How To Store Chocolate Products - Callebaut Chocolate

Storing your finished chocolate products in perfect conditions is crucial to guarantee a quality product. Before you store them, always leave the products to cool, harden, and crystallize.

It’s best to do that in a fridge with a temperature between 14 and 18 degrees Celsius, and relative humidity of 60%. For small items, half an hour is sufficient. But bigger items, such as hollow figures, will take a lot longer.

Proper cooling and crystallization are important to have a shiny end result and to maintain it during shelf life. Too short or too quick cooling may cause your chocolate to turn grey or show dull spots.

Now, how do you know when your chocolate is ready for unmolding and storing? From the moment the molded products have contracted sufficiently and don’t stick to the mold anymore, they are ready.

Our chocolates are now ready. They are beautiful, they are very shiny. But it’s very important now to store them properly if we want to keep the same quality. So we need to take them away from the light, we need to take them away from the strong smell and also from humidity.

We want to avoid fat blooming, with a different set of temperature, but we also want to avoid humidity, you know, that can cause the sugar blooming. So, in order to do that, you need to have the right packaging.

I always wear gloves when I’m handling finished chocolate products, just to make sure I don’t taint them with any fingerprints and smudge mark. Keep your products in packaging that’s fit for chocolate.

Always ask your packaging specialist for the right advice. Time to store these chocolate jewels, which you could do in a chocolate fridge or a room with a constant temperature of 20 degrees Celsius.

Make sure to keep your chocolate away from ingredients with a strong smell, like spices or cheese. Chocolate will immediately absorb the smell. Also make sure to protect your chocolate from humidity, light, and temperature swings.

This will keep sugar bloom and fat bloom from appearing as we discussed in the other videos. So, if you keep these simples rules in mind, you’ll always surprise your customer with lovely, tasty, and beautiful chocolate delights.

You can watch this video on their Youtube Channel: Callebaut Chocolate