Chocolate Tempering: Sous Vide Style

This is a neat little way to temper your chocolate before using it to create wonderful results.

If you do have access to a Sous Vide Circulator or better yet a water bath and you do this type of thing quite a lot, once you've tried it this way you'll never go back.

You can fit quite a lot of chocolate in together when you're happy with the method so even if this is something you do through a small business it's a very real method of tempering chocolate at home or in the work place.

We're using a 100g bar of chocolate but you can do several together as long as you have a bag / and water bath big enough.

Vacuum pack the chocolate into the bag via hand pump (shown) or if you have a vacuum packer that will be idea, don't worry about getting it too tight as it will change shape once melted.

You need to have the temperature of the water at 45 C / 113 F

Once set, drop the sealed chocolate pack into the water, it will melt quite quickly

After a few minutes the chocolate will have melted. Add some cold water (displace some of the current water to quicken this up) to allow the temps to drop to 27 C / 80F

As the chocolate is cooling, take the bag out and rub it to make sure it is all cooling as one, do this 2-3 times over the next 5 mins. Once 5 mins is up, it should have cooled sufficiently.

Now, turn the water bath heater back on and get the temps back up to 32 C / 90 F

Continue to occasionally massage the bag to make sure it all comes together as one.

Another 5 minutes should be enough for this final temperature change.

If you're using disposable bags you can snip the corner off and begin piping as soon as you're ready.

If not scoop out of the bag into a piping bag (with optional nozzle) and prepare to pipe.

Twist the bag at the back so it's quite tight and there's pressure to push the chocolate out the nozzle end.

There's so much you can do with the chocolate in this state, it's a matter of experimenting and getting used to the bag/nozzle and texture of the chocolate - but have fun and please post any of your results!!