EXPERIMENTS IN TEMPERING CHOCOLATE

What tempering is and comparisons of different techniques to see which work best at home.

WARNING Working with chocolate involves dealing with hot materials and fire.
No one should do so without the supervision of a responsible adult experienced
with all the processes and equipment involved. The following is provided for
information only and is not intended as a recommendation to repeat these or
any other experiments.

Tempering chocolate is a process of using mechanical manipulation and temperature

control to force chocolate into one particular crystalline form so that when molded it
forms a stable solid with a smooth, shiny surface. Failure to properly temper chocolate
can result in dull-looking pieces with poor texture.

While tempering formulas abound, I haven't found a source of information that compares
the different techniques. That's the purpose of this page: to chronicle my experiments
with several different techniques.

But first a little molecular chemistry:

Depending on which school you prefer, there are 3, 4, or six different crystalline
configurations into which the cocoa butter in chocolate can solidify as it cools. Each of
them have different melting points and strength properties. For those of you with a
scientific inclination, here's a table comparing their melting temperatures for milk
chocolate (note: semisweet and dark chocolates have slightly higher melting points):

Temperature (F.)

Above 125 - getting into the danger zone for burning the chocolate
.

.
Above 115 - some chocolates may scorch
.

.
88 - beta (type V) crystals melt

85 - beta (type V) crystals start to form

78 - beta prime (type III and IV) crystals start to form

69 - alpha (type II) crystals start to form

51 - gamma (type I) crystals start to form

(Although common experience leads us to think that all crystals are hard like diamonds,
in fact it's possible for crystals to vary considerably in strength. In the case of cocoa
butter they are quite soft. Some prefer to refer to them as phases instead of crystals.)
To understand why the melting points and strength properties vary, think of each crystal
type as a different sized and shaped chair. If you cool the chocolate too fast at too low a
temperature you get many different sized and shaped chairs jumbled together in a
haphazard pile. Nudge such a pile at it'll fall over easy. In chocolate, such a tangle of
different shaped crystals is also unstable and can fall apart (melt) at a lower
temperature. Because the chairs (crystals) are different shapes and sizes they can't lock
together, which also means they are mechanical weak, the chocolate breaks easily and
may even be slightly flexible.

On the other hand, if you start off with chairs that are all the same size and shape and
take the time to stack them in a column where their legs lock together, they can be
bumped and shoved around quite hard before they fall apart. In chocolate, if all the
crystals are the same and are cooled slowly so that they have time to lock together, then
they form a rigid structure that takes a harder "bump" to disturb (a higher temperature
to melt) or to break.

The most desirable form is beta because it's the strongest, most stable, has the shiniest
surface, releases the easiest from molds and has the best eating texture.

Tempering is nothing more than controlling the temperature so that beta is encouraged
to form and all the others are discouraged. The easiest way to do this is to melt milk
chocolate in the 85 to 87 degree range, at which temperature all other forms melt yet
beta can still crystallize. Once the melt thickens as it's stirred you know that it contains a
large number of beta seed crystals, which will grow throughout the chocolate if it is left
to cool slowly. The problem is that this technique takes a long time to get the chocolate
to melt (it's like boiling water with too small of a flame) and almost as long to form seed
crystals. The process can be speeded up by heating the chocolate quicker (to a higher
temperature) cooling it quickly to form a lot of seed crystals, some of which will be the
undesirable types, then warming it again to 85-86 degrees to melt away everything but
the beta seeds. The up-and-down heating technique has nothing to do with some sort of
magic conditioning of the chocolate. It's just a way to speed things up.

The easiest technique of all for tempering chocolate is to purchase an electric temperer.

All you do is push keys to tell the machine what type of chocolate you have and it
automatically mixes it and adjusts the temperature as needed for a perfect temper. The
only problem is cost: they average $400.00 for a small unit.

Test Number 1: Just melt it (or is it really that easy?)

All the milk chocolate sold available to the public has been tempered because that's the
only way it's stable enough for storage. Since beta crystals fall apart at 88 degrees, all
we have to do is make sure that the chocolate remains below this temperature as it
melts and the temper will be preserved. To do this you'll need to create a thermal bath
that remains at 85-87 degrees and never cycles above 88 degrees. Simple, right?

