Water activity for chocolatiers
Chocolate water activity — estimate aw from your ganache recipe
Water activity (aw) is the single most important number for ganache shelf life. The ChocoX Shelf-Life Predictor estimates it from your recipe in seconds — no laboratory equipment required.
What is water activity?
The number that governs whether your ganache lasts a week or six weeks
Water activity (aw) measures how much of the water in a food is available to support microbial growth. It runs from 0 (completely dry) to 1.0 (pure water). A ganache with an aw of 0.70 will keep for several weeks at room temperature. The same recipe with an aw of 0.85 may be safe for only a week or two.
This is why moisture content alone tells you very little. Two recipes at 18% water by weight could have completely different water activities depending on how much sugar, glucose syrup and fat they contain — because those ingredients bind the water and make it unavailable to bacteria and moulds.
How the Predictor works
Recipe in, aw estimate out
The ChocoX Shelf-Life Predictor is a Windows desktop program. Enter each ingredient and its weight in grams. It recognises what each ingredient is, estimates the water activity and gives you a shelf-life category with a cautious worst-case margin.
- Estimated water activity and worst-case aw
- Shelf-life category (short / medium / long)
- Which ingredients raised or lowered the risk
- Confidence rating and guidance on when to lab-test
- Explore tab: change ingredient amounts, see revised aw instantly
Ingredients and aw
What moves water activity in a ganache?
The main levers are:
Estimate your ganache water activity in seconds
Buy the ChocoX Shelf-Life Predictor once for £25. Enter any ganache recipe and see a water activity estimate, shelf-life category and plain-English explanation — no lab or aw meter needed.