How to Make Cocoa Butter at Home — …and Why You Probably Shouldn’t (But You Can Still Save Money)
A few years ago, BC (Before Covid) as it were, we the chocolate making community had a good way to make small amounts of high quality, single origin cocoa butter. The Nutrichef cocoa butter press was an absolute champ. Alas, it was a casualty of Covid and it is no more and I have no good suggestions how you can make your own without building your own press.
Craft chocolate makers are resourceful. We tinker, we roast, we build winnowers out of shop vacs and PVC. Extracting your own cocoa butter feels like the next frontier — right up until physics, thermodynamics, and economics gang-tackle your dreams.
The headline truth: yes, it's technically possible to press your own cocoa butter at home — but for 99% of makers, it will cost you more in wasted beans, equipment failures, and tears than simply buying high-quality cocoa butter.
I’ve tried all combinations of roasted, raw, partly roasted, dried, water added and nothing works every time and wasting cocoa is not going to solve your cost problems.
The State of Equipment
Equipment Reality Check
Small affordable presses? Gone or unreliable
Hand-crank oil presses? Too much labor, not enough heat
Amazon “miracle oil presses”? Spoiler: they cry cocoa liquor instead of butter
Industrial presses? Fantastic…once you have $15k and a forklift.
The Economics of DIY
Cocoa beans are expensive — ruining batches costs more than the butter you hoped to save
Small presses don’t extract enough fat to matter
Time investment = a second job pressing goo instead of making chocolate
Why DIY Cocoa Butter Extraction is (Mostly) a Trap
“Cocoa butter extraction needs pressure + controlled heat to separate fat from solids. Miss either and you get gritty sludge, not butter.”
So what to do about the soaring price of cocoa butter?
Sadly, you are just going to have to deal with reality.
Cocoa Butter is very expensive and looks like it will continue to increase in price.
You can adjust your formulations here and there but mostly I recommend looking at the actual financial impact of the amount of butter you are adding and you may realize that although the price has gone up 300-400%, the per bar cost is pretty minimal.
I wish I had better news. However you can still purchase high quality cocoa butter or keep reading for information on how to do a group buy though us.
Cocoa Butter Equivalents:
No other fat is going to give you what cocoa butter does.
There are some “Cocoa Butter Equivalents” but that path usually leads to crap chocolate—which we started craft chocolate to avoid.
We’ve Tested these and they DO NOT WORK:
Butter Fat
Coconut Oil
Both will make a very soft bar that may or may not temper.
Buy Cocoa Butter Here
Cocoa Butter Group Buy
The most effective way small makers lower cocoa butter cost?
Buy high-quality butter in bulk, with other makers.
We organize group buys specifically so home and small-batch makers can access professional pricing without needing to take out a cocoa mortgage.
👉 Join the Cocoa Butter Group Buy List
Stay in the loop when a buy window opens.