HOW TO TEMPER CHOCOLATE

You probably already noticed that when you melt chocolate it never recovers its initial texture when it crystallizes again (when it cools down). It is no more shiny or even perfectly crunchy.  

Actually, the cocoa fat is made of several and different molecules that crystallize at different temperatures. All those molecules have to respect a precise structure of crystallization to get a perfect tempered chocolate. Otherwise the cocoa fat may rise to the surface (white traces), the chocolate melts on contact with the fingers, it isn't crunchy at all and it takes too long to crystallize.

I have to confess that tempering chocolate is really not easy to do at home, but it's possible.

We need a thermometer. 

Here I'm going to show you the tempering with a water bath.

First we need to chop finely the chocolate, so it'll melt regularly and quickly.

Put 2/3 of it in a bowl over a water bath (simmering water).

Place the thermometer (or the probe) in the chocolate and reach 45°C (113°F)

Then remove right away from the heat and add the chopped chocolate that left (the last 1/3), stir until homogeneous and let cool down to 28-29°C (80-82°F).

Cool to 28-29°C (80-82°F)

When the chocolate reaches this temperature put the bowl again over the water bath and heat up to 31-32°C (88-91°F). 

Do not exceed 32°C (91°F)

Do not exceed 32°C (91°F) otherwise you'll have to begin the tempering all over again. Remove the bowl from the heat before the chocolate reaches the final temperature, like 1 or 2 degrees Celsius before. The residual heat will make the chocolate reach the final 32°C.
Now the chocolate is ready to be used, though, try to maintain this temperature as long as you need to work with it.

as you can see the chocolate is shiny, proof that the tempering worked.

Notice that those previous temperatures work only with dark chocolate. Check the curves below for tempering milk chocolate and white chocolate.

range of temperatures to temper chocolate