Daily musings and writings from the Alchemist
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Whats New and Updates
First there is a new origin. Organic Uganda. Dry tannins offset by a good backbone of chocolate.
I also have an old favorite back. The smaller size Escali Scale.
Plus there is a new IR Thermometer. I've absolutely fallen in love with this for roasting, grinding and tempering.
And finally, for the newest, most exciting BIG reveal, we are now offering, WITH WARRANTY, the Premier Wonder Grinder!! 
Enjoy everyone!
Just a reminder that this is the last day for ordering Cocoa pods. Then it will be another month or so. No fooling :) And as I keep forgetting to mention, I've had really good luck drying the whole pods. I accidentally let a couple in my refrigerator, wrapped in the paper they come in, and a couple months later they had dehydrated very nicely, with rattling beans inside (as one lump, not individual beans). They turn a rather nice chocolate brown.
If you have been thinking about getting a Champion Juicer NOW is the time. Plastaket has introduced a MAP policy, so as of April 1 (no joke again - I'm going to get my mileage out of that phrase this year) the new price for the USA will go from $240 to $265. But until then I'm leaving it at the $240 price.Also, this is a reminder about the April 1 deadline for Cacao Fruits.
This time around you have the option of your choice of different sizes, shapes and colors....or take your chance with a discounted price with and "Alchemist's Choice". Cacao Fruits
Will be taking orders until April 1st...no joke.
That is the main draw for me offering these tickets. But there are other prizes.
2nd Prize: GoPro Camera ($200 value)
3rd Prize: Gift Certificate to Carmelita Spats Restaurant ($40 value) (Really only useful if you are in Eugene Oregon where this is out of)
Are you wondering yet why I am offering this and/or have the ability to? Well, it is a for a Benefit Auction for the Eugene Waldorf School where my daughter attends 7th grade. That simple really.
I will post the winning number Tuesday March 17. The drawing is 9:30 pm March 15. Tickets will be available until then.
I will be gone 2/14/14-2/24/14 traveling to China (with my daughter). I'll be leaving the stores open, but there will be no shipping on orders that are in after 2/13/14 @ 6:00 am for Retail, and 2/12/14 @ noon for Wholesale (and that may be tight). Likewise, email responses will be spotty while I'm gone. I'll be connected somewhat, but limited in what I can do.
See you are the other side. And get the Ask the Alchemist questions ready since I'll be taking two weeks off for the trip.
I will be bringing in a small shipment of Cacao Pods.
Make sure you read the fine print, but the short of most of it is these can only ship to the mainland USA, are perishable and this is for pre-orders, closing January 21, 2014.
Please let me know if you have any questions.
Ok, sort of a place holder week. Q: Are you still doing the Ask the Alchemist series.
A: Yes. Until people stop asking questions.
Q: I've never seen nibs before but the label on the bag says: "Nuts, medjool dates, molasses and interesting tobacco." Can you explain what that is supposed to mean? Do you know what's actually in the bag I received?
A: Ha! Those are tasting notes of the final chocolate. There are not nuts, dates, molasses or tobacco in what I send out.
Q: Are you going to get cocoa pods in?
A: Yes! Look for the announcement next week.
Q: Did you know many of your links are not working?
A: Sadly, yes. We are fully aware of the problem. Unfortunately it is stumping the gurus. It may turn out that a hard reload of the site may be required and as I suspect Murphy to rear his head, it may go down (not the stores) for a little while.
—– Submit your Questions to the Alchemist: question(youknowtoremovethisright?)@chocolatealchemy.com —–
Hi Everyone. Just a few quick notes. First off, if you are still looking for that last minute gift item, I have Gift Certificates available.
Next, and hold on to your socks (stockings?), I have a line of Cacao Fruit. As in fresh Cacao pods.
I am looking at bringing some in. Noting that they are perishable, I am thinking on taking pre-orders and only bringing in what I need (plus maybe a few extra).
Do you want a Cacao pod? Let me know. Just a quick note to alchemist at chocolatealchemy dot com or comment here if you are interested. Most likely they would be around $15 plus shipping (probably $12.95 USPS flat rate box), but that is only an estimate at this point. And they can only ship within the USA. And multiple could go into one box if you desire. Given they are perishable, I sadly can't offer any guarantee except that they will leave here in good order and well padded and packed. If I get enough response I will make them available for purchase. Delivery would be around a month I suspect.
And a minor other detail. Right now it looks like many of the Archives and other pages are not linking correct and giving a 404 error. I'm aware and working on it. Both the Retail and Wholesale stores are just fine.
