful about the temperature levels, as it forms the critical factor in the tempering process. If the temperatures are too high, the chocolate will burn, and if it’s too low, the melting won’t happen as desired, resulting in non-uniform crystals throughout the structure.
There are about 6 types of crystals in the chocolate that melts at different temperatures. While tempering the chocolate, one should try to turn all the crystals into beta crystals that give the chocolate its definite shape and texture. Repeated heating and cooling processes are involved in tempering, which can be difficult and quite time-consuming.
However, with a chocolate tempering machine at your disposal, the process may not take as much time. Hence, most large-scale chocolate manufacturers make the best use of these machines to temper the delicious bars and candies.
How to know if the chocolate is tempered
You can try out this simple trick. Place a drop of molten chocolate on parchment paper and observe it closely. If it hardens uniformly and appears shiny, you can be sure that it’s tempered. Further, you can easily peel the layer of tempered chocolate off the paper. However, there’s no reason to worry if the chocolate isn’t tempered, as you can always start the process from the beginning.
Are you a manufacturer looking for an industry-standard tempering machine for professional chocolate making? Get in touch with a dealer having decades of experience in the field and create the best, shiniest chocolates for your consumers.
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