Level: Novice
Read time: 8 minutes
Think of this as the start of an FAQ. I also want to note there are some oddly phrased questions below and I’m leaving them as written, not to make fun of anyone as it is pretty obvious they are from folks who do not speak English as their first language and being monolingual myself, I applaud them for writing in. Their English is worlds better than my Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin or Italian.
Fermentation
When fermenting your beans can they get to hot? I recently started a small batch of beans I got out of fresh pods from tropical fruit box. I read somewhere the beans need to be fermented around 105 degrees. I came home today and found my fermentation box hit almost 200 degrees.
They most certainly can get too hot. Keep in mind all fermentation is dependent upon a variety of yeasts and microbes. With very few exceptions, nearly all will die between 150-165 F. 200 F most certainly killed off anything there. In the slim change something survived the ratios of different types of organisms would be so altered that a good fermentation would be virtually impossible.
I've been trying to make my own small batch chocolate from pods I get from my neighbor. I've read about the CHTR method for small batch fermenting but I don't have all that fancy equipment. I have a rice cooker that I use as a yoghurt incubator but my ferments always come out under done. Is there any way to ferment at home
Cocoa fermentation is quite outside my area of knowledge. I know enough to know that we frankly hardly understand it. I have a lot of experience with other fermenations so have tried my hand at cocoa only to fail time an again. The main issue seems to be a lack of the right cultures (there are many that ebb and flow over the fermentation cycle) and enough thermal mass for good temperature regulation. I really can’t help you ferment at home.
Cocoa Beans
How long will raw cacao beans last in original bag and then in Tupperware.
There is just no set length of time. Kept in cool and dry conditions, some beans can last many years. Others start to fade after a year or two. Putting them in tupperware, vacuum sealing them or putting them in the freezer also does not seem to make much difference.
the roasted cocoa been will give shelf life? and how many months?
Shelf life is just not a good term for cocoa, whether it is roasted or raw. It implies they can go bad. Cocoa is shelf stable and again, kept cool and dry can last many months to years. Roasted beans and nibs will go stale a bit faster. We recently had a return of roasted nibs that went to Italy in November of 2021. We are currently making chocolate from them and rather surprisingly, the chocolate, although changed, is still remarkably good. In the case of Madagascar, I personally liked the November chocolate quite a bit more than freshly roasted. It tasted more nuanced and integrated. Aged nibs??
I want to buy roasted nibs how long are they good for and how would I store them?
See the above answers.
Once the liquor or coca mass has been made it contains cocoa butter naturally right ? But I guess we need to add more to make it runny?
Yes, cocoa beans naturally contain 50-60% cocoa butter. Although extra cocoa butter is often added to recipes, it is optional. The only real requirement is that your chocolate have at least 30-35% fat. Some of this can be milk fat from whole milk powder.
Roasting
I can’t afford a roaster or grinder. How do I make chocolate?
I’m sorry to say but you probably can’t. Although not a super expensive hobby, it does take an investment. That said, that amount is less than many serious hobbies (photography and all grain brewing for instance) and still under what most modern smart phones will cost you. To date, and I’ve been doing this for 20 years now, there is no basic kitchen appliance you can use off the shelf to make chocolate. Please trust me, I would be the first to sing it to the heavens if there was. I want people making chocolate and the lower I can make that bar, the better.
What roaster should I use?
It really depends upon how much you want to roast and your budget. I think the Behmor 2000AB does a good job, and a great job if you modify it for a thermocouple. After that, most coffee drum roasters can be used. Air roasters don’t do so well. You can use a standard or convection oven, but as I outline in Ask the Alchemist 304, it can be a little frustrating.
Cracking and Winnowing
When using the champion juicer I get a lot of dust. What do I do about the waste?
I know it looks like a lot of dust but most of that is the husk that has been powdered and not the nib. Your recovery is not really suffering. The only time you can get the nib to powder is if you don’t allow your beans to fully cool after roasting. I suggest at least 6 hours of pretty actively cooling before winnowing.
