COCOA PROCESSING
Now that the raw material has been selected, we are ready to process the transformation from beans into cocoa mass and then from mass into specialty handmade chocolate.
As a first job, we start with the creation of a recipe and consequently the selection of the fava beans most suitable for obtaining the desired characteristics.
At this stage, it is very important to remember the sensations experienced when choosing the batches, the nuances and differences between one variety and another, and to know the biochemistry of cocoa.
Put like that it might sound easy.
But there is no precise technique or tool that can show us the way or the parameters to follow: our entire palate decides at this stage.
It is like the knowledge of musical notes. Not enough. You have to know how to put them together.
How to compose a symphony.
Creating a work is the ambition of every
Ciocholate-maker
, but it may never succeed.
THE CLEANING.
When it is cocoa that has been carefully selected and processed with knowledge of the rules of quality production and has been perceived to be three or four and sometimes even ten times the price on the London International Exchange, the cleaning only serves as validation of the good work done.
However it is done manually by laying the fava beans on a vibrating table where any imperfections are noticed and eliminated.
In my contracts with farmers the presence of dried broad beans, doubles or parts of cabosse are absolutely forbidden.
If they are found, bag marking and identification of the person responsible comes into play, who will be admonished or excluded from subsequent supplies.
Seriousness requires respect for the rules by all.
The real secret of artisanal production lies in enhancing the organoleptic and olfactory merits of cocoa and not in eliminating defects, which is however feasible on pain of losing volatile and characterizing aromatic values precisely in taste factor.
THE ROASTING OR HEAT TREATMENT
After selection, roasting of the broad beans becomes essential for a variety of reasons:
- Give a toasty flavor,
- Reduce unwanted substances,
- Improving the quality of cocoa,
- achieve bacterial safety
- Make the shells easily removable,
- improve grindability
The main objective of roasting is to obtain a cocoa with a rich and tasty flavor.
Ideally, it should be carried out in two stages:
- The drying stage, in which 3% moisture is extracted with product temperature below 110°C
- The next stage of roasting, by which the aroma is produced. Usually the maximum temperature that the product reaches is 115, 135 °C, depending on the variety of broad beans, the type of equipment, and the desired degree of roasting
Why use the first stage of drying?
One of the times when the aroma is formed is during the Maillard reaction.
Free amino acids and reducing sugars combine into specific aromatic substances depending on reaction conditions such as temperature, water activity and time.
BREAKING, PEELING AND SCREENING
The broad beans are broken and the shells separated (screened) from the grain.
While they used to be cooled at room temperature, today they are broken while still hot at a temperature ranging from 60 to 80 °C (hot breaking).
Hot broad beans have more fragrance when broken, resulting in larger fragments that can be separated more easily into shells and grains.
THE GRINDING
At this point the work becomes difficult e fundamental as not only the botanical knowledge that has judged us up to this stage begins to come into play but the sensitivity and technical preparation that allows us to give that touch of refinement that distinguishes a good chocolatier from a chocolate maker.
Not all types of cocoa allow you to force your hand and tighten the schedule.
In this regard I want to bring up one fact as an example.
One highly prized type of cocoa, a Criollo from Venezuela of the Ocumare variety, during pre-grinding in the helical mill, instead of destructuring and yielding cocoa butter seized and forced the mill to burn the mass by overheating.
The same cocoa if placed in grain, in the stone grindstone and processed for a few tens of minutes presented itself very fluid and easy to process something that cocoa from Brazil did not present at all immediately transforming from grain into liquor.
The lessons learned bring experience and sensitivity needed in order to get the best out of each species of cocoa, sometimes modifying the liquefaction stage or the different mixing with other ingredients by a few details.
THE FORMULATION OF RECIPES
The most difficult thing I found in making artisan chocolate was just formulating an optimal range of recipes.
The research and calculation to produce a range of eight recipes took me more than a year, including the time to be able to set up an electronic program that could screen a recipe in its parts, nutritional, technical, aromatic and economic values.
There are also regulatory constraints in different countries.
In 2003, the EU issued an EU Directive imposing some general rules, such as the legitimate introduction of chocolate also containing a percentage (5 percent) of vegetable fat other than cocoa butter.
In formulating a recipe, one must take into account consumer preferences, which may differ according to age, gender, and area of origin.
The recipe must also take into account different climates.
For artisanal chocolate production, it is important to formulate chocolate with the available cocoa varieties, taking into consideration both the varieties and the special characteristics of the cocoa itself.
In recent years, “Mono origin” cocoa has begun to be produced, but often cocoa from that origin does not have the characteristics to be processed in purity, and it becomes important to include particularly aromatic cocoa in blends with each other in order to achieve a symphony of flavors.