Tempering Automation versus Tempering Manually
The legions who love chocolate love it for its rich, creamy smoothness, luster, and snappy bite but they may not know that these attributes aren’t their original qualities but acquired through a process called tempering, which is done in three serial steps: heating, cooling and reheating, while temperatures are maintained at specific levels.
Tempering by hand becomes complicated because of the need to keep temperatures constant at all times, which even experienced chocolatiers sometimes lose track of. There’s a rationale for the need to keep temperatures level:
- The main reason being that the fats in cocoa butter can solidify into six different crystalline forms during tempering.
- What crystalline form dominates is dictated by the temperature range at the time of tempering.
- Of these six crystal types, it’s the type V crystal that plays a key role in imparting the shine and snap to chocolates.
- The aim of tempering therefore is to produce more of type V crystals by providing an ideal environment, which means maintaining the specific temperature at which these type V crystals form as well as preventing the other types of crystals from forming, dominating and hampering the multiplication of these type V crystals.
- You can choose either tabliering or seeding to do tempering by hand but should always uphold correct temperatures in both. Otherwise your tempering efforts won’t bear fruit and you’ll find yourself tempering repeatedly.
- You also shouldn’t allow moisture in your work area and in your equipment as well as utilize an accurate thermometer that you calibrate frequently to ensure that you’re maintaining the correct temperatures always.
Large quantities can be manufactured with a uniform quality every time you prepare confections only if you use a tempering machine. With a chocolate tempering machine, the job of maintaining specific temperatures accurately will be handled by a microprocessor on the machine. Further, chocolates tempered by a machine retain the temper for a far longer time than usual. You’ll save a lot of time; free time can be used for gradually improving the standards of your products and moving forward to a sought-after brand.
Of course, knowing tempering by hand’s an additional advantage because it will be helpful on certain extraordinary situations that may demand it. Investing in a tempering machine would be the ultimate best business move you’ll make not only for the fact that you’ll always be delivering products on time but you’ll be producing the same quality confectioneries every time you make them.