Finally, the holiday schedule (yeah, a little late I know):
December 24, 25, 26 - Closed and no shipping and few e-mails returned. December 27 - open as needed to ship and answer e-mails December 31 - January 2 Closed and no shipping and few e-mails returned.
January 3 - open as needed to ship and answer e-mails
Both stores will remain active and you can put in orders, but the normal turnaround will be as above.
Have a great holiday everyone.
Alchemist
Due to requests, whole Madagascar vanilla is now available. And Organic this time. And Ecuador RFA/Org is also available.
The new crop is in and lovely. Right now just the raw Retail pages are up. Roasted and Wholesale will take me a little longer, but it's coming. Canoabo - A new region and farm, by a farmer (Rodrigo) who knows his cocoa. This is a delightedly soft cocoa.
Mantuano - It's back, and even better than before. Delicate and integrated. And this year, there is plenty to go around.
Ocumare Lugo - This is from the farmers who made Ocumare what it was. Is this different from the co-op Ocumare.
Patanemo and a micro-lot. Patanemo Donaldo. See what different hands can do for the same basic bean. Donaldo is the farmer who hand selected and fermented this micro-lot.
And so it is not forgotten, I have new fair trade Ghana
I got a bean from you that you said was milder ... I thought you had mentioned that criollo was more difficult to make chocolate than Forestaro or Trinitario. but from what i've been reading, criollo is more mild b/c less polyphenols. Shouldn’t this make it easier to make chocolate from? I’m finding my criollo kind of bitter and astringent.
I've looked over our correspondence, and honestly, I don't see where you asked for milder. You initially asked for Criollo, and chocolaty and less fruity. That led me to Peru because it is NOT mild. I didn't mean to give you that impression. But you illustrate a good point that you asked for Criollo, but remember asking for mild. They are not synonyms, but people constantly try and make them such.
"caution - lecturing rambling alchemist ahead"..
The main thing here is that chocolate is a living thing. It has bred and cross bred a lot. It very, very, rarely can be stuffed into neat and tidy cubbyholes that many of us humans desire. Most everything you have said, and most everything I've said are true....and totally a lie...because they are not the full truth. For instance "criollo is more mild b/c less polyphenols" is true but not the whole truth. The better phrase is "the milder criollo are more mild because they have less polyphenols that the ones that are not as mild". The even better phrase is 'it has been observed there is a statistical correlation (r^2 > 0.90 {which is actually pretty horrible from a cause and effect and prediction relationship - that falls into the 'general trend' category}) between polyphenols amounts and perceived bitter/astringent flavors' and 'many Forastero have polyphenol counts (warning bogus example numbers) from 50-100 mg/kg, many Trinitario have polyphenol counts from 30-80 mg/kg and many Criollo have polyphenol counts from 20-60 mg/kg". Note the "many", the hedging language, the overlapping ranges but the general trend? THAT is much closer to the truth. That there is a lot of variation in beans and you simply can’t make an all-encompassing statement and hand a hope it will be true. .
As for Criollo harder to make....yes....it CAN be, but does not have to be. And note, you are writing me just because of that. No contradiction there. And given that Peru is not one of the milder Criollo, (but is still on the milder side of cocoa in general) it needs a 'full' roast. It's very possible I over emphasized how delicate to be on this bean. It needs a good roast to develop flavor, but not one so strong to drive off all the flavor. If you under roast, you get more astringency. When you fully roast, you develop the flavors we think of as chocolate. When you over roast, you add bitter flavors and in some of these ‘milder’ beans, burn off some of the already mild chocolate flavor.
And if you have made it this far, there is a new bean in. A Fair Trade Certified Ghana. And bucking the Forastero expectation a small amount, it's a little bit floral.
First off, I get this a lot. i.e. what is the difference? Very simple really. English vs Spanish. Next, someone shared this with me and I just had to share it. And we are are all adults here? Right. Ok, close enough. Remember. Adult supervision recommended. No, really. Don't say I didn't warn you. Enjoy!
You say the efficiency on your winnowers re 75-82%. As others say 99-100%, I’m sure I am not understanding something because can’t believe you would sell something that doesn’t work that well. Can you explain what is going on.
Lovely question. The crux of the issue is that one number does not do justice to the answer of efficiency of winnowing. When you winnow cocoa there are actually a few factors that come into play that make one number impossible. It’s because three things can happen when you winnow.
1 - You can have husk in your nibs
2 - You can have nib in your husk
3 - You can have both.
