Deoderized or natural?

So, I'm looking into the first purchases I'll need for bean-to-bar production, and I'm not sure which kind of cocoa butter I should get... The deodorized is only $15 more than the un-deodorized (for a 55 lb brick), but that's not what matters to me. I don't want to purchase that much and have it end up something I don't want to be using...

Anyone have some advice for this problem? I'm only looking at making dark and milk to start with, but I'll want to make white eventually too (I know, it's not "real" chocolate).

Thanks in advance for the advice, guys and gals!!

~Tom

Also, when buying equipment for the fist time, who bought a roaster, and who made due with an oven to start with?

Deodorized should have less color and less residual flavor than natural (should - if they're deodorizing correctly...). Which should you use? depends on if you'd like that extra flavor/color in your product or not. color won't matter for your dark or milk - it may for your white. flavor always matters. depends on what type of flavor you're after.

Hrmm... Well, not as definitive an answer as I was hoping for, but that works. lol. Thanks for the help, Sebastian!

There aren't many things in life that have definitive, black and white answers i'm afraid 8-) certainly not chocolate!

One of the reasons small bean-to-bar chocolate makers don't use added cocoa butter in their recipes is because, in order to be truly single-origin, the cocoa butter should come from the same beans used to make the chocolate.

Another reason often cited is that adding deodorized cocoa butter "dilutes" the flavor of the chocolate. Undeodorized cocoa butter has a flavor so it doesn't have the problem of diluting the flavor it has the problem of altering the flavor of the chocolate. Adding undeodorized Ghana butter to a chocolate made from Madagascar beans and what's the result?

Which way to go? It's up to you as the chocolate maker to decide. If you are going to be marketing single-origin chocolates then I think you've got a problem using cocoa butter that's not from the same origin, irrespective of whether it's deodorized or un-. If you don't have that issue, then un- is the way to go.

And - BTW - here in the US, white chocolate is legally chocolate, as long as the recipe conforms to the Standard of Identity (if it doesn't you can't call it white chocolate). FYI, perhaps the best white chocolate in the world is made with undeodorized cocoa butter: El Rey's Icoa. I tad heavily roasted for taste, but it does taste like cocoa and not sweet dairy.

Awesome answer, Clay! I think I'll end up just using the cocoa butter for my coveurture (it's needed to make it thinner and easier to dip with, right?), truffles and white chocolate.

BTW, LOVE this forum! It's great to have a place I can go to read the musings and thoughts of so many experienced and passionate chocolatiers.