What temperature do you temper dark chocolate to?

Use your chocolate maker’s curve. Callebaut’s printed curve for its 811 dark melts at 45–50 °C, cools to 27 °C and works at 31–32 °C, with a maximum working temperature of 34.5 °C. Those numbers are for 811; other darks differ. Valrhona’s darks melt at 50–55 °C, cool to 28–29 °C and work at 31–32 °C. Pick your chocolate in the Station to get its curve.

How much seed chocolate do I add?

It depends on whose method you follow. Callebaut’s rule of thumb is 5% Callets at 15–20 °C, stirred into melted chocolate at about 40 °C as it cools to 31 °C (dark) or 29 °C (milk and white); it doesn’t say whether that 5% is of the melted chocolate or the whole batch, and adds more Callets if they melt too quickly. Valrhona and Dandelion seed with a quarter of the total. Felchlin adds 350 g of dark (450 g of milk or white) per kilogram of melted couverture. The Station gives a starting weight for your batch.

How do I test whether chocolate is tempered?

Dip a knife tip or spoon and leave it somewhere cool. Each maker times the test differently. Callebaut’s tabling guide expects it to harden evenly within 3 minutes at 18–20 °C, and its troubleshooting page says chocolate that hasn’t hardened after 5 minutes needs more crystals. King Arthur allows 3–5 minutes at room temperature, Guittard expects dark to begin setting within 2, and Peter Greweling gives dark about 7. It should set firm, even and without streaks. On a spoon, a dull but even sheen is fine.

How much Mycryo or cocoa butter silk do I use?

Both at 1% of the chocolate’s weight: 10 g per kilogram. Callebaut stirs Mycryo into chocolate cooled to 34 °C (dark) or 33 °C (milk and white). EZtemper adds silk at 33.5 °C and says 0.5% can work.

Why does chocolate need tempering?

Cocoa butter can crystallise in six forms. Form V is the usual target for the combination of snap, gloss, mould release and clean melt. A classic curve melts out the old crystals, grows new ones by cooling, then warms just enough to melt mostly the lower-melting, less stable crystals while enough stable Form V seeds survive to guide the rest as it sets. Seeding methods add stable crystals instead of growing them all from scratch.

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The Tempering Station

Choose your chocolate, method and batch. Get the curve, the grams and a thermometer check for every step, then run the curve to watch the crystals form.

Your chocolate

Curve from Callebaut tempering curves

Method

Melt most of it, stir in solid tempered chocolate.

Batch

All the chocolate you’ll temper, seed included.

Callebaut 811 dark, 54.5% · Seed Step 1 of 4 · Melt · target 45°C

Crystals in this step

Form I melts 17.3 °C none
Form II melts 23.3 °C none
Form III melts 25.5 °C none
Form IV melts 27.5 °C none
Form V melts 33.8 °C melted
Form VI melts 36.3 °C none

Working range 31–32 °C
Max 34.5 °C (Callebaut)
Crystal forms, at their melting points

When the test fails

It stays soft or won’t set: Check the room and the chocolate first: a warm kitchen or a thick smear slows the set, and chocolate above its working range may have lost its seed. If the room is cool and the smear thin, it is short of crystals: stir in more tempered chocolate (or a little Mycryo) at the working temperature and test again. Callebaut: under-crystallised chocolate
Grey or white streaks on a fresh test: Most likely out of temper, though slow cooling or moisture can streak a test too, so check those as well. To fix the temper, Dandelion remelts to 120 °F (48.9 °C) and starts over; Callebaut reseeds. Dandelion Chocolate, Making Chocolate (2017), pp. 96–103
The spoon test is dull but even: Not necessarily a failure: on a spoon, a dull but even sheen that sets firm without streaks is fine. Moulds give the gloss. Dandelion Chocolate, Making Chocolate (2017), pp. 96–103
It thickens while you work: If it has simply cooled, warm it back into the working range. If it is at the right temperature and still passes the test, it is probably over-crystallised, with too many crystals: warm it slightly with a heat gun, or stir in some untempered melted chocolate, then test again. Callebaut: over-crystallised chocolate
White film that wipes off with a finger: Likely fat bloom: poor temper or storage that got too warm. Fix the temper and keep finished chocolate cool and steady. Callebaut: fat or sugar bloom
Rough white spots that don’t melt on touch: Likely sugar bloom, from moisture or condensation. Keep tools and moulds dry, and let cold chocolate warm up in its packaging before opening. Callebaut: fat or sugar bloom
Stuck in the mould: Usually under-tempered chocolate or too short a cooling time; a shell that is too thin can also break or fail to contract. Fix the temper, use clean moulds and give it time to cool; for thin shells, a less fluid chocolate or two or three layers. Callebaut: moulded chocolate problems

Why tempering works

Cocoa butter can crystallise in six forms. Each melts at its own temperature. Form V is the usual target for the combination of snap, gloss, mould release and clean melt. The lower forms can set too, but they melt more easily and are less stable.

