In article >, Mk3217 wrote:
> [...]
> FOR DARK CHOCOLATE
> melt and heat to 115-120
> cool to80-82
> warm slowly to87-90
>
> The reason why you reheat it the final time is because when you cool
> it down the chocolate is now too thick to use and must be warmed
> before it can be utilized.

That makes sense. But then I have a couple other questions:

- Will tempered chocolate remain in temper even if it's heated and
cooled across the entire range of 80-90 degrees (based on your ranges
for dark chocolate)?

- Why does it need to be cooled to the lower temperature range in the
first place? In other words, what happens at 80-82 that couldn't
happen at 87-90?

> Great care must betaken in this final step. if you let the chocolate
> get just a few degrees above the recommended temp, too much fat will
> melt and the chocolate will separate and show on the surface in the
> whitish pattern known as bloom.

I'm unfortunately very familiar with bloom. I've gotten to the point
where I can usually get chocolate in temper without much trouble, but
sometimes I get nothing but streaky or speckled chocolate when it dries.
(Tonight I tried four times in a row without success, so I'm feeling
pretty grumpy about it right now.) I have a Polder digital thermometer
which has 0.1 degree precision, so I'm pretty sure that I'm keeping the
chocolate in the right temperature ranges, but sometimes it Just Doesn't
Work. I feel that if I could understand the chemistry behind the
process, I'd have a better handle on making it work reliably.

Blake