Diagnosis Bloom

(Chocolate Forensics 101)

The Problem
There are few things that give a confectionery owner or manager a worse sinking
feeling than to have one of their staff come in a tell them that they just found…

Bloom on the order they are suppose to ship that afternoon!

Of course, at this stage, it is already too late—the damage has been done and the
immediate concern is to look for non-bloomed product to cover the shipment.

Usually, the next step is that someone calls us to ask us why their goods bloomed.
Diagnosing the cause of the bloom on the phone is sort of like asking someone to taste
via phone. We have not yet perfected smell-o-phone, or taste-o-phone, or bloom-o-
phone. Of course this is also accompanied by the immediate explanation that they just
don’t understand it since “nothing” has changed.

What I would like to take you through now is the logic we go through when a customer
calls us with this problem. I will be taking you through the questioning process, together
with some slides showing examples, to help you in your investigation—your Chocolate
Forensics 101 thinking—as we together attempt to diagnose what has happened
wrongly.

The first step in this process is to recognize that the “nothing has changed” phrase is
inherently incorrect. Of course, something has changed, otherwise the goods would
look like they always look.

As you begin to think in forensics or diagnostic terms, you will adopt a particular point of
view. You will, in the phrasing of a prior paper, be thinking like the fat—the cocoa
butter—in the chocolate and the conditions that it sees. Please note that in this
discussion, we will only be covering real chocolate—not compound coatings.

The Heart of the Matter

When we say bloom, within the industry we tend to think of it as a “thing”. The crux of
any diagnosis, however, stems from the understanding that bloom is not a “thing”. It is
a complex result of a process that has occurred within the piece as a result of conditions
to which the piece has been exposed—internally, within its formulation, as well as
externally from it environmental history. Seen this way, bloom has as much variability
as a cake—a complex result of the recipe and preparation.
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There are five primary areas that the chocolate sleuth addresses to get to the probable
diagnosis of cause—the diagnosis issues.
• Type of bloom (sugar vs fat).
• Structural and formulation characteristics of the confection and its center.
• Time frames in which the bloom appears and whether it “grows” over time.
• Where it appears on the pieces and how it looks.
• Distribution of bloom within packages, stock boxes, and in boxes on pallets.

To this information is added other clues which come from an understanding of the
history of the product:
• Retained sample appearance
• Ingredient clues (eg: frozen nut storage)
• Product movement
• Storage conditions (recorded temperature and humidity history)

Let’s face it, there are some types of bloom where not much is required to figure out
what happened. When chocolate sits in the grocery bag in the car in the sun, well,
when it re-solidifies, you’d expect to see this:

No Brainer Bloom
For other situations, a careful consideration of all of the factors in Chocolate Forensics
101 is important to best guess where the problem occurred. In the final analysis,
someone has to go out and carefully look at the putative culprit to see if that is really
what did it—and to prevent it from continuing.

Let’s look at each of these diagnostic factors:

• Type of bloom (sugar vs fat)
• Structure and formulation of piece including center
• Time frames and stability / growth
• Distribution and appearance on pieces
• Distribution within packages, boxes, and pallets

Diagnostic Issue: Sugar vs Fat

There are two fundamentally different type of dull, grey surface films that go by the
same name—bloom. While the most common is fat bloom, sugar bloom also occurs
and is not necessarily distinguishable from fat bloom by appearance. Yet they have
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very different causes. If the film can be identified as sugar bloom—either by a detailed
examination with additional clues from the diagnosis factors, the identification of the
specific location of the problem is greatly facilitated. Simply put, you only have to find
the spot that moisture is condensing, or is being blown onto the surface.

Sugar Bloom
Sugar bloom occurs when the surface of the chocolate is wetted and then dries out.
Under these conditions, the surface film of water (and it might only be a microscopic
film) dissolves some of the surface sugar particles in the chocolate and creates a syrup
film. When this dries out, a dull grey-white haze of microscopic sugar crystals is left on
the surface.

If such damaged goods are then stored for a period of time, the surface sugar “bloom”
will also be joined by cocoa butter fat bloom. This occurs as the initial, smooth surface
has been damaged by the sugar bloom and this becomes a site for the fat bloom to take
place on—it greatly accelerates the normal blooming process just as much as
temperature cycling in storage does.

