I'm using 2 c coco butter 1/2 c. coconut oil, 1 1/2 c dutch coco powder w 1 c honey...the oils is separating from the chocolate at the end, what am I doing wrong?
I was looking through your website to see if you had any info about making cocoa powder from roasted cacao nibs.
I’m starting a chocolate making business. What equipment do I need and what bean should I use for dark chocolate and which one for milk chocolate?
Hello, we are making chocolate bars and want to us high quality chocolate but dont want to take the time to temper it. What can we add to it to have the tempering qualities like shinny and doesnt melt easy without tempering. Also we are adding a flavouring powder and it makes the chocolate very thick and hard to work with and when it sets into the bar it is bubbly and not as crunchy and hard as it should be what could we add to the chocolate to make it easier to work with and have it set better as well.
I am using coco mass to make high quality chocolate but it isn’t smooth when I combine the sugar. I don’t want to use melanger because it takes so long and isn’t good for business, so I’m using mass. What am I doing wrong?
I’m am starting a chocolate factory. If I use cocoa powder instead of nibs do I still have to conch? How do I make it of smooth quality?
For those that would like the….less pissy version of this article, you can read it HERE.
For everyone else….here you go. The unabridged Alchemist.
We seem to be entering the next phase of the Bean to Bar Artisan Craft chocolate making movement. Phase 4 or 5 I think. To my view point we started with ground zero in 2002 where there was no movement at all.
The first hint of the movement I was looking to create was 2003-2005 as I started Chocolate Alchemy and had Wet Grinders from India modified for me into Melangers and the first few people started making chocolate. No one outside of this group even knew you could make chocolate from cocoa beans at home….namely because you couldn’t get your hands on them. Back then you could not go into the health food store and get cocoa nibs nor were they even available on line, with Chocolate Alchemy being the exception. It took me over a year to get my first sack.
After that, 2006-2010 the next step happened. Bean to Bar (B2B) started being known, but by no means widely. In this time, pretty much everyone learned directly from Chocolate Alchemy. People were excited by the array of tastes available and in that excitement, started many B2B businesses. Most everyone at that time had to dig for the knowledge and experience to do what they did. Most were down right ravenous and excited to learn.
That was rather a tipping point. I won’t quite call it a gold rush, but there was certainly a lot of people seeing the upcoming B2B trend and hopped on board. Supplies of beans increased, hundreds of new businesses started and Craft chocolate brands started to be seen in supermarkets. This was 2010-2015/16 by estimates. The general trend in the business model was many small 10 lb capacity melangers being used with some people scaling up to 40, 60 and even 100 lb melangers. At this point Chocolate Alchemy started to be found less often, not because we were fading, but because the knowledge was becoming so widespread. That said, pretty much every technique people used (the Champion juicer, the Behmor roaster, Melangers, and limited winnowing ala bowl and blow drier) were our techniques, and people were excited to fine ‘the source’ and get an answer from The Alchemist.
I would say the actual Gold rush then kicked in and many of the original companies realized that even 100 lb melangers were not all that amenable to scaling up and they started discovering what has been known for decades, that chocolate making is a lot of work, and parallel epiphanies were made about why the chocolate making process by industrial companies were broken into a refining phase (ball mills, roller mills, Macintyre refiners) and a conching phase. It had little to do with quality directly, but instead scale, and new makers started jumping straight into that large equipment…..and encountering all the issues that large commodity chocolate factories had discovered with that jump. What was previously viewed as corporate greed (the use of lecithin, cocoa mass and such) turned out to have valid reasons from the standpoint of product consistency, quality, time and scale. And there were/are certainly some identity crisis going on, wondering if using anything less than whole raw beans disqualified them from being “Craft”.
I’ve left out a ton of detail and nuance here. My main goal was to set the stage for what I want to really talk about but would have seemed to have come out of left field, and that is the huge awareness of the Craft industry by the general public. Make no mistake, I FIND THIS WONDERDFUL. Yet. Oh, hell, I’m really going to attempt to not sound like an old curmudgeon bitching about ‘this generation’ and ‘in my days’….but it might. But I hope the back story helps flesh out that I’m not just bitching. So…..
