the complete first series

These videos are a complete guide to making chocolate at home or in a small craft chocolate business. From choosing the correct cocoa bean to tempering the finished chocolate, anyone can make chocolate at home.

#1 - Complete Overview

A complete overview of making chocolate at home or in a small artisan chocolate business. More detailed videos of each step are also found in the How to Make Chocolate at Home channel

#2 - All about Cocoa Beans

Alchemist John goes through the various types of cocoa beans and how to choose the right one for your taste.

#3 - Roasting With the Behmor 1600

A complete guide to roasting cocoa beans to make chocolate using the Behmor 1600 coffee and cocoa roaster

#4 - Oven Roasting

This video explains the procedure and philosophy for roasting cocoa beans in a home oven for making fine chocolate at home. All that is needed is an oven, a large flat baking pan, and a surface thermometer. Roasting is an essential step in making chocolate.

#7 - Winnowing Cocoa Beans

How to separate cocoa husk from nibs when making chocolate. Two different methods are discussed--using a hair drier and using the Sylph Winnower.

#5 - Drum Roasting

#6 - Cracking Cocoa Beans

#8 - Making Chocolate Liquor

A video showing how to drum- roast cocoa for making chocolate. The roaster shown here is an elegant old coffee roaster, the Royal Number 5. Drum roasting is for artisan chocolate makers who want to make small batch chocolate on a larger scale than roasting in a small coffee roaster or home oven.

How to crack roasted cocoa beans for making chocolate. The process of cracking separates the husk from the cocoa nibs, which is essential prior to winnowing.

How to make chocolate liquor from cocoa nibs using the Champion Juicer.

9 - How to Make Dark Chocolate

How to make real dark chocolate at home using only cocoa beans, sugar, and a little extra cocoa butter.

10 - How to Make Milk Chocolate

How to make true artisan milk chocolate at home.

11 - Making White Chocolate

How to make white chocolate with cocoa butter, milk powder, and sugar.

12 - Tempering Philosophy

13 - Cocoa Butter Seed Tempering

14 - Bowl Tempering

The basics of tempering chocolate, along with the Alchemist's philosophy on tempering. When making chocolate, tempering is necessary to make chocolate stable, glossy, and snappy. Plus it tastes better when properly tempered.

How to temper chocolate in the fastest, easiest way possible--with use of special cocoa butter seed known as "silk" which seeds chocolate with stable type V crystals aggressively.

Tempering chocolate with bowls of water--one hot and one cool. This is an easy way to temper chocolate at home without the need for tabling or adding seed.

Recent Updates

Featured

Apr 25, 2024

Ask the Alchemist #328

Apr 25, 2024

I wonder when beans go out of stock, would it be possible to preserve an archive section with the spider charts, your tasting notes, and roasting notes for these beans?

Apr 25, 2024