So, in the ONE CASE where there is no nib in your husk, and no husk in your nib, you can claim 100% efficiency. But there is no winnower out there to my knowledge that can do that. So anything that bases off that system is inherently not telling the whole story, and should be suspect. Let me lay out a couple cases.
You winnow and have 1 % of your starting weight of nibs in your husk.
Is this 99% recovery because you lost 1%? Not really.
You winnow and have 1% husk in you nibs.
Is this 99% recovery because it could not remove 1% husk?
You winnow and have 1% husk in your nib AND 1% nib in your husk?
Is this 98% recovery? Certainly not as that is absurd.
The first two MIGHT be 99% but are totally misleading because they are describing two different outcomes but are using the same number and language.
Really, you need multiple numbers. Any my preference is to note that depending on the bean, the weight of the husk is anywhere from 18-25% of the weight of the bean. And why I usually say that the recovery is 75-82 % (100 – 18 = 82 got it? Good) AND there is usually less than 0.5% husk in the nib and vise versa. Three pieces of data because there are three things going on.
Furthermore, you will notice I say usually. Any winnower can only work as well as what is fed into it. Irregular, raw, or cocoa beans with a lot of flats simply will not winnow as well as clean, even, roasted cocoa beans.
So there you go. I hope that clears up why I can’t give an exact number and why if you see one, you might want to be suspicious.
And I’ll leave you with a quote I found today that sums this up nicely.
Everything is vague to a degree you do not realize till you have tried to make it precise. -- Bertrand Russell
Finally, after 4 years, Fair Trade from Koapa Kokoo is back. It's on the way. Look for it, and a bunch of new crop Venezuela in the next week or two.
Some of you may have noticed, contrary to what it currently says about USPS and no tracking numbers (soon to change) tracking numbers are now available for USPS packages, including Standard Post (which previously was Parcel Post and is still just as slow). I am going to toss a disclaimer out there though. I don’t know how well the tracking numbers work nor how accurate the estimated delivery time are. They now make it sound like it is a guarantee. I’ve seen “2 Day Shipping”. I’ve already had people ask why it showed up three or four days later. The answer is that that is USPS’s estimate and that is all it is. And just to remind you, the day you get your shipping confirmation is not always the day your shipment goes out. It’s the day I processed the order and took it out to pack. Often it is the same day, but sometimes it is not. Onto Ask the Alchemist.
Is it ok to roast the beans and then go straight into the melanger without any other process, will you get the smooth chocolate ? I read a lot of good research on cacao bean husk so prefer to keep it in:
Extraction and chromatographic separation of anticarcinogenic fractions from cacao bean husk.
Well, yes, you can. But having done it, you will in all likelihood get a chocolate with a great number of off flavors. I've done it a few times, even with very clean beans and the product was never anything I or anyone wanted to eat.
And although you didn't ask it, I read over those abstracts and they all very specifically deal with extracts of the husk, not the husk themselves. The significance is concentration and application. None of those took a route via ingestion. Your research, as you listed, is not applicable to keeping husk in the chocolate. I can't see how any of those benefits would be transferable to chocolate with husk intact. Antibacterial properties of compounds are very sensitive to concentration and total dose and application and what you propose has you reducing and changing all three.
Instead of putting it into your chocolate, I would instead suggest making a tea via Brewed Cocoa. None of those articles mentioned whether they were hot or cold water extracts, so it is entirely possible a hot water extract would reduce the anti-bacterial properties…but then again, it may not.
Finally, going back to the tests I did, I wanted to mention that I’ve watch people pick out every last piece of husk they can after winnowing. Personally, I find that overkill (unless you are doing raw chocolate). I’ve seen values that industry standard for husk is 0.5-2%. I’m not saying to leave that much in. But I am saying that if you decide to, I highly doubt you will notice at all unless you are super super taster or the beans have very serious mold issues. I and those I gave samples to could not notice any difference up to 5% and then it could well have been suggestive. 10%. Yeah. Noticed it. 20%. Yep – nasty. Oh, and those are are percentages of total weight, meaning 20%, being roughly the weight of the husk, was leaving all the husk in. Taking out 3/4 made it barely perceptible. So, basically, relax a little with your winnowing. A little husk isn’t the end of the world. And if you are going to actively add it to your chocolate, (although I don’t see the purpose based on the current research) maybe keep it too under 5%.
As I mentioned earlier in the summer, we are going to be closed today through the weekend. At the time of leaving all orders will be fulfilled and as before, I will leave the shopping carts in the stores on. I will have very limited e-mail access, so if you don't hear back, that is why.
