Almost all children love chocolates but if you think that it’s absurd for grown-ups to have a great liking for chocolates, you couldn’t be more wrong. It’s the shine, snap and smoothness that just lure anyone to chocolates, irrespective of age. But most may not know that chocolate doesn’t have the smoothness, gloss and snap on its own but these qualities are obtained only via tempering. Heating, cooling and reheating are the three steps of tempering during which specific temperatures are maintained for quality outputs.
Maintaining specific temperatures accurately is the toughest part of tempering and this is dreaded even by experienced chocolatiers, not mention relative beginners because of several reasons:
- The main ingredient of chocolates, cocoa butter, has innumerable fatty acids that have a unique quality of re-crystallizing into six types of crystals.
- When tempering is done, six crystalline forms proliferate in the cocoa butter.
- The type V crystal is one among these six crystals and the shine and snap of the chocolates are the handiwork of this particular crystal formation.
- Crystals have their own temperatures at which they multiply; that’s the reason why particular temperatures have to be preserved to get as many type V crystals as possible.
- If there’s even a tiny deviation in these temperature levels, one or more of the other crystals will dominate and spoil the production of type V crystals.
- During tabliering and seeding, the two methods of tempering by hand, if the right temperatures are not maintained you will be forced to re-do tempering again.
- Not only not maintaining the right temperatures, but moisture in the work place and in the tools used, and not-so-accurate thermometer, among others, can also negate your tempering efforts.
If you’re a producer of large quantities of chocolates, you cannot afford to temper your chocolates manually all the time as you need constant-quality confectioneries. It may be necessary to procure a tempering machine so that consistently high quality is maintained every production time.
Tempering machines come with software specifically designed for maintaining the right temperatures when you heat, cool and reheat during tempering. You can temper large quantities of chocolates and the temper also lasts for a longer interval. Tempering machines relieve you of the energy and time you expend for tempering by hand and this time and energy can be spent usefully for honing your skills in the arts of chocolate making and for your business development.
You may dread to do tempering by hand but there’s also an advantage in learning how as there may be emergent instances that demand it. You’ll still have an even bigger advantage if you do procure a tempering machine as it’s a great investment since you can produce consistently good chocolates and deliver the promised quantity at the scheduled hour.