In freshly “sugar bloomed” samples, it is often easy to feel the surface difference. Sugar
bloom feels dry and does not melt to the touch while fat bloom feels slick and melts.
You can often see the difference if you touch a small droplet of water to the surface:
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Water Droplet Test

With fat bloom, the droplet simply beads up. With sugar bloom, the droplet quickly
flattens and spreads as the water dissolves the microscopic sugar particles on the
surface.

Sugar bloom more commonly occurs when the product is initially made where it might
emerge from the cooling tunnel and “see” warm, humid conditions. It could also occur
during its storage life whenever it is stored cold and then brought into warmer, humid
conditions without sufficient time to bring the product “up to temperature”.

Often, it is also seen in conjunction with water droplets, as when an air conditioning coil
is blowing water droplets due to a plugged drain.

Sugar Bloom from Blowing Water

In serious cases of condensation, paper packaging touching the product also gets wet
with the syrup. This keeps the product wet as well and mold and yeast can grow on
both the product and the paper with very unpleasant consequences.
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In the case of sugar bloom, the cause is simple—either the surface was at some point
below the dew point or something blew water on the surface as a mist. While it still
needs to be tracked down, at least you know what you are looking for. A good
psychometric chart is crucial under these circumstances.

Psychometric Chart
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Diagnostic Issue: Structural and formulation characteristics of the confection and

its center
It is imperative to understand the formulation and structure of the piece. After all, this
will determine which mechanisms of bloom are even possible.
If bloom is to occur, it will occur here first.

Thin Chocolate Coverage on an Almond.

Protective caramel
coating layer

Thin coating

Protective Film of Caramel (presumably butter caramel, not vegetable oil based caramel)
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Fully Encapsulated Peanuts

The full encapsulation of the peanuts in this crunch will exert a major protective
influence and delay or prevent bloom.

Peanut Butter Cup-Thin Coating

Peanut oil from the center of this confection is well known to cause bloom and
significant softening of the coating.

Peanut Butter Cup-Thick Coating

This peanut butter patty has a heavier shell of chocolate and should have a longer shelf
life.
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Raspberry Creme
There is no reason structurally or formulation wise why this raspberry crème should
exhibit bloom. If it does so, it must be from exogenous sources.

One caveat to this is necessary, it is also important to understand which products were
run on the line and through the same equipment prior to these goods. For example, the
bloomed piece may not have any other oils present, but if peanut clusters or even
worse, peanut butter cremes were run on the line prior to this piece, they could have
fallen into the bottomer or enrober—contaminating the coating there. They could also
have left peanut oil on the surface of the tunnel belt. This is especially true of melt-
away centers that might be poorly bottomed.

Diagnostic Issue: Time Frames

Unless carefully pre-planned for and sought, this is often one of the more difficult pieces
of evidence to assemble. It is also one of the most useful in a diagnosis.

If one has a well developed retained sample program, this particular factor is easily
checked in conjunction with stock box and warehouse stored samples. If no retained
sample program is in operation, first, shame on you—go repent and create one and
second, you are likely to have to open up a lot of boxes of finished product just to gather
this essential information.

Retained Sample Program:

• Samples retained for each step in system and handling
• Storage at controlled temperature and humidity conditions
• Principle: If it moves, sample it!

Because bloom is the end result of conditions to which the chocolate is subjected
(including ingredient conditions) and the processes within the chocolate as a result of
these conditions, it is inherently a time function. It is not surprising then that an
understanding of the time frames of bloom appearance become particularly useful in
troubleshooting the cause as a range of time frames occur with common bloom causes.
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Unusual circumstances can change these time frames but generally they hold pretty
well.

Time of appearance of the bloom is divided into three primary zones:

Immediate typically within 12-28 hours
Intermediate 1 to 2-3 weeks
Long term 3-8 weeks

We can look at this time function more closely against the backdrop of some of the
common causes:

Temperature cycling

Fat migration
Bloom Factor

Fat contamination

Initial tempering problems

Broken temper, Heat hit Heat hit in storage

12-48 hr 1-3 weeks 3-8 weeks

Appearance Time Frame

Whenever a product has been hit by high heat, the temper is broken—either fully or
partially—and bloom appears after only 12-48 hours. As seen below, this holds true if
product, in storage, is suddenly hit.

