How to remedy overcrystallised chocolate?

When you working with chocolate over a longer period of time it may become too thick. What's happening?

Well, when the chocolate cools down or is kept in a continuous movement more and more cocoa butter crystals will form in the chocolate. It’s becoming less fluid and looks thicker.

That’s what we mean with over crystallization. You can recognize over crystallized chocolate very easily. For instance, in the wheel machine, the chocolate will fill the entire pipe and will stick like a viscous mass to the wheel. It’s not ideal to keep working with this thick over crystallized chocolate, since it may cause troubles during moulding and enrobing.

To start with enrobed chocolates, we will have a shell which is way too thick. I will demonstrate this for you now. As you can see, the chocolate on the sides and on top is way too thick.

That's not the result we want. For all moulded products especially for tablets, hollow figures and pralines, we will be able to create air pockets, as you can see right here.

And on a tablet, as you can see on the bottom; this is not the desired shape we want. So these are not nice chocolates. The second problem with moulded products is that we will have dull spots.

Dull spots as you can see right there. Now there’s an easy way to fix over crystallization. So by simply adding some melted chocolate or under crystallized chocolate, or by heating over crystallized chocolate with a heat gun, you melt away the excess crystals.

It’s a very simple trick that allows you to keep using this chocolate to create your perfect chocolate delights.

You can also watch this video on Youtube and subscribe to their channel. Callebaut Chocolate