Shear Elegance: Unveiling Chocolate Crystallization Dynamics

The crystallization behavior of chocolate and fillings is an important quality aspect within the chocolate manufacturing and essential for process control. Poor crystallization results in fat bloom on chocolate products and may cause issues during production. The application of shear is a key factor in the success of tempering processes. Currently, static methods are used for analyzing crystallization behavior and thus do not describe the behavior under real process conditions. Therefore, a rheological method has been developed to characterize the crystallization behavior of raw materials, semi-finished products, and chocolate under controlled temperature and shear conditions.
The method is suitable to be applied within product development as well as quality control and can be used for all fat-based systems e.g., cocoa butter, cocoa mass, chocolate masses and different types of filling fats and new fat systems. ViscoQuick is a rheological analytical tool consisting of a metal cup, a M-shaped paddle, a temperature sensor, and an integrated tempering unit. This study investigated the torque, and the mass temperature changes during heating and cooling under shearing of chocolate with different ingredients typically used in chocolate production.