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The best features of chocolates come from the glossiness, creaminess and that rich texture that you experience once you sink your teeth into it. These characteristics are provided by proper chocolate tempering. This is the process where chocolate is melted, cooled down and constantly worked on at right temperatures.

All chocolate goes through the process of tempering to attain that glossy sheen and rich texture as well as prolong its shelf life. When you skip this process, your chocolate will surely be prone to blooming. The appearance will look dull, and the texture will look crumbly. Most people tend to take this features as that of the expired ones. They will assume that it’s old stash and they will immediately throw it away in the trash.

Chocolate tempering is a very crucial stage in chocolate candy making because this is when crystallization takes place. The crystals that can be found in the cocoa butter have lots of fatty acids that disintegrate and solidify at different specific temperatures. Tempering is very crucial to chocolate, since this is where the right type of crystals should be formed.

For someone who is just new to chocolate candy making, chocolate tempering will be very difficult especially when it is done manually. It will probably be a trial and error process at first, before someone can really get used to the process.

You should be able to produce as much type V crystals as you possibly can. These types of crystals are the ones responsible for the creamy texture and glossy sheen of the chocolate. Aside from that, it can also prolong the shelf life of the chocolate. The only problem is that during the crystallization process, you can possibly produce six types of crystals.

Make sure you have knowledge in the proper handling of the different chocolate temperatures for the various types of chocolates. Always remember that chocolate is very susceptible to sudden changes in temperature. If your chocolate did not go through correct tempering, it will surely get ruined, and you will have to reiterate the procedure once again.

This is the reason why chocolatiers always have their trusty chocolate temper meters and calibrated thermometers with them every time.

Though you already know the basics of chocolate candy making, you will still need to know the two ways of tempering chocolates manually.

The first is tabliering. You work on the melted chocolate by pouring it onto a stone/marble slab, cooling it down to its proper temperature via mixing so the right crystals will form.

Seeding is also another way of tempering chocolate manually; all you have to do is to seed the already melted chocolate with unmelted chocolate chips. The type V crystal formations in the latter will serve as models for the loose crystals to follow when binding.

The best way to produce the best quality chocolates is to use a chocolate tempering machine which has been so-designed to produce properly-tempered chocolate candy every load cycle.