I find it wonderful that the Craft Chocolate movement has grown to such a degree that large numbers of the general public are discovering it and that they might be able to make their own chocolate at home. But here is the thing. I am getting tired of answering questions that people should not be asking. There is an adage that there are no stupid questions, and I’m trying really hard to hold to that opinion, but some of the questions are of the flavor of ‘if you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all’. What I mean by that is that it is always good to have questions, just like it is ok to have nasty thoughts….but they don’t have to come out of your mouth. I have nearly 20 years answering questions and I have done it happily and with joy because in virtually every case the questioner had done a TON of research and experimented and were still stumped, and THEN they reached out. But these questions now (go re-read them again if you don’t recall them)….they feel so entitled and lazy and I just don’t know. I get there is a lot of information out there, and some can be confusing or contradictory but you absolutely can tease it apart to get to the answer you are looking for. I guess I feel you need to earn an answer. It is like going to your teacher to ask how to work out a problem….but you have not read the homework or even attempted the homework, or stopped after the very first question. That shit just isn’t fair to all the students that did the reading, tried the homework and then came in to clarify a sticking point.
There are four different forums I’m on, one for Artisan bread baking, another for home brewing, yet another about making bows and a final one for strength training. The thing they all have in common is a demand that you research any question you have first. You have to do something to prove you have looked and then ask the question….and if you fail to do that you will get flamed and ostracized for being lazy. In short, you need to prove you are worthy of information that others have worked so hard to have. I have to say sometimes this was hard. I get that, but damn it, it works. You learn and understand so much more when you dig in.
So I guess I AM getting exasperated by ‘this generation’ but it isn’t a physical age I’m referring to (I’m not millennial or Gen X or Gen Y bashing), but this next generation of wannabe chocolate maker. They really seem to not be digging in. They want the answers handed to them. People want sound bites and Instant gratification and that gets so tiring I have to tell you. But I can’t quite give people the cold shoulder. One of the pieces of my reputation is that I feel there are no trade secrets, but when I’ve tried to explain to some new people they need to research, I’m accused of hording information and thinking I’m better than them….when really I just want them to do just a little do diligence and not expect me to hand them everything on a golden platter. Is that so wrong? That is mostly rhetorical. While we are on questions, and things we believe, context is good. We’ve all heard these things.
The customer is always right
If you are going to promote tolerance of views (aimed at liberals) then you need to accept Nazis.
There are no stupid questions.
All of these have unstated context that the common soundbite phrase does not convey. Clearly it is possible for the customer to be wrong. “This chocolate bar has a bubble on in, it isn’t perfect, you owe me another one”…um, no.
Tolerance is one thing but some things simply can’t be tolerated. Hatred, bigotry, prejudice and unprovoked violence are a line. NO!
And then stupid questions. There ARE stupid questions. The entire point here is that people should not be afraid to ask a question about something that is just not clicking and that they haven’t worked out. I’ll answer those until I stop answering questions. But “what equipment do I need?”? Nope, not when my entire site is devoted to it and there are multiple links to finding that information. Maybe the answer was not as easy to find as you wanted…..but 1000s of people before you found it just fine.
That is most of my long winded point. In nearly 2 decades of doing this, I am only just receiving these kind of questions and what seems to be the pattern is that people just are not willing to put in basic work….and I’ve had enough.
Alright, with all that off my chest, I’m going to go ahead and answer these questions….but with a little less tact than I might.
I'm using 2 c coco butter 1/2 c. coconut oil, 1 1/2 c dutch coco powder w 1 c honey...the oils is separating from the chocolate at the end, what am I doing wrong?
If you happen to type in “honey” in the search feature there are plenty of hits to explain this. You can’t mix a water based ingredient into chocolate and have it remain chocolate. As for why you are using coconut oil and cocoa powder….I’ve no goddamned clue. That just isn’t how chocolate is made and again, when you search for “coconut” you are also going to find out that it will heavily inhibit tempering and your chocolate (if not for the honey) is going to be soft and maybe not even set up.
I was looking through your website to see if you had any info about making cocoa powder from roasted cacao nibs.
Kuddos for noting you looked on the site. That is something. But also shows you didn’t dig very deep. Again, searching for “cocoa powder” there over a dozen articles and a really quick review of them would allow you to tease out pretty quickly that you really can’t make commercial grade cocoa powder at home.
I’m starting a chocolate making business. What equipment do I need and what bean should I use for dark chocolate and which one for milk chocolate?
I’m sorry, are you fucking kidding me? If a kid said this too me, I would totally answer it, but it would be couched in encouraging terms of it being a laudable goal to want to start a chocolate making business, and that you should start doing it at home to gain experience, and when you have invested the time and energy to perfect your craft, then you can start looking at a business plan. But from an adult? This is a damn slap in the face to the hundred (thousands) of people that have worked years learning how to make the chocolate they want and then started up the business. To claim you are starting a business when you clearly don’t know the first thing about it…..I’m just (metaphorically) speechless. Your first step? Read my guides on making chocolate. They list out the equipment you might need. Then buy small scale equipment and start making chocolate. Then come up with a product you adore. Only then should you start thinking seriously about opening a business.
