After conching, the cocoa butter in the chocolate mass is completely melted. Solid ingredients such as milk powder, sugar, and non-fatty ingredients of the cocoa mass are finely distributed through the liquid mass. Now the chocolate must be moulded and cooled into products. During this the fat crystallises and the chocolate hardens.

Simply cooling the liquid chocolate does not, however, usually lead to the glossy and finely melting products our customers expect. The reason for this is the crystallization behaviour of cocoa butter. It is a polymorph and can therefore solidify into several – or more exactly 6 different – crystalline forms.

In order to correctly produce the crystalline form that makes the beautiful gloss, crisp clean bite, quick melting, and perfect flavour possible, the chocolate must be pre-crystallised before processing, or, as the chocolate specialists say, tempered. In this process small so-called seed crystals (initial crystals) are created in the correct crystalline form, in the liquid chocolate mass.

To do this the chocolate is cooled in a tempering machine along a fixed temperature curve until crystallization begins. Then it is warmed up again to its processing temperature of 28-32°C, depending on the variety of chocolate. During warming up, the unwanted crystalline forms melt at lower fusion points. Only the crystals of desired form 5, with a fusion point of 30-32°C, remain.

When you cool down a moulded chocolate bar made with tempered chocolate, it causes form 5 crystals to multiply and grow, until finally all the fat solidifies in the correct crystalline form. The chocolate contracts slightly and at the end of the cooling process falls easily from the mould with a gentle tap.

The chocolate is now a fine-crystalline, homogeneous solid bar. Its fat blooms are stable. It is glossy chocolate brown. It snaps when broken, and it melts marvellously in the mouth and not in the hand. Only after crystallization/tempering does its flavour develop perfectly.

The best thing now would be to try a sample for yourself.