Tips for Storing Chocolate in the Summer
1 min reading time
The harsh winter weather is behind us but now we have to face the heat in these upcoming summer months. Here are some useful tips to prevent your chocolate from turning into hot cocoa:
1) Summer is among us and the last thing we would want is our delicious chocolate melting because of the brutal heat. Chocolate begins to soften at 85 degrees and it starts to melt at 95 degrees. In other words, if you want hot cocoa real quick store it in a room 95 degrees or hotter. If you want to prevent that from happening make sure that designated are is in a room with a temperature between 65-68 degrees Fahrenheit. When chocolate begins to melt it loses its temper or it begins to bloom. A sugar bloom process means the cocoa butter inside the chocolate begins to separate from the rest of it's ingredients. You can still eat it but it does not look visually pleasing.
2) If you keep your chocolate in bags be sure to keep them in air tight bags or the chocolate will begin the bloom process as well or in this instance it would be a fat bloom where the cocoa butter separates and turns into an ugly grayish color. Again it's still edible but who would want to eat grayish chocolate.
3) We here at Royal make our own deliveries, shipments, and an occasional pick up order. When we ship out items that could melt in the heat we make sure it's protected at all costs with foil and ice packs or dry ice (depending on the size of the order). But, if you happen to make an online order that would end up getting shipped via a freight company, we would recommend favoring "Cocoa Dark" over "Cocoa Lite" at least in these warm months. Milk chocolate has the tendency to spoil faster over dark chocolate because most dark cocoa is dairy-free.