New Email List and Newsletter

In between everything else, we finally have a E-mail list and Newsletter set up. You can check it out on the Subscription Page. Basically, the E-mail list is where we can actually hold some conversations that are not in these comments. The Newsletter is a one-way email from me (Alchemist John) about new products, beans and other items of interest. I don't know how often I will produce the Newsletter yet, but I expect not more than once a month. BTW, like everything new, I expect a few bumps ahead in this. We will work them out. The first bump is that the Subscription page does not actively tell you you have been subscribed. It just resets. If you get an email confirming your subscription, then you are subscribed - if not, you are not.

If anyone has questions, comments or suggestions, please feel free to e-mail me at alchemist@chocolatealchemy.com.

So, please go Subscribe today and let's start talking chocolate!

New Cocoa Beans and Reviews

The full tasting review is up for the new Organic Ocumare. It is an interesting Cocoa bean! Lots of bright fruit flavors - virtually a perfect example of what a Criollo can be. In addition, the new crop of Ghana Forastero arrived right on time, and that Review is also up. It is a big chocolatey bean that I am going to continue to sing my praises to.

Organic Ocumare has Arrived!

The Certified Organic Venezuelan Ocumare has arrived. For those not familiar with it, it is a good Criollo example, and a rather fruity and lively cocoa bean. The pricing is in place now. Since we were able to purchase in a larger quantity this time, we are able to pass the price savings along. You will notice the price has dropped nearly $3.00 a pound. The detailed review will not be up until next week. I need to roast it up this weekend and give it a full taste and review then.

Chocolate Truffles for Cancer

I have been working with a sweet person who is doing a great thing - making chocolate to raise money for cancer. I will just let her tell you about it. "As many of you know, I am training to run the Boston Marathon this year as a charity runner for the Dana Farber Cancer Institute. As a means to collect donations for this charity I've decided to learn how to make chocolate from the bean.

My website is The Chocolate Cure. It enables people to donate to the Claudia Adams Barr Institute for Innovative Basic Cancer Research and consequently, to reward themselves with a box of my handmade chocolate truffles.

I know it sounds like a strange combination--chocolate and running--but please go and check it out. Share it with your friends, family, and co-workers. I promise you, my chocolate is delicious.

Sincerely,

Mandy

p.s. The site is still under construction, so expect a few changes. Thanks for your patience!"

There you go. So if you would like to help a good cause, please make a donation and get to taste what homemade chocolate truffles can be like.

BTW, the Organic Ocumare are due in tomorrow (March 10) and will be available soon after.

Out of Stock - TEMPORARILY

This is the kind of announcement that I just loathe making, but here is it. We are temporarily out off ALL cocoa beans. We have both the main crop Ghana Forastero and Organic Ocumare on order. They should well have been here by now (they were ordered before we ever ran out last month) but FedEx lost the shipment of Ghanans. How do lose that much cocoa? You tell me and we will both know! The Ocumare has hit problem after problem - bad quality that my importer turned down, floods in Venezuela, and more shipping problems. No excuses, just the facts. A good crop is on the way. So this is how I guess it will have to go. I will tentatively take orders for the Ocumare and Ghana, give quotes for shipping amounts, and put you on a list to notify when they come in. I can not take any payments now for just cocoa beans as I do not know how much the beans will finally be until they actually arrive. I can and will accept orders on the Kits and Cocoa Mill as they are a set price regardless of the cocoa beans included, but of course the kits will not ship until the new stock is in.

Thank you for your understanding, and patience, and as my supplier said to me "hang in there, I will take care of you".

I apologize for the inconvenience folks.

Why Do Cocoa Beans Cost So Much?

That wasn't the exact question, but close enough for a title. The exact question was "why is raw cocoa so much more expensive than fully processed chocolate product? "

Well, at first I started coming up with "rationales" why they are the price they are; small lots, small business, big business, buying power, etc. Then I went by a couple stores, found out just how much various chocolates sell for, and discovered that I don't need to explain why the prices are like they are. I just have to answer the question.

Well, the answer is, they don't. It is cheaper to make your own from these "expensive" cocoa beans. Let's look at the numbers.

If we look what I consider the "cheap" chocolate on the market, you will find that a 1.5 oz bar of Hershey's is $0.55. Let's do a little scaling up. 3.0 oz is $1.10, 16 oz (1 lb) is $5.87 and 5 lbs is $29.33. (and sure, you might be able to buy 5 lbs for less than this. This is just a simple way to make some comparisons.) Hershey's chocolate has about 20% cocoa in it, so that 5 lbs of chocolate has 1 lb of cocoa beans in it.

