Daily musings and writings from the Alchemist
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Roasting
First time maker. We had some issues for sure but the one thing you for sure take for granted is how to work somewhat cleanly, and how to handle liquid chocolate well. We made a serious mess and it was quite a process to get the melanger clean again. So turn that big brain on and dump all your knowledge about working with chocolate and cleaning. Please be gentle with me.
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?
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
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?
After last weeks in depth conversation about roasting cocoa in a coffee roaster, I wanted to, nay, needed to take it a little easy this week. There are a bunch of pretty simple questions that don’t really merit a full long winded response but in that there are no stupid questions (that is NOT a challenge folks) I still want to answer them. It also helps clear a little of the back log.
If we can roast cacao with our Diedrich IR12 that would solve everything.
Thanks for all the great blog posts on roasting, and specifically the Behmor. Thanks to Uncle Sam and tax returns, it's time to upgrade from oven roasting to the Behmor.
I wrote an article yesterday. It was kind of a venting rant session for me. Call it therapy. But I started having doubts that I might be just railing at the world and it wasn’t useful or delivered the message I wanted.
I am a recent convert (2wks) from my coffee to brewed chocolate, and I don't ever see myself going back. I live in an apartment now, so for the winter this would be strictly oven roasting. Can you be truly successful in a basic oven roasting method?
I’ve read, re-read, and re-read again your articles and blog posts (Ask the Alchemist 200-205) on roasting. As much as I’d like to have all the proper equipment, there’s only so much I can do on a budget in a small apartment with limited storage space. For the time being I’m trying to oven roast. The engineer in me understands momentum, ramp (slope), and I’ve been trying to apply your Drum Roasting profiles to at least have similar concepts with Oven Roasting ... trying to go into the various phases appropriately.
I’ve heard broken beans are a sign that the beans are too dry and that I need to adjust my roast profile. What is the minimum moisture that is acceptable, how do I measure it and how would I go about that?
We are starting a new bean to bar factory in the industry so I would like to know what is the best cocoa nibs there is to order for making chocolate? And what equipment do we need? Can you supply me with a recipe for making the best chocolate? Another Great video on brewing cocoa. Have a few questions.
1. I am embarking on cacao for weight loss and all the health benefits. I was told that if your roast or heat the cocoa beans they lose a lot of phytonutrients. I live in India and my cocoa beans are thoroughly sun dried and the skins are easy to remove. Do I still need to roast them.
In the roasting seminar I just attended a week back, I was amazed at how much math and science can be used in determining/developing what are generally considered "artistic" qualities (like in roasting/flavor development). Out of curiosity, what basic math/science skills should I brush up on that will make the biggest impact on my ability to produce the highest grade chocolate and make it a replicable process? Do I need high grade chemistry and calculus? Or is there some other basics that will get me close but still give me an edge over people who are mostly winging it?
My question is whether you have experienced more intense flavors by starting with a high temperature and then coming down. As well, why did you choose 232F as the end of the development phase.
I am a long time coffee roaster and know it is important to cool coffee as fast as possible. How quickly do I have to cool my cocoa beans? I’m worried they going to over roast if I don’t get them cool in a couple minutes, especially in the Behmor roaster.
Before I get this week’s questions (which are a little non-standard and are actually just me answering an email in more detail - yes, I still try to answer any and everything that comes in) I want to announce a new Brewing cocoa.
It is a new Organic blend roasted a bit deeper than The Big O.
Tequila Moonrise - Organic Chocolate, rich and deep, to warm you up while watching that beautiful moonrise in the chilly night while sipping a neat pour of Elixir of Agave.
Level: Novice
Reading Time: 4 minutes
I have a question about roasting brewing chocolate. I found your article where you talk about roasting to different temperatures, for example Shadow's Silhouette to 333 F. I don't currently have a Behmor (I will eventually), so I'm roasting in the oven. If I want a dark roast, do I set my oven on 410 F for example and roast until the bean temperature reads 410 F or do I start at a lower temperature and gradually increase it. I'm just looking for some roasting guidance here for brewing chocolate.
On a minor pedantic note it is Brewing Cocoa. Chocolate is cocoa that has been refined with sugar. Brewing cocoa is ground roasted whole cocoa beans (i.e. not just nibs)
Just like I do for roasting for chocolate, I really don’t recommend roasting in the oven if you can avoid it all costs. Probably the number one reason I don’t like it is that it is nearly impossible to teach it and teaching is what I’m all about.
The reasons it is so hard to teach (to the point of impossible) is three fold.
Ovens have different power (and come in both electric and gas)
Ovens heat unevenly (no matter how much you stir)
Everything changes depending on how much you roast.
I want you to think about any roasting and how you were approaching it.
If you roast a chicken and want it roasted to 165 F would you put it into a cold oven and heat to 165 F? Would you pre-heat to 165 F and cook it (it really isn’t roasting now, but slow cooking) to 165 F? No, you are most likely going to pre-heat to 350-450 F and roast it until it hits the temperature you want.
You are going to do the same exact thing with cocoa. Pre-heat to a temperature a good bit over your goal end temperature and roast it until you hit that temperature.
Roasting cocoa isn’t magical. It isn’t a special snowflake. It is food and you should think about it like any other food you roast or cook.
I can’t give you much more than that except to say stir them every 5-10 minutes to try and keep them as even as possible and the higher you set the temperature the faster the roast will progress and overall you want it to progress as fast as possible.
Oh, and there is one more thing. And it is a big something. You might be able to do a roast into the mid 300s but I would absolutely not recommend roasting to 410 F inside a house. There is a LOT OF SMOKE at that level. When I roast to that level in my professional roaster, with a commercial hood, it over loads the capacity of the draw fans and we have smoke spill over into the warehouse. I don’t even want to think about what that would be like in your oven.
What is your opinion about the Spectra Mini?
I don’t care for it. The higher rpm coupled with the smaller drum can fling chocolate and sets up a situation where you can actually over refine in short order. There is a reason I don’t offer it and I just gave it.
I know the Gourmia will not roast as many lbs as the Behmor, but that aside how do you feel about the end product and the quality of the roaster itself?
It roasts the same amount as the Behmor. I like the roast quality quite a bit and like that I can monitor the temperature as is with my IR thermometer.
Just an observation here. If I type in "brewing" in the search box on the website, it brings up many articles. If I go to read one and then go back, the article list is not there. I have to erase "brewing" and retype it to get the articles to reappear. I tried this in Internet Explorer and Chrome. Do you have any suggestions?
I just tried that in IE, Chrome and Firefox and I didn’t get that behavior at all. My only thought is to ask if you have any script or ad blockers in place. Yeah, I know that isn’t super helpful.
Until next wee, let’s go make some chocolate.
Before we jump into the NINE (9) new beans, I want to let everyone know that the dates are set for the next in depth, full day, Drum Roasting Profile Seminar. Spots (limited to 10 each) are starting to fill up.
