A small chocolate maker working from couverture, chocolate bought ready to use, makes bars in eight steps: melt, temper, add the inclusions, fill the molds by weight, tap and cool, demold, wrap, and code. Tempering decides how the bar looks and snaps: the chocolate is melted, cooled and gently rewarmed along the couverture maker's temperature curve, so the cocoa butter sets in the right crystal form. Skip it, or let the chocolate drift too warm, and the bars come out dull, soft and streaked. A test strip on parchment before each batch shows whether the temper is right. In the example below, an Idaho chocolate maker runs a day of bars.
The short version
- Eight steps: melt, temper, add inclusions, fill, cool, demold, wrap, code.
- Temper to the couverture maker's curve: melt, cool, rewarm.
- Test every batch's temper on a strip before filling molds.
- Fill molds by weight.
- Cool in a cool, dry room, not a humid fridge.
- Wrap with dry hands and code every bar.
- TaroStack records each batch with its couverture and inclusion lots. More below.
The eight steps
| Step | What happens | What to record |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Melt | Couverture melted to the maker's melting temperature | Couverture lot, temperature |
| 2. Temper | Cooled and rewarmed along the maker's curve | Temperatures |
| 3. Test | A strip on parchment, set at room temperature | Snap and shine |
| 4. Inclusions | Nuts, fruit or salt weighed in or sprinkled | Inclusion lots, weights |
| 5. Fill | Molds filled by weight, tapped to release air | Bar weight |
| 6. Cool | Set in a cool, dry room | Room temperature, time |
| 7. Demold and wrap | Bars released, foiled and wrapped with dry hands | Good and rejected bars |
| 8. Code | Lot and best-by on each wrapper | Lot, best-by |
What a bar sells for is in how to price chocolate, and wrappers in how to package chocolate for sale.
An example: a day of bars
Sawtooth Chocolate Co., the made-up chocolate maker in Boise, Idaho, I use in these examples, makes 2-ounce bars from couverture in a shared kitchen. One day:
| Step | What happened |
|---|---|
| Melt and temper | Dark couverture lot DC-0902, tempered on the maker's curve in a 25 lb tempering machine |
| Test | Strip glossy and snapped at 8 a.m.; at 11 a.m. it streaked, the chocolate had drifted warm, and was re-tempered |
| Inclusions | Almonds lot AL-0820, sea salt, freeze-dried raspberries lot RB-0815 |
| Fill and cool | 2 oz a bar, 30 molds of 20, set in the 62°F cool room |
| Demold and wrap | 600 bars wrapped, 14 rejected for streaks or broken corners |
| Code | Lot SC-0915, best by Sep 2027 |
The second test strip caught a temper that had drifted warm over three hours; re-tempering before filling saved the next 200 bars from streaking. The 14 rejects went into the kitchen's hot chocolate. When a co-packer would make sense is in chocolate co-packer.
Get the run sheet
Download the chocolate production run sheet. Two sheets: a blank run sheet to print for each batch, with the eight steps, the check at each and its target, and spaces for the actual reading, the time and initials; and the same run filled in from the example. It's an ordinary Excel file with no macros, and it works in Google Sheets, LibreOffice and Numbers.
Where this stops working
The run sheet covers one day. Three flavors, two couverture lots, almonds that are a tree nut on a line that also runs a nut-free bar, and 600 bars to gift stores and online: when an almond lot is recalled, the trace has to run to every order.
How TaroStack does it
TaroStack records each batch with its couverture and inclusion lots, so a bar's lot leads back to its chocolate and almonds.
Batches by lot. Each batch takes the couverture, almonds and fruit off stock with their lots.
Good and rejected bars. Each batch records the good bars against what the recipe should make, and the rejects with their reason.
Where it went. Each order records the lot it got, so one recall report runs from an almond lot to every customer.
| The job | Clipboard | In TaroStack |
|---|---|---|
| Which almonds went into a batch | A note on the clipboard | Batches by lot |
| Bars rejected for streaks | Counted at the end | On the batch |
| Who got a lot | Order history | One recall report |
Recipes, batches, lots and recalls are on every plan, from $49 a month. The first 30 days are free, with no credit card. If you'd like a hand setting up, ask, and we'll do it with you.