I can’t get all the husk out of my nibs without taking hours to pick it out. What do the professionals do to get their nibs clean?
What they do is not fret over a little husk. By law, they are not allowed to have more than 0.5% by weight. By volume that looks like a lot. By weight, it just isn’t. Years ago I tested out making chocolate with different amounts of husk and rather surprisingly it was not until I got over 3-4% by weight did the flavor start to suffer. Perfection is an illusion and unattainable goal but a good way to stress yourself out. If you are really concerned, make two batches, one that you have painstakingly removed every trace amount of husk, and another where you have not and then taste them blind. I suspect you cannot reliable tell them apart.
Grinding and Refining
I would like to try and make liquor for my next chocolate. Could I use an Omega juicer? Your video says anything that makes a nut butter will work. Would I need to run it through multiple times? I would have already winnowed the beans.
I don’t know. I’ve never tried it but I have my doubts. Most promote being low speed and cool and you need some heat and friction to get the cocoa butter to melt and flow. Also, making liquor is not required. If you warm up the nibs and stones of your melanger you can grind directly into the melanger.
I've noticed today my Grindr chocolate refinery, the bottom stone in very smooth where the wheels lay. Is there something I can do to help the it become rigid again? Running sugar through it?
Not really. You probably need to replace the drum. That is, if it had texture. The Spectra 11 is smooth and refines just fine. If you are wearing grooves in the granite, you should replace it. You are not doing anything wrong most likely. Stone wears.
I know concher is important for fine flavor. I can’t find one. How make great chocolate?
Conching is over rated and not generally applicable to small scale (under 10 lb) chocolate making at home. Melangers are combination refiner/conches so you do not need a stand alone conch. Add to that, the only real time you need a conch is when you are refining a very short time (2-4 hours) in something like a roller mill or ball mill. Because neither of those are readily available for small batches at anything resembling an affordable price (many thousands of dollars), you can’t find a small conch because there is no demand or need. Just use a melanger like the Spectra 11, running 24-72 hours and all will be just fine.
Tempering
I'm weighing out my options with tempering machines and melters and which is best or makes sense with the now and the future. Here is where Im torn and could use your opinion on the different options. Chocovision has a tabletop tempering machine for $2000. Its pretty much a simple seeding method. Or buy a melter and a cocoa butter incubator(to make Silk) at around $1500 for both. Im looking for something easy to maintain and the ease of execution.
Again we are getting a little out of my wheelhouse. I teach how to make chocolate and temper but don’t keep abreast of machines. That said, lots of people have come up with the idea of using a low cost melter thinking they can use it for tempering. Unfortunately it is less expensive for a reason. The temperature control is just not very good and the natural swings in temperature can be enough to ruin you and your chocolate’s temper. They also have hot spots and rarely stir. For home use, I am generally not a fan of the Chocovision line due to the high price compared to the amount you can do. I much prefer Silk and small batches. If you are going professional, then keep in mind, you pretty much get what you pay for.
Silk is new to me......Once I add the silk and use the chocolate for enrobing and Im done with production. The next day comes around and the chocolate is hard from the melter, do I increase the temperature of the melter to 34C and need to add more silk to the chocolate? How does this process work?
If you are enrobing and doing production, silk may not be your best bet since you have to add more each time. Once it sets up you pretty much have to start over and each time you have to dilute your chocolate a little more. Some people want to believe they can melt it just enough to maintain temper and that is fine theory but in practice, to do it requires lots of time and a delicate hand to the point it is not feasible. You would do better to just leave it overnight in its melted, tempered state.
When using cocoa butter silk to temper milk chocolate is it the same instructions using the temperatures 95 then back to 92 as you would for dark chocolate or is it another set of temperature ranges to bring the chocolate to first, before adding the silk and bringing it down to a different temperature before putting it into the molds
The great thing about Silk is that one temperature fits all. Whether you are tempering dark, milk or white., you add solid silk at 95 F and mold at 92.5 F.
I'm getting ready to use silk how important is that 4 in the 92.4 because I can keep it at 92 or 93?
Not terribly important….unless it is. What I mean by that is that 92.5 F is nominal when you are making silk. Your butter might require 92 F or 93 F in which case you will be fine…but it might be solid at 92 and liquid at 93 so in that case, it is quite important. As for using it, it isn’t very important. Either temperature will work as at that stage Silk is very forgiving.
Do I have to go down to 86 FI use for milk chocolate if I’m using silk?
No. See above.
Chocolate recipes
She takes a 91% cocoa chocolate pieces for health reasons (her doctor suggested it) well all the 91% she has tried are extremely bitter. So is there a bean or blend that will have extra sweetness already to make it more pleasant. What bean would you suggest?
There are a couple things to unpack here so I’ll just ramble a touch. I don’t see the reason to have 91% chocolate. Just go for a good dark chocolate, 75-85% that she actually likes. The small amount of extra sugar is just insignificant in the scheme of things nutrition wise and very impactful from an enjoyment point of view. And 91%? What an odd number. Something that comes to mind is that about 10% of the population seems to have a gene that makes chocolate HIDEOUSLY bitter to them. Given a choice, these people would not eat chocolate but out of peer pressure are often the really sweet milk and white chocolate eaters. If that is the case, I’ve not found any bean they like. If that isn’t the case here, I suggest looking at the spider charts I produce or use the filters to find a sweet bean. I’m not going to list any as they change from year to year. But sweet in this case is relative. Cocoa has no natural sweetness. It is just a perception when comparing various (80% for me) chocolates to one another. At 100% (or 91%) they are not going to taste sweet. Also look for very low bitterness, say under a 1.5/5. Finally, if that all fails, consider trying whole roasted beans. I find that those can be significantly more palatable and can be eaten like nuts.
Can I add coconut oil since I don’t know where to get cocoa butter? How much should I add? How long should I blender it with my cocoa powder and honey?
Uhm….I kind of hate to break it to you, but this really isn’t chocolate. You can’t add honey (or any water based ingredient) to chocolate. When you do, it becomes something else. Maybe good, but not chocolate. The blender? See above about kitchen equipment not being suitable for chocolate making. I don’t recommend using coconut oil either as it can inhibit tempering. If you want to make a cocoa powder, coconut oil, honey confection, have fun and I hope you enjoy it. I can’t offer much advice though as that isn’t where my passion is. Chocolate Alchemy is about bean to bar chocolate.
I bought super best high quality coca from amazon but they taste horrible bitter. How do I make my chocolate taste good?
Ok, I’m sorry. I just can’t resist this one. If you are eating coca, then yes, it is very bitter….and it is also the leaf that they use to make cocaine. And if you got it off Amazon….can I have the link? Seriously, if you bought some cocoa beans off amazon, and you don’t like them…..hrm…how to phrase this kind of nicely….well you probably got taken with slick marketing. I’m going to unabashedly suggestion you try some of ours as I personally vet every single origin we carry and it is very specifically with the lens of making it into good or great tasting chocolate. Lots of people are jumping on the cocoa bean bandwagon….but I built that bandwagon 18 years ago and helping you make great chocolate is why I’m here. Good chocolate comes from good beans. To use the proverb, you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear and if you bought a sow’s ear off amazon,….nuff said.
Chocolate
How old can chocolate be kept before it spoils if no toxic preservation chemicals ?
See about about beans and shelf life. Contrary to urban myth, chocolate, even industrial chocolate, does not contain preservatives as it is naturally shelf stable. It might bloom, and get chalky, but it does not go bad. If it does bloom and go chalky, you probably won’t enjoy eating it as is but you can certainly cook or bake with it.
How do I store my chocolate so it doesn’t go bad?
Just cool and dry. This is one time that the refrigerator is an ok place…IF….you seal it up very well. Chocolate is really good at absorbing aromas and many refrigerators can offer up plenty of scents. If you do store it cold, I suggest warming it up to room temperature gentle so the flavor can come through.
Ok, that is all folks. Please keep those questions coming.