When I tried this technique I ran into three problems:

1: It turns out that maintaining something at a certain temperature within plus or minus
one degree is difficult. I tried using two different thermostatically controlled heating
pads, but both provided temperatures that ranged above and below the target
temperature by as much as 10 degrees. This could be evened out somewhat by using a
very heavy ceramic bowl, but temperatures still fluctuated. Next I tried a thermostatically
controlled crock pot with water in the pot and a heavy ceramic bowl over the top like a
double boiler. This worked better than the heating pads but again, the temperature
fluctuations were too great for absolute control. Finally, I set up a deep pan half filled
with water and covered with a heavy ceramic bowl. The water did not touch the bottom
of the bowl. By setting the flame of the smallest burner at it's lowest flame the melting
bowl's temperature could be maintained at a near constant 86 degrees. The constant
heat provided by the non-fluctuating flame worked better at maintaining the temperature
than the thermostatically controlled systems.

2: Heat travels from the bowl to the chocolate because there is a temperature difference
between them. Near the melting point, this temperature difference is so small that it
takes a very long time for the chocolate to melt. In my test it took two hours. This is too
long to spend watching and mixing the chocolate when other techniques enable chocolate
to be tempered in just a few minutes.

3: A problem develops when this technique is applied to large quantities of chocolate, the
top layer of chocolate is cooler than the bottom even with constant stirring. This means
that it is impossible to keep the top liquid without having the chocolate on the bottom get
too hot and lose it's temper.

Still, this technique does work for very small quantities of chocolate. I was able to melt
and remold 2 ounce portions and the resulting chocolate retained the gloss and texture of
well-tempered chocolate.

Test number 2: Transitional temperature technique:

This is the classic technique where the chocolate is heated quickly, compared to the
above technique, to between 100 and 115 degrees (for milk chocolate) then cooled to
the high 70s to create seed crystals, then warmed again to 84-87 degrees to melt all the
seeds crystals that aren't beta. The advantage of this system is that while maintained a
constant temperature is difficult, passing through such a temperature during heating or
cooling is easy.

I began with a double boiler setup and gently heated 4 ounces of chocolate while stirring,
being careful the maintain the water below the simmer point so that steam couldn't come
up and cause the chocolate to seize (more on that later.). In five minutes it had melted
and the chocolate thermometer ($15 at a cake decorating specialty shop) used to stir it
indicated that the temperature was 98 degrees F. I removed the bowl from the water
bath and stirred it constantly as the temperature dropped to 75 degrees, about fifteen
minutes. I then returned the bowl to the heat and warmed it, still stirring, back to 85
degrees, which took four minutes. After stirring the chocolate a few more minutes to
make sure only, or mostly, beta crystals remained, I poured the chocolate out onto a
piece of aluminum foil on the kitchen counter. It cooled quickly and while there was some
gloss and the texture was good, the chocolate didn't snap when broken. I repeated this
process only this time I made sure the air temperature in the room was 75 degrees (it
was below 70 before) and that the surface onto which the chocolate was poured was also
warmed. This time the chocolate came out glossier and had more snap. What happened
the first time was that the cooler temperatures caused the chocolate to solidify too
quickly, an occurrence which tends to produce the bad sorts of chocolate crystals.

This process produced acceptable results but when breaking the chocolate I noticed that
it had a slightly lighter color than the original and that there were some air pockets in it.
I believe both of these were the result of too rapid stirring which caused air bubbles to be
mixed in and trapped in the chocolate.

Test number 3: the seeding technique:

This is the same as technique number 2 except instead of letting the chocolate cool
slowly after the initial melt to a low temperature then rewarming it, scraps of reserved
and still tempered chocolate are added to the melted chocolate and mixed in. This
unmelted, still tempered chocolate cools the mixture quickly and and provides beta seeds
for proper tempering. In this technique the seed chocolate is usually one-quarter to one-
third of the melted chocolate and is added off heat slowly, two tablespoons at a time until
the chocolate cools to 84 degrees. At that point any unmelted chocolate is removed and
the chocolate remaining should be in perfect temper.

I found this the easiest and fastest technique to use. The resulting chocolate was better
than that from the second technique because there was less stirring and therefore fewer
bubbles. Also, I suspect that the density of beta crystals was higher. The problem with
this technique is that it can only be used with pretempered chocolate. If you're going to
make your own chocolate at home technique number 2 will have to be used.