A classic curve plays the melting points against each other. Melting erases the old crystals. Cooling grows new ones, a mix that includes less stable forms such as III and IV. Warming back to the working range melts mostly those lower-melting crystals, while enough Form V seeds survive to guide the rest of the chocolate as it sets. Seeding methods add stable crystals instead of growing them all on the way down.

Form VI is more stable still and can develop slowly in stored chocolate. Fat bloom has several routes, including crystal changes, partial melting and fat moving to the surface, so Form V alone is no guarantee against it; cool, steady storage helps. The cards are a simplified model: they use the commonly cited Wille and Lutton melting points, but other studies report wider, overlapping ranges, and real chocolate shifts them further, which is why each maker gives its own curve. Source.

Every curve side by side

Melt	Cool	Work	Max
45–50 °C	27 °C	31–32 °C	34.5 °C
45 °C	27 °C	29–30 °C	32.5 °C
45 °C	27 °C	28–29 °C	31.5 °C
45 °C	27 °C	28.5–29.5 °C	32 °C
50–55 °C	28–29 °C	31–32 °C	—
45–50 °C	27–28 °C	29–30 °C	—
45–50 °C	26–27 °C	28–29 °C	—
48–50 °C	26–28 °C	31–33 °C	—
48–50 °C	26–28 °C	30–32 °C	—
48–50 °C	26–28 °C	29–31 °C	—
49–50 °C	—	31–32 °C	—
46–47 °C	—	30–31 °C	—
48 °C	27 °C	32 °C	—
48 °C	27 °C	31 °C	—
48 °C	27 °C	30 °C	—
50–55 °C	28 °C	29–30.5 °C	—
45–48 °C	27 °C	28–29.5 °C	—
43 °C	26 °C	27–28.5 °C	—
48.9 °C	26.7 °C or below	29.7–30.6 °C	32.2 °C

“—” means the maker doesn’t publish one. Guittard seeds straight to the working temperature, with no separate cooling stage. Maximums are Callebaut’s and Dandelion’s own figures. Callebaut’s 811 table prints the melt as 40–50 °C; its curve, used here, shows 45–50 °C.

Callebaut · 811 dark, 54.5% — Seed, 1,000 g

Melt 950 g to 45 °C
Callebaut melts chocolate for this method in a melter set to 45 °C.
At about 40 °C, stir in about 50 g Callets; keep stirring as it settles to 31 °C
Callebaut’s rule of thumb: with the melted chocolate at about 40 °C, add 5% Callets at 15–20 °C, then keep stirring as it cools (its melter goes down to 31 °C). If the Callets melt at once, the chocolate is still too hot: add a few more. Callebaut doesn’t say whether the 5% is of the melted chocolate or the whole batch, and the right amount depends on both temperatures, so this weight (5% of your total) is a starting point.
Stir until smooth and hold at 31–32 °C
Test: it should set within about 3 minutes, 5 at most
Dip a knife tip or spoon and leave it somewhere cool. Callebaut’s tabling guide expects it to harden evenly within 3 minutes at 18–20 °C (64–68 °F); if it hasn’t hardened after 5 minutes, Callebaut says it needs more crystals.

Maximum working temperature 34.5 °C (Callebaut).

Why the curves differ

A classic curve does three things: melt out the old crystals, cool to grow new ones, then warm just enough to melt mostly the lower-melting, less stable ones while the stable Form V seeds survive. Seeding methods reach the working range by adding crystals that are already stable, so some skip the cooling dip. The numbers move with the recipe. Milk fat softens cocoa butter, so milk and white chocolate work two or three degrees cooler than dark, and each maker tunes its curve to its own couverture.

That is why the Station starts with your chocolate rather than its colour. If yours isn’t listed, pick the closest maker’s curve, temper a small batch, and trust the test over the thermometer.

Which method to use

Seeding is the easiest at home and needs no marble. Tabling, the classic method, cools two thirds of the chocolate on marble and needs no tempered chocolate to start. Mycryo and silk seed with a precise dose of crystallised cocoa butter, which suits bean-to-bar chocolate with no tempered stock to seed from. The microwave method here keeps some of the chocolate’s own crystals as the seed, so it only works when the chocolate you start with is already tempered; a microwave can still do the melting for any of the other methods.

The Tempering Station

When the test fails

Why tempering works

Every curve side by side

Callebaut · 811 dark, 54.5% — Seed, 1,000 g

Why the curves differ

Which method to use

Frequently Asked Questions

Read the guide

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