Chocolate Tempering Machine
You might ask what is chocolate tempering and why do I care? Well do you like chocolate? Have you ever notice foggy splotches on chocolate before. Does it bother you? Then you care. Chocolate tempering is the process in which the chocolate is brought to a certain temperature when in use (shaping or coating) and then cooled and a lovely (non-foggy) chocolate sheen is present. You most often see chocolate out of temper on cheap chocolate and chocolate chips. My toddler is often out of temper too, but there is not a machine to help with that. Did you know that different types of chocolate (milk, dark, white) need to be brought up to different temperatures? I do. Why do I know this? Because Mike’s sister makes the best chocolates this side of the Mississippi. And I only limit it to that because her daughter lives on the other side of the Mississippi and I’m sure her chocolates are equally as delicious because she learned from the master.
Think coconut cream. Orange cream. Mint cream. Truffles. Turtles. Chocolate covered caramels. Those are my favorites so I’ll stop there but imagine an entire dining room table covered in huge tupperware filled with homemade chocolates. And also a side table. And maybe a few more tupperware on the floor. So much chocolate. So much love. So much work.
She mentioned to Mike that a big time taker in the chocolate making process was the tempering. As we established in the last post, he is a problem solver. Add in he loves his sister and he loves chocolate and you have the makings of a “project.”
He made this about 6 years ago so it doesn’t have the design specs that a lot of his other more recent stuff will have but here’s a short video he posted way back when showing it in action:
And longer video detailing how he made it:
So a couple of great things came out of this beyond just a cool machine. His sister had a process time cut drastically down from 36 hours to 8 hours. And we got extra chocolate each Christmas.
To learn more about this project please press the button below. It will take you to the portfolio page for this project.
