Tempering in the summer - the best tips!

There is no reason to put playing with chocolate on hold during the summer. With these simple tips, it is possible to continue creating beautiful, colourful chocolate bonbons with the perfect snap during the summer months.

 

1. Adjust the amount of seeding chocolate

The higher the room temperature, the greater the amount of seeding chocolate. It is quite natural that you should add more seeding chocolate when tempering chocolate in summer than when tempering chocolate in winter. If you don't do this, all the seeding chocolate will have melted before the temperature of the chocolate reaches the critical limit (read more about the critical limits for the different chocolates here: Chocolate tempering made easy!), and then your chocolate will not be tempered.

For example, I seed with approx. 25-26% in the summer, but only with 22-23% in the winter. Keep in mind that you must add all the seeding chocolate at once to cool the chocolate as quickly as possible.

 

2. Work with chocolate in the morning

Even on the hottest days, the temperature in the morning will usually be low enough (depending on where you are situated in the world, of course) for you to succeed both in colouring chocolate moulds and in tempering chocolate. It is most critical that the temperature is not too high when you have to colour your moulds with coloured cocoa butter - compared to when you "simply" have to temper chocolate. So I recommend that you to choose a day with a cold morning (according to the weather forecast) for colouring chocolate moulds, and the you can mould shells etc. on another day where it may not be just as cold.

If you want to know more about the recommended temperatures for the different parts of the working process for chocolate bonbons (colouring, moulding, filling, capping and storage), you can read a lot more about this in "CHOCOLATE BONBONS - a practical guide".

 

3. Open window at night

A very easy way to lower the temperature (further) in your kitchen on summer mornings is to leave a kitchen window slightly open during the night. If necessary, also leave the window open while you work with the chocolate in your kitchen.

 

4. Air circulation

If you have to temper chocolate later in the day, when the sun may have been on your kitchen windows and thus raised the temperature in your kitchen, 10 minutes of opening several doors and windows to create a lot of air circulation can do wonders. You can thus - before you start tempering chocolate - quickly lower the room temperature by a few degrees, simply by circulating the air.

Even if you can only get the temperature lowered from, e.g. 25°C to 23°C, the two degrees make all the difference to how easy it is for you to achieve a good result with your chocolate tempering.

 

NB. Always avoid this – both in the summer and the winter

It is ALWAYS a bad idea to have large heat sources running in the kitchen just before or while you are working with coloured cocoa butter or tempering chocolate. The heat from an oven can easily cause the temperature in your kitchen to rise by the few degrees that make the difference in relation to whether you can e.g. easily decorate chocolate moulds with coloured cocoa butter, or whether the colours will not set in the moulds in the beautiful patterns and designs that you have planned.

An electric kettle or a pot that boils also acts very poorly with working with chocolate. The steam can ruin your tempering completely. So you should also avoid having kettles or pots boiling just before or while you are working with coloured cocoa butter or tempering chocolate. 

Do you want to know more?

You will find a very concise and easy to follow guide to tempering both dark, milk, and white chocolate right here: Chocolate tempering made easy!

If you would rather have a step-by-step description with all the practical tips and tricks, as well as how to fix chocolate tempering issues, you will find it in the e-book "CHOCOLATE BONBONS - a practical guide".