Influence of fat content on chocolate rheology

Molten chocolate is a suspension having properties strongly affected by particle characteristics including not only the dispersed particles but also the fat crystals formed during chocolate cooling and solidification. Even though chocolate rheology is extensively studied, mainly viscosity at high temperature was determined and no information on amount and type of fat crystals can be detected in these conditions. However chocolate texture and stability is strongly affected by the presence of specific crystals. In this work a different approach, based on creep test, was proposed to characterize chocolate samples at typical process temperatures (approximately 30 degrees C). The analysis of compliance, as time function, at short times enable to evaluate a material "elasticity" related to the solid-like behavior of the material and given by the differential area between the Newtonian and the experimental compliance. Moreover a specific time dependent elasticity was defined as the ratio between the differential area, in a time range, and total area. Chocolate samples having a different fat content were prepared and they were conditioned directly on rheometer plate by applying two different controlled cooling rate; therefore creep were performed by applying a low stress to ensure material linear behavior. Experimental data were analyzed by the proposed method and specific elasticity was related to single crystal properties. It was found that fat crystal amount and properties depend in different way on fat content and cooling rate, moreover creep proved to be able to detect even small differences among tested samples.