Forum Activity for @Clay

I don't have any recommendations for commercially-made presses for under $10k or thereabouts - 50kg/hr.

You can go to school on the videos for Grenada Chocolate Company and Cacao Cucina to get an idea of how to put one together as you've indicated a willingness to make one.

Greg:

Can you post a photo (or photos) of what the attachment point looks like? You almost certainly need a tool of some kind but hopefully it's not a special tool.

Daniel -

Do you know what the humidity range is already? Do you have a digital hygrometer that records? You should!

RH percentage will determine (to a large extent) how many changes of air per hour you need. (60-70% == 3 changes/hour; 70-80% == 4 changes/hour, etc). If you want a deep dive on how to calculate capacity, here's a read .

You can get a single large unit or multiple smaller units. If you can reduce the volume you need to dehumidify that could help. If you have HVAC you could install an i nline system .

Here's a source for stand-alonecommercial units. Here's another .

Here is a system to consider for walk-ins .

Note: I have not used any of this equipment nor purchased from the vendors. These are not recommendations. I just did some quick research.

The easiest way is just to melt chocolate and add liquid (milk) to get to the consistency you want. It can be a pourable syrup or scoopable ganache (there are advantages to both).

If you want to use cocoa powder a Dutched powder will probably have lower acidity than a natural powder. You can use water or milk to make the syrup - there is no need to add any fat (butter). You can use a high-fat powder (20-22%) if you want a fattier mouth feel. 

I would be tempted to make the syrup with water and then offer the options of different milks when making the final product. You could use skim, whole milk, half-and-half, or cream, or - and this could be interesting for some customers - coconut milk, almond milk, rice milk, or some other option. The base syrup is vegetarian and with the right sugar it could also be vegan.

PeterK brings up a good point.

FDA regulations require a magnetic trap during the bean inspection phase prior to roasting in the sense that if the FDA inspects your facility (you did register, right?) and they don't find one they can cite you.

It is also a good idea to have an inline magnetic trap before tempering.

There are no cheap/good cocoa butter presses available that I am aware of. What I can see from a quick look is that there are a lot more options than the last time I looked.

One thing: colloid mills are the wrong tech for this.

This  is a home machine. It might work, but I don't think it's going to get you to the level of production you need and I would expect it to fail pretty quickly as it's not designed fot he kind of duty cycle you suggest.

You will need to spend at least a couple of thousand dollars and then expect to inspect the electrics, replace motors and hydraulics, etc if not right away then quite soon. An expeller press might be a better choice than a hydraulic press at anything under $3-4kg.

You can make your own but in the end I don't know how much $$ you'd be saving. You need a support structure, the hydraulic press, and to machine the pot and the parts. It can be done and has.

Keep in mind that the yields you can expect are on the order of ~250-300gr per kilo of liquor and that's highly dependent on the fat content of the beans, the pressure you can exert, and the length of time of each cycle. If you're getting 1/2kg of butter per kilo of liquor and the cycle time is 30 minutes and the pot size is 2kg, it's going to take a while to get the amount you're looking for.

Just make sure to confirm the software that's running on that 5-pan oven. Make sure that it has the same control over humidity, the same level of programmability, etc. I am not entirely certain of the software differences between the machines and it's the Mind.Maps machines I was writing about specifically.

James -

You might want to look into the  Pushbox from HCS Hamburg. It was created to replace jute bags for shipping and is a box version of Grainpro bags. They use suction and heat sealing as a part of their process and claim that you can get more cocoa on a pallet than when using bags. Plus, because it's environmentally contained it might be possible to consolidate.

If you want to go the Unox way, then you want the smallest unit Unox makes (options  here ). I don't have pricing on the six-pan oven, but the 10-pan oven is more than $10k. (Contact Unox for the nearest dealer.) Batch size is anywhere from 1-2kg/pan, so the throughput is what you say you want. Results will be the same whether you've got one pan in the oven or six, which makes developing roasting profiles easier. There is no cooling option, but you can make one by strapping a box fan to a speed rack.

There is a small and inexpensive (under $5k not including shipping - UL listed and NSF certified) fluid-bed roaster from a company called Coffee Crafters . (Suitable for beans, not for nib.) A ChocolateLife member has one and says that they roast over oneMT/month on this machine. The drawback is that you need to pay attention and adjust the loft during roasting. However, you can do multiple batches/hr.

A distributor by the name of Mill City Roasters offers a 1kg electric drum roaster (up to 30kg and larger in gas) for $4000. You'd have to connect with the company to make sure the throat is large enough for cocoa beans. But it has all the basics needed for cocoa - variable speed drum and fan for air, cooling, etc. There is no water injection that I know of. USB thermocouple means you can monitor roasts and save profiles to a (Windows) computer using open-source software.

The Unox is a good option if you also want to bake or roast things other than cocoa (e.g., nuts), and it also works as a dehydrator. This is the most programmable and versatile unit, hands-down, with the added features of humidity control (microbial kill step) and self-cleaning. A cool-down option is something they've considered - and it's a software upgrade. If it were me, this is the way I would go unless I also wanted to roast coffee. But that's because I would want to bake, roast nuts, and dehydrate in it.

The Coffee Crafters machine is inexpensive for the throughput, but it needs to be watched during roasting. It's an option if you also want to roast coffee.

The Mill City machine is a traditional drum roaster. It has the advantage of being slightly cheaper than the Coffee Crafters machine -- the capacity is not as great -- but you can run it basically unattended once you figure out the roast profile whereas you need to monitor the Coffee Crafters machine.

BTW - I have no deals in place with any of these companies so mentioning my name and/or TheChocolateLife won't get you a discount. However, I'd appreciate the referral going forward.

Cheers, Vanessa! Looking forward to your contributions

Michael -

Welcome to TheChocolateLife!

Where in Peru are you doing this work?

:: Clay

What temperature is the Chocovision set for? The Chocoley site says get white chocolate to 110F but IIRC the basic melt point in the Chocovision machines is set for 115F.

I would contact their help line and ask them directly.

The "brightness" I am talking about is specific to fluid-bed roasters like the Selmi and Coffee Crafters, and drum roasters with fan control that enable umping lots of air through the drum during roasting. 

Very few convection ovens give you control over fan speed or humidity, which is one of the reasons the Unox ovens are interesting. Sebastian is right - the way you load the