Hello, we are making chocolate bars and want to us high quality chocolate but dont want to take the time to temper it. What can we add to it to have the tempering qualities like shinny and doesnt melt easy without tempering. Also we are adding a flavouring powder and it makes the chocolate very thick and hard to work with and when it sets into the bar it is bubbly and not as crunchy and hard as it should be what could we add to the chocolate to make it easier to work with and have it set better as well.
<facepalm> I really sorry (not really) you don’t want to do what every other chocolate maker is doing. Then don’t fucking do it. Chocolate making can be a lot of fun and bring great satisfaction, but IT IS WORK! As for the rest…I’ll say search feature again. I searched for “thick” and found this. https://chocolatealchemy.com/blog/2013/12/12/ask-the-alchemist-58?rq=thick It might not be the perfect answer, but it does imply that adding more cocoa butter would probably help you….assuming you using a refiner and not just stirring in a powder…..which you don’t say. If you are not even refining <facepalm>
I am using coco mass to make high quality chocolate but it isn’t smooth when I combine the sugar. I don’t want to use melanger because it takes so long and isn’t good for business, so I’m using mass. What am I doing wrong?
Uhm….so you want to start a business and expect you can take a short cut to make high quality chocolate? What you are doing wrong is living in a fantasy world where you think basic rules don’t apply to you. Over the last few years I’ve written all about there not being another viable way to make smooth chocolate that does not use a melanger, refiner, roll mill or ball mill.
I’m am starting a chocolate factory. If I use cocoa powder instead of nibs do I still have to conch? How do I make it of smooth quality?
See above about starting a business before knowing what the hell you are doing. Everything about Chocolate Alchemy is about making modern, smooth, quality chocolate that uses the best quality ingredients and does so ethically. What in the world has you wanting to make chocolate from cocoa powder and why do you think it will be a good enough product that people will want to buy it. The whole Craft chocolate movement is about getting away from cheap, generic chocolate. That is what cocoa powder is going to give you at best - cheap, generic chocolate. As for conching…I really don’t know. My guess is not BUT you are still going to need a melanger to refine the powder, butter and sugar together….so really you’ve asked the wrong question. A conch has no place in this, but you will need a melanger at the least. If you are expecting to stir cocoa powder, cocoa butter and sugar together, as it sounds like you are, then you’ve not put in any effort to see how actual modern chocolate is made.
The last thing I want to address, although not from one particular question but rather many, is a sudden spike in interest in ‘pure cocoa mass’. That is frankly an oddly specific phrase and I wonder why it is happening. In short people are doing some research, seeing chocolate making could be the ‘next big thing’ and are trying to jump on board, but seeing (yay for some research) that high quality craft chocolate as a business is quite a bit of work and not inexpensive so the thought is to short cut the process by not sourcing beans, roasting them to your ideal, cracking and winnowing them, and grinding. In short they are looking to make cheap(er) commercial chocolate….at which point I just have to ask…..why? There are plenty of huge chocolate makers (Cadbury, Hershey, Guittard, etc just to name a few) that are doing something like that….what makes you think you can compete with them or what are you doing that will appeal to a consumer? Due to scale, your price is going to be higher, you will have little control over the flavor since you are not roasting and you’ll have stepped out of Craft chocolate into a money endeavor….but one that has none of the draw of what attracted you to the business in the first place (great flavors, made from the ground up, in a ethical and sustainable manner). I will note there is one exception here I found that gave me a reasonable answer. The maker was using mass and making a zero/low glycemic index chocolate for their diabetic patients. The alternative sweeteners affected the flavor enough that the extra impact of starting from the whole bean was a bit lost and their resulting chocolate was a lot better than other low GI chocolates out there, so in that case, I actually understand the call to not do extra work that would not come through in the final chocolate….and frankly that is good critical thinking.
There, I know, I ranted a lot there. I had to get a bit of it off my chest before I started responding with “use the fucking search feature’ as that is kind of a jerk move….but so is expecting someone to give you all the answers without giving it a try yourself. So to that, I’ll leave you with this.
There are no stupid questions….when you have dug in, genuinely tried to find the answers and still can’t find them. If you have done that and are stumped, or something just isn’t quite making sense, then please feel free to write in and ask and I will do my best to answer your questions. Ignorance is not a sin….but laziness is and if you are going to make chocolate, lazy isn’t something you can be.