Hi,

Ive read somewhere in the internet, but now when I try to go back searching for it, I couldnt find the information.

Ive read that chocolate have 5 melting stages, and in order for the chocolate to still stay solid in your hand is when you reach the fourth stage.

How do we know what stage is our chocolate is in?

Or if we conche and temper it normally will it directly go to the fourth stage?

And if I want my chocolate to reach the fifth stage (to make chocolate chip) how do I do that? Longer and hotter conche?

Thank you for all of your advices and guidelines.

updated by @panod: 04/16/15 06:39:48

You're getting into some very fine technical points here that, while interesting, i'd not spend a great deal of time on learning and trying to control the finer points of. What you're referencing is the fact that cocoa butter is polymorphic - ie, when it converts from a liquid to a solid, it can take one of 5-6 different solid forms. Tempering is the process of trying to control that to some extent, and result in a cocoa butter that is predominantly what we call beta prime. Without having a great deal of very expensive equipment, you'll not know which form you have - however, if you temper the chocolate, and it releases properly and doesn't bloom, you've got what you're looking for. Conching has almost no impact on your crystalline form - it's the tempering process that controls crystallization (well, that and cooling after tempering, and storage).

Thanks Sebastian, so by just tempering and cooling andstoragethe chocolate properly, it will be just fine right?

Thank you so much Sebastian!

Assuming you're not too creative with your ingredients (ie you're n ot using nuts or nut oils), yes - temper it properly, ensure you cool it appropriately, and then don't store it in a warm place - and you'll be good!