Chocolate Mold Fill

Chocolate isn't as dense as water, and different types differ from each other too — dark couverture runs about 1.3 g/mL while white is lighter — so the same cavity volume in milliliters weighs a different amount in grams depending on which chocolate you pour. The calculator multiplies your cavity volume by the density you enter to get grams per cavity, which is the unit you'll actually be measuring on a kitchen scale.

The waste allowance is applied as a straight percentage on top of the base cavity total, covering three real losses: intentional overflow when cavities are slightly overfilled to ensure full coverage, chocolate scraped off the spatula and mixing bowl, and residual film left on tools after pouring. Beginners typically need 15-20% since their technique wastes more, while experienced chocolatiers can budget closer to 5-10%.

No — it's a flat placeholder rate the calculator applies to your total pounds of chocolate needed, and real couverture pricing varies widely by brand, cocoa percentage, and whether it's dark, milk, or white. Treat the estimated cost as a rough starting point and substitute your actual per-pound price for a meaningful budget figure.

Fill time assumes about 6 seconds per cavity (pouring, tapping out air bubbles, moving on), then adds a fixed 20-minute refrigerator set time regardless of batch size, and the two are summed for total time. Real set time depends heavily on chocolate thickness, ambient kitchen temperature, and whether you're using a blast chiller, so treat this as a rough planning number rather than a precise timer.