Test number 4: The marble surface technique:

I found that this technique produces the glossiest, best temper.

Warm the chocolate to melting then pour it out onto a marble slab. Use an offset metal
spatula to work the chocolate back and forth, repeatedly gathering it to the center and
spreading it out. Pretend like you're repeatedly spreading frosting over the top of a cake
and then scraping it back to the center. Do this until the temperature of the chocolate
drops to 83 degrees and it should be tempered.

The reason this technique works so well is that the spreading action causes the chocolate
to be worked a lot with the result that many seed crystals are formed. Also, unlike
stirring, the spreading action does not incorporate air bubbles into the chocolate.

One final issue:

How do you know if your chocolate thermometer is properly calibrated? Being a research
engineer, I have a natural tendency to doubt everything. To verify my thermometer, I
used tempering technique number 3 and removed small samples of chocolate from the
bowl as the mix cooled and let them cool slowly. Then I compared their appearance and
texture to see at what range the resulting chocolate was the best.

Although it's difficult to see the differences in this picture, the best results were obtained
from chocolate taken when the mix was between 83 to 85 degrees. Both above and
below that range the chocolate was less glossily, didn't snap and had a course texture.
The three samples at 78, 77, and 76.5 degrees were noticeably lighter in color. The 76.5
degree sample was the end point of the test because the chocolate turned solid. This test
calibrated my thermometer by providing the best temperature for pouring or dipping. It's
two degrees cooler than indicated by most references so I assume that the thermometer
was slightly miss-marked.

And yet another final issue:

As a follow-up to the slow/low temperature melting technique, I played around with

different ways to maintain constant controlled temperatures and came up with the
following system:

I set up a pan with two cups of water in it and placed it over a burner with the flame set
on its lowest setting. After 15 minutes the water was up to a constant 190 degrees. Then
I bent a coat hanger so that it wedged inside the pan and created a cradle to hold the
bowl in which the chocolate was placed at just the right height to maintain a constant 98
degrees. This turned out to be low enough so that I didn't have to worry about scorching
the chocolate yet high enough so that it didn't take all day to melt. Once the chocolate
was melted I could take it off the frame and work on it as needed for tempering, then
replacing it for a few seconds or minutes depending on what technique was being used to
warm it. Once I had it tempered, I placed a small rack on top of the frame and placed
the bowl on the rack.
The extra height allowed enough cooling air between the water and bottom of the bowl
so that the chocolate was now maintained at a constant 84 degrees: high enough to
prevent undesirable forms of chocolate crystals from forming yet cool enough so that the
good beta crystals weren't lost.

WARNING This is a system I made for my own use. I do not recommend anyone
else do it because the presence of flame and hot materials and instability of the
structure make it potentially hazardous.

Seizing: The chocolate maker's worst nightmare

Although melted looks like a smooth liquid, in fact it consists of dry chocolate particles
and liquid cocoa butter. If it sounds weird to think that part of a liquid is dry, think of
potato chips. When fresh they are crisp and brittle, yet that are also very high in the oil
used to fry them. The reason this is possible is that the fat in both cases cannot "wet" or
saturate the dry ingredients. Dip a potato chip in water and in short time it turns flabby
because unlike the fat, water can wet the dry components. The same thing happens
when water comes in contact with melted chocolate... sort of.

When a very small amount of water gets mixed into melted chocolate, it wets the
chocolate particles and being wet, they get sticky and tend to clump together. These
clumps drive out the cocoa butter and the whole mess appears to instantly "seize" up
into a semi-dry paste similar to fudge. Once this happens the chocolate cannot be saved
and is only good for baking. Here's what the seizing process looks like:

Four ounces of freshly melted milk chocolate at 88 degrees

 Only 3 seconds after a 1/2 teaspoon of water is added
the melt starts looking dry

Three seconds later the chocolate has completely seized into a

lumpy, fudge-like mass

Water, or water-based products like milk and cream, can be added to melted chocolate if
the liquid is first brought up to the temperature of the melted chocolate and if a large
enough quantity of liquid is used so that instead of the dry chocolate particles being
barely wetted so that they are sticky and clump together, they can flow like a liquid.
Using sufficient liquids is how ganaches are made.