28 hrs After High Heat Hit

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Initial tempering problems can give rise to a broad range of bloom issues. While some
situations allow bloom to appear as early as 12 hours, some do not manifest
themselves until weeks later. Included in this band are issues of over tempered
chocolate that becomes thick and is then thinned (under tempered) by raising the
temperature of the mass. This gives rise to a coarse grained crystal structure that is
prone to bloom formation.

Over Temper-Under Temper

This line would also include a host of other problems with tempering units, enrobers,
and tunnels. Another example of this type of problem showing up much sooner is non-
uniformity in the tempered mass:

Non-Uniformity in the Tempered Mass

In this example, a short section of the depositor hopper was overheated by a night
heater left on.
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Non-Uniformity in the Tempered Mass

In this example, a section of the enrober curtain (the back side, was being warmed by a
motor fan.

Fat contamination typically exhibits itself relatively soon after manufacture as often, the
contamination level is high. This can be especially true when the tunnel belt becomes
coated in a prior runs incompatible fat. Migration issues come from the center out and,
therefore, have a time frame dependent on both the concentration and mobility of the
incompatible fat, the degree of incomparability, and the thickness and inherent temper
of the coating.

Tempered Cycled Chips (1 ½ Yr)

Finally, temperature cycling is dependant on the initial temper, the presence of butter oil
in dark coatings, and the frequency and depth of the temperature cycles. These chips
are the result of minor temperature cycles (not controlled) over about 1 ½ years!
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Diagnostic Issue: Where the bloom appears on the piece and how it appears
At this point, we are now gathering evidence that allows us to really start narrowing the
cause of the problem. There are two elements here with a set of questions associated
with each.

1. Where does the bloom appear on the individual piece

a. Does the bloom cover then entire surface?
b. Is part of the surface free of bloom?
c. Does the bloom “grow” or spread with longer storage times?
d. If the bloom is not covering the entire surface, what is immediately under
or in proximity to the spot of bloom (nuts, thin spots in the chocolate
coating, etc)

2. What does the bloom really look like?

a. Is it a dull, grey surface haze on a hard piece
b. Is it a haze on a soft surface
c. Does it erupt from the surface in significant clusters or mounds of bloomed
material?

Diagnostic Issue: Distribution of bloom within packages, stock boxes, and in

boxes on pallets
As we look at the product within packages, stock boxes, and in boxes on pallets, we
begin to get a feel for the “entry point” of whatever the culprit was. Some distributions
immediately almost direct us to the source of the problem (for instance just the top layer
or just one side of a pallet suggesting entry through that side or source).

Top Layer Bloom

Other distributions show no apparent pattern. The problem appears randomly

distributed. Unless the random distribution has a very unusual cause, it is most likely
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due to something happening on the enrober, tunnel, or packaging area that is different
on one side from another. When there is a side-to-side difference across the width of
the belt, normal picking and packing practices, coupled with typically varying stacking
practices gives rise to what appears to be no pattern at all. Typical practices have the
effect of “shuffling the cards”. Some boxes will harbor large numbers of damaged
pieces, some a few, and others none at all. Additionally, there will be no pattern to the
distribution as stacked on the pallet.

The End of the Day:

• Go look and see
• Check records
• Check similar products made at different times
• Check other products made at same time on other lines
• Check other products made before and after

When all the diagnosis on cause has been completed and a putative agent is identified,
the final step is to go out and carefully look to see if that is what happened. This might
be corroborated from storage and shipping records. In some cases, it is impossible to
confirm the past—you are only left with a probable cause.

In any case, you need to go through the process and ask how this might be prevented
in the future—in fact; this is not such a bad thing to do even before the problem
surfaces.

In the parting words of Theobroma Cacao:

May your temper be paved with shiny surfaces,
May you maximize your contraction,
May you avoid stray heat, and
May you be free from bloom.