5 lb Hershey's chocolate = 1 lb cocoa beans = $29.33 1 lb Ghana Forastero from Chocolate Alchemy = $12.00

You make the call which is more expensive.

It just the same for "specialty" chocolate from chocolatiers like Scharfenberger and Dagoba. A 3 oz bar of 70% chocolate is usually about $3.00. One pound is about $16.00 and 5 lbs would be $80.00. In this 5 lbs there would be 3.5 lb of Criollo or Trinatario cocoa beans.

5 lb specialty chocolate = 3.5 lb cocoa beans = $80.00 3.5 lb Criollo from Chocolate Alchemy = 3.5 x $15.00 = $52.50

Not as quite as far ahead, but there you go.

Finally, let's have a little fun with this Porcelano Criollo that I think spurred this question. Amedei and Domori list 50 g for about 6.00 British pounds or $10.50 US. This is for 1.5 oz of chocolate. At this rate, a pound would be around $105.00. I am saying the Porcelano beans may be $35.00 or so per pound.

I leave it as an exercise to the student to say which is more expensive.

Happy chocolate making everyone.

(side note: as with all hobbies, I know there are associated cost of equipment, waste and energy. I am just addressing the cost of the cocoa beans vs the cost of finished chocolate.)

Ball Mill Refiner #2

I purchased two rock tumblers a couple of months ago. Within a day the larger one had stopped working so I was left to experiment with the smaller one. Well, it did the job somewhat, but not fully. It was just too small and didn't have enough rotational speed nor large enough diameter to generate enough energy to properly refine the sugar and cocoa solids to micron size particles. The chocolate was smoother, but not smooth enough. You could tell it was still homemade. The new replacement tumbler showed up earlier this week so I set it up to refine some sugar. I put the about three cups of sugar and three cups of SS shot in a 2 quart glass jar. I had to put some larger diameter tubing on the rollers so the glass container would rise above the sides of the tumbler and not scrape the sides, but this had the added benefit of increasing the rotational speed of the drum. You can really see the sugar and shot moving well.

Oh, and someone asked about the glass. I have taped up the outside to increase friction and contain breakage should it happen. And no, I am not terribly worried about "grinding" the inside of the glass surface. Both the sugar and chocolate seem to create there own protective coating pretty quickly, so no glass bit show up in either.

I will report back how this new set up works.

Cocoa Bean Supply Update

It looks like January was a good month. We are presently out of both the Ghana Forastero and the Ocumare Criollo. Both are on order and will be here in a week or two. The new Ghana crop is the primary harvest this time, so the beans should be larger than the midcrop that we did carry. And really nice news for the Ocumare. This crop will be Certified Organic. In addition, the co-op has really been working on its fermentation, so expect some good flavor and consistency from this crop. Now a little disappointing news. It does not look like we will be carrying the Barinas, fermented or unfermented, in the foreseeable future. What we have is it. I won't get into all the factors as to why I decided not to get them again, but a lot had to due with the high price and spotty availability. Unfortunately, it also means we won't have the two new regions (Tachira and Merida) that I had hoped to carry. Maybe next year. I am kind of sad because the Tachira had a really neat dry nutty flavor that I had not tasted in any other bean except Porcelana.

And finally, about Porcelana. I would really like your (yes, you the customer) serious opinions on it. I might have the opportunity to make some available. The problem, per se, is that it is going to be a rather expensive bean. OK, very expensive. Possibly over $30.00/lb. This is because of its extreme rarity and flavor. It is an amazingly delicate, nutty flavored cocoa bean. Would you buy it at that price? Please let me know. E-mail me or leave a note here. You can read a bit about two different Porcelana chocolates. One from Amedei and one from Domori. Would you want the opportunity to make this kind of chocolate?