As a small back story, and for simply sharing - children grow up. My daughter Logan is growing into a young woman and has been quite the entrepreneur this summer, saving up for a trip to Portland for a weekend of 'girl time' with some friends. Spa, shopping, swimming, good food and the like. And she earned it. A summer of work, and helping me with orders (two different things). Below was from yesterday as we pushed through the last of the orders (so we could leave today) and a shipment that had to be put away. And yes, it's a real bag of cocoa. That's my girl!
Also, look for some new crop Venezuelan (with two new sub-origins) and finally some Organic/RFA Ecuador soon after I'm back.
See you on the other side.
"I have been reading about bacteria and pathogen content on the shells of raw cocoa beans, and commercial techniques used to prevent them from transferring into chocolate. Would there be any benefit for home and small artisan chocolate makers to using practices like misting beans with water at the end of roasting, or maintaining a certain temperature during conching and refining?"
The short answer here in no.
Now I’ll explain why. There can indeed be bacteria and pathogens on cocoa. The two that come up the most often are e. coli and Salmonella. And it’s true, it is basically restricted to the outside of the shell. And both of these are killed relatively easily, and happens ‘naturally’ during a roast.
First, let us look at what we are trying to accomplish. In a word, it is sterilization. There are a many ways to approach this, and it’s been well documented. In short, you can have low, long heat, or higher heat for a shorter time. If you plot these various combinations, you get what is called a kill curve. Each organism has a particular kill curve. As mentioned, e. coli and salmonella have relatively mild kill curves.
One of the hardest to kill is the spore of Geobacillus stearothermophilus. This is what most methods use as their indicator of sterilization, with the train of thought being that if you can kill the Geobacillus stearothermophilus spore, nothing else can survive.
A widely used method for heat sterilization is the autoclave. . Autoclaves commonly use steam heated to 121–134 °C (250–273 °F). To achieve sterility, a holding time of at least 15 minutes at 121 °C (250 °F) or 3 minutes at 134 °C (273 °F) is required to kill Geobacillus stearothermophilus spore.
Alternatively, dry heat can be used to sterilize items, but as the heat takes much longer to be transferred to the organism, both the time and the temperature must usually be increased, unless forced ventilation of the hot air is used. The standard setting for a hot air oven is at least two hours at 160 °C (320 °F). A rapid method heats air to 190 °C (374 °F) for 6 minutes.
I know. That is a lot of information and it is NOT what I am suggesting you do to your cocoa beans. But it allows to talk and answer questions. First off, notice the wet heat method. It requires at the shortest time, 3 minutes at 273 F with moisture present. In short, spraying water at the end of your roast does not accomplish this. You spray your water in, it vaporizes, and it’s gone in more like 3 seconds, let alone three minutes. That right there basically shows it’s totally useless from a sterilization standpoint to mist your beans.
Once we recognize that, we move onto the dry heat method. As I am trying to tie this into roasting, I’m not going to consider 2 hours at 320 F. The other is “ A rapid method heats air to 190 °C (374 °F) for 6 minutes”. And because we are talking about the air AND we are only concerned with the thin husk on the outside of the cocoa bean, is accomplished in practically any roast. And even if it is not 374 F, we can apply the principal of lower heat for longer time…..which is just what a roast does.
So that is the theory. How do you know works. This is where it was handy I used to be a chemist and years ago performed an array of analysis on cocoa beans contaminated (on purpose, as a control) with Geobacillus stearothermophilus and e .coli. The final result was any ‘good’ roast, be it a high temperature 5 minute roast or a long, cool 40 minute roast, reduced the levels to non-detectable. The only times I had found any of the Geobacillus stearothermophilus spore was when I severely under roasted the beans and they basically still tasted raw…. But even these had killed the e.coli.
As for temperatures during refining and conching, my take is just to take the care during your roast and transfer, don’t potentially re-contaminate your beans/nibs and you are good to go. But if you do want to look at that, pasteurization (mind you, not sterilization) is either 145 F for 30 minutes or 165 for 2 minutes. That is take care of e. coli but I honestly don’t know about Salmonella.
Happy roasting.
I have two refurbished Behmors. And these are a real steal as they were both cosmetic damage only. Never used. Dinged panels and doors. ...and a mere two hours later they are gone....
We are away for the upcoming week. The stores and cart will remain open, but no orders will be processed at all. Please feel free to put in an order. Likewise, no e-mails will be answered until the end of the week. And if anyone is curious, my daughter has taken a fancy for hiking the PCT. This is a short training trip with an added small bonus of an assault on the third highest peak in Oregon - South Sister.
Enjoy the summer everyone.
