Tempering Chocolate – The Complete Guide

What Does Tempering Chocolate Mean?

Tempering chocolate is the process of preparing liquid chocolate so that it sets with a smooth, glossy finish and a satisfying snap when broken. Once the chocolate has been successfully tempered it will not melt easily and can be touched at room temperature without leaving smudges on your fingers. Well tempered chocolate is essential for any high quality chocolate bar, if you've ever tried a high-quality bar like our Vivani 99% Dark Chocolate, you'll know exactly what this looks and feels like.

Poorly tempered chocolate, on the other hand, feels soft, marks easily, and lacks shine. To be tempered, chocolate must contain cocoa butter, typically more than 30%. Cocoa butter can form five different types of crystals as it cools, but only type V (beta crystals) give chocolate that ideal gloss and snap.

Can all Chocolate be Tempered?

Any chocolate with enough cocoa butter in can be tempered. Chocolate that can’t be tempered is usually compound chocolate, made with vegetable fats like palm or coconut oil instead of cocoa butter. It sets by cooling but doesn't form stable crystals, so it’s not suitable for moulding or coating. You’ll often find it used in baking, where it's called bakestable chocolate, it is perfect for things like cookies or muffins, as it holds its shape during its time in the oven, interesting but definitely the subject for a different blog.

What Are the Different Ways You Can Temper Chocolate?

There are three different ways you can temper chocolate. Seeding, which involves using already tempered chocolate; tabling, which is great if you want to create a show and get big on Instagram; or powdered cocoa butter, often sold under the brand “Mycryo”, which is great for industrial style quantities such is its reliability. All tempering methods involve melting your chocolate down at 45°C. You can go as high as 50°C but I prefer to keep it lower to further reduce the, albeit small, chance of it burning. Then the temperature is lowered and this is where the methods differ.

Tempering Dark Chocolate

1. Seeding Method for Tempering Chocolate

This is the method I used when setting up my first chocolate business, Discover Chocolate. It’s great for beginners because it’s reliable and forgiving, though a little time-consuming.

Steps:

• Melt your chocolate fully in the tempering machine.

• Set aside 10% of the original (tempered) chocolate — this is your “seed”.

• As the chocolate cools, stir in the seed chocolate to encourage the formation of stable beta crystals. The seeds should be added at 35°C.

• Once the chocolate reaches 32 –32°C for dark, 31°C for milk and 29°C for white the chocolate is ready to go into moulds.

Be aware each different brand of chocolate will have slightly different temperatures so there will always be trial and error at this stage. Even if you add the seeds a bit too early or late, they melt slowly and still help guide the temper. The main drawback is the wait, large chips or a cold room can really slow things down, so make sure you have other jobs to do.

2. Tabling Method for Tempering Chocolate

A more traditional approach. You pour melted chocolate onto a cool marble surface and work it with spatulas to quickly lower the temperature, then mix it back into the rest. This is actually the quickest way to temper chocolate but it is by far and away the most difficult.

Steps:

• Melt all the chocolate.

• Pour about 2/3 onto the marble and work it with palette knives until it cools to 27°C, note that this is far lower than the other two methods.

• Return it to the bowl with the remaining warm chocolate and stir to bring it to 31–32°C. This method will require a lot of practice and experience but is very rewarding when done correctly.

3. Tempering with Mycryo

This method uses Mycryo (a powdered form of cocoa butter) to directly introduce beta crystals.

Steps:

• Cool to 34–35°C, then add 1% Mycryo, stirring constantly.

• Continue agitating as it cools to 31–32°C for dark, or 29–30°C for milk/white.

• Do not cool lower than this, as it can cause over-crystallisation and thickening, making the chocolate hard to work with.

• Use at this working temperature, and ensure your fridge or cooling area is 12–16°C with dry air.

Tempering Machine - Bringing the Tempreture Down to 32°C

So tempering chocolate all sounds very simple, and when you can do it, it is. However, there is a slight issue called bloom, and this is the bane of chocolatiers around the world.

What is Chocolate Bloom?

Chocolate bloom is a dull, streaky, or cloudy coating that can appear on the surface of chocolate. And the most frustrating part? Sometimes you only spot it at the very end of a day’s work, so not only could you have taken the day off, but you have potentially lost a lot of money (and confidence) during the day. There are two different types of bloom in chocolate: fat bloom and sugar bloom.

What is Fat Bloom in Chocolate?

Fat bloom happens when the cocoa butter separates and rises to the surface. You’ll see white or grey marks, often in the form of tiny dots on the surface of the bar, and lose that perfect finish.

Fat bloom has quite a few different causes which makes it particularly annoying to troubleshoot.

There are four main reasons:

• Incorrect tempering (too hot or too cold at the wrong moment)

• Temperature fluctuations after the chocolate is made (e.g. storage above 20°C for a long period of time)

• Poor cooling conditions (especially common in amateur setups)

• Cold moulds or over-agitation (quite uncommon but make sure your moulds are at the very least room temperature)

The surface will still feel smooth, but the appearance is spoiled. If you touch chocolate with fat bloom, it melts quickly on your fingertips.

What is Sugar Bloom in Chocolate?

Sugar bloom is totally different, it’s rough and grainy. It took years before I saw sugar bloom myself, as my first business only used stevia for sweetness. The surface of the chocolate becomes grainy and bumpy; it can even have a slight dusty or matte look.

Unlike fat bloom, you can't fix sugar bloom by remelting, it’s best binned, unless you want chocolate with a texture of sandpaper!

Sugar bloom, luckily, is easier to troubleshoot than fat bloom. It is a humidity issue, often the room being too humid. If you try using a standard fridge to set the chocolate you will likely get sugar bloom. It is simply sugar dissolving in moisture and then recrystallising on the surface, hence the grainy surface.

Once you reach a slightly more commercial level, it’s worth investing in a chocolate fridge. These operate at higher temperatures than domestic fridges and, crucially, control humidity, which is key for avoiding both types of bloom.

So that is the basic guide on how to temper chocolate. Try the seeding method to begin with and then go from there whilst controlling your temperature and humidity as best you can. What makes it such a fun challenge is in most cases there is a little variation. When you feel the room is slightly too hot (and you can’t control it) and you lower your tempering machine by a degree to just make sure it will set quick enough, and it works, it feels very enjoyable to know your flexibility saved the day.

If you are particularly interested in learning about how to temper chocolate, we offer our own chocolate making classes in Somerset led by the highly regarded development chef Lubo Rotak. With our large wholefood shop and cafe on site, it makes for a lovely day out.