Some Interesting Links and a Thought for the Day

As is the case in most subjects I know something about, I suddenly come across information that shows me just how little I actually know. In the last couple of weeks, as I work on the conch/refiner, I have been researching conching, and specifically the temperatures at which chocolate is conched. My understanding was 120-130 F at the most, and over that you can burn the chocolate. It would appear that is not the case in all circumstances. The biggest surprise is that conching is often at 70-80 C, much higher than I originally thought. I am now incorporating that into the proto-type conch design. That said, I do have to point out that I did notice that I could tell a difference in the chocolate conched at on 110 F. It was dark chocolate though, not milk chocolate. Also, I have been meaning to put this link up. Wayne, is really big into chocolate, especially milk chocolate. He has a lot of just generally interesting stuff on this site, but what is really great is both that he has gotten into making his own and just how inventive he is. As one person put it, he is a real McGyver - duct tape! Anyway, he did not have the greatest go of chocolate making , but also used equipment he had on had, and not necessarily what I would suggest using. On the other hand, his section on tempering chocolate is absolutely wonderful. Please read it. In my spare time I will put that link in the tempering section here, plus incorporate a lot of his information.

So, I will leave you with this to ponder.

"The more I learn, the more I know; the more I know, the more I learn; the more I learn, the more I learn I didn't know what I thought I knew. I thought I knew a lot, but now know I did not. I do know that I don't know what I don't know so I must keep learning what I do not know even though I do not know what I do not know. In the end, it looks like I will know nothing because the more I learn, the more I know I know less than I thought I knew. I think I would rather know nothing, and be wrong about that than know I know it all and be wrong about that!"

I think that sums up the path of Chocolate Alchemy (and maybe life)

Chocolate Making Kits and Laboratory Update

The new Apprentice and Alchemist Kits are now available. Please allow some extra processing and delivery time. I roast and prepare them as ordered, and only roast once a week. That way the beans are fresh. Something kind of interesting has come up. I am getting requests for cocoa bean husks. Well, I have a few that I save from producing nibs, but in general, just don't have a lot of them. If you (who are buying beans) want to save your husks, I might have an outlet for you. They seem to be going into body scrub products. Let me know if you have some or want some and I will try to hook people up. Right now, I have none to sell.

Finally, as some of you may recall, I personally had a house fire about 10 months ago, so Chocolate Alchemy got displaced and turned into our living space. Well, I am just thrilled to report, we are back in our house ( a geodesic dome), and Chocolate Alchemy is back where it belongs. It is so good to have the laboratory back.

Past, Present, and Future

Welcome back to the beginning of an exciting new year. I am hoping this year will bring a lot of progress to the Art and Science of Homemade Chocolate - Chocolate Alchemy. Last year I learned quite a bit about chocolate making and made all of my year end goals. I am really pleased about that. We developed our Cocoa mill, have 5 cocoa bean varieties in stock and started our refiner R&D.

In particular, the rock tumbler turned chocolate ball mill refiner is working out very nicely. I took some particularly coarse textured, rough and sour flavored chocolate (I tested some purposeful under roasting), combined it with an equal portion of 3/16" stainless steel shot, and set it tumbling in the ball mill. Initially, I tried it without any heat and saw no change in the chocolate. I then made a very simple enclosure for the container portion of the ball mill, put a heating pad under it (you don't want to heat motors) and again let it tumble. A day later the chocolate was significantly smoother, although it did have a touch of sugar grit left, but so much less than anything to date. The biggest change was the flavor profile and how it melted in my mouth. Wow, what a change. The sourness had disappeared and was replaced by a pleasant brightness. I really did not expect this as usually an open air conch is needed for these kind of changes. It was a nice surprise. I will start experimenting with different ratios of chocolate and SS balls, and will probably try some mixed media (SS cones, rods and triangles) to see if I can optimize the particle size reduction

I suspect in the end, this little tumbler (a quaint 4") will prove the concept, but a larger diameter tumbler will be needed to generate enough energy and grinding force to get the chocolate where we want it to be..

R & D materials are off to CrankandStien for some manufacturing work for a conch/refiner. I hope to have a working model in a month or so, and I will test that out and report back.

For this year, I expect to have a working refiner and/or combination conch to offer. The new crops of cocoa beans are starting to come in. The new Barinas is quite nice, with a few more aromatic than last year. I am hearing about the availability of some organic Ocumare and even some rare Porcelana. I have not tasted any, but I hope to carry a new Carenero Superior as the old crop runs low, and maybe a few new varieties as I get to taste them.

And finally, I hope to continue to meet more interesting and exciting people this year (yes, I mean you my customers, friends and fellow Alchemists), continue the quest for homemade chocolate and rediscover the Art and Science of Chocolate Alchemy and bring it to you!

Happy Chocolate making everyone.