Rheology of Chocolate

The book titled Rheology of Chocolate is structured into five chapters. Chocolate is one of the world's most beloved snacks and its texture-or mouthfeel-is essential to how consumers perceive its quality. The textural aspects of chocolate which influence its characteristic flavor can be finely controlled. Mouthfeel is typically evaluated by examining flow behavior-this is where rheology comes in. The most fundamental rheological test performed on chocolate is viscosity measurement. In this process a small sample is sheared at a fixed shear rate and the stress required to achieve that rate is measured. Dynamic viscosity is then calculated by dividing shear stress by shear rate. The viscosity-temperature profile of chocolate is crucial for optimizing formulation tempering and even for considering the ideal consumption conditions.