How long in advance can I make and refrigerate chocolate covered strawberries? Also, can I use candy melts to cover the strawberries or is there something better to use?

You can use candy melts, choc. chips, choc. bars... any choc that melts..

I would not make them more than a day in advance, the choc tends to make the strawberries kinda shrink or wilt

I used chocolate chips in a double boiler; they didn't last a day! But one hint I can give you, let your strawberries get to room temp before you dip; otherwise, they will condensate, and water doesn't mix well with chocolate.

The shorter the time, the better the product. Candy melts, almond bark, or ganache can all be used.

Be sure to very carefully dry the berries after you wash them. Any extra water will sieze your chocolate and make the berries begin to weep. Ganache is good here, because it doesn't sieze.

If the melts do sieze, add a bit of solid shortening or paramount crystals.

if you do use gonache, does it harden?

If you refrigerate the ganache is will firm up to a nice fudgy texture.

cool, maybe i will try that out cuz i have over 100 to do for my best friends wedding.

I just did some for my son's birthday cake, please see my photo that I posted today. Be sure to dry them and I used Wilton's candy, lt cocoa and dk. cocoa 1/2 and 1/2 with about 1/2 cup whipping cream. Let them cool in the fridge and then I drizzled white choc on top of that. Very good!

I've done a lot of strawberries, and I too wouldn't recommend doing them more than a day in advance. They do sweat when you bring them out of the fridge, and though they won't look to bad, your chocolate will have red tears running down them.

A trick I learned at the chocolate shop, don't wash you strawberries. Take a wet paper towel and clean each strawberry. You want to hold it by the stem, and pull with the paper towel away from the stem. This will pull away the seeds and dirt, but not let the strawberry to soak up extra water. This works really well. Just remember not to pull too hard, so as to pull the strawberry from the stem.