I’m not joking around today, we’re talking about a sensitive topic in the Chocolate Industry. Cocoa Moths.

How does latent moisture in your ingredients (like Cocoa beans) change the working properties of your chocolate? Alchemist john ran some experiments to find out.

The Alchemist answers some common questions about using and making Cocoa Butter Silk.

“A year ago I took a chocolate tasting class from the IICCT.  During a tasting in the class, the instructor said that he tasted a little rancid cocoa butter in one of the samples.  He said that it is something that many of the tasters are starting to notice during some tastings.  So, if rancid cocoa butter is an issue, what temperature are we supposed to be storing it at?”

After such a long and in depth viscosity discussion last week, I think we all deserve a simple speed round of Q and A.

Imagine you have a big, thick, gooey slime. Now, if you try to push your hand through the slime, it resists and feels sticky. That’s because the slime doesn’t like to move quickly when you apply force to it. We call this “viscosity.”

Alchemist: How much chocolate have you made?

Petitioner:  You nailed it there! I'm new and haven't made any chocolate yet. My background is manufacturing and I'm just completing an MBA. I am going to be hiring a consultant for picking the right taste profile for my business. My apologies if these questions seem quite ignorant.

Tempering silk butter is the bomb.

You would make a ton of sales if you would invent a way to make a melanger for under $100.  Why don’t you do that?  The market could really use it or a cheaper way to refine chocolate.

Why the hell didn’t I think of making a $100 melanger...oh wait....

I also just watched you winnow using a hair dryer and it looked like it worked well. My only missing piece is cracking the roasted beans. My Question: Rather than purchase a Champion Juicer, I'm wondering if there might be an effective alternate (cheaper) way to accomplish the cracking?

Drum roasters are so expensive.  They are only a drum, motor and some heat.  Isn’t there a cheaper alternative?  Couldn’t I roast in a pan like they do where they make the cocoa beans.  Would you tell me how to do that?  Should I use low or medium heat?

I am opening a chocolate factory and want to make the best chocolate and know price is very important to sales. What is the cheapest bean you have? They must support the farmer. And can you turn them into nibs for me so I don’t need to buy so much expensive equipment.

What an interesting set of questions I’ve been receiving this last year. Well, I am using the term interesting in sort of a gently sarcastic way. I find them interesting because

When you make liquor, some solids are screened out by the (Champion) juicer. However, when you just add nibs straight into the melanger, all these solids end up in the chocolate. Is there a difference in the end product either way?

In the attached, are the temperatures mentioned air temperatures or bean surface temperatures?

Think of this as the start of a 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.

I know you don’t like chocolate roasted in an oven. There are lots of chocolate out there that have won awards and roast that way. I’m having trouble figuring out how to roast in my oven. The chocolate is only ok or bad. What roasting profile should I use? Can you tell me what temperature I set my oven to and for how long?

Today we have two questions related to Brewing Cocoa and I find one of them really interesting from an assumption standpoint.

While ordering my cocoa beans from a supplier, I came across a couple of unfamiliar terms known as 1. Bean count 110/100gm and 2. Fermented bean percentage 85%. Kindly shed some light into this topic and please let me know if these are acceptable values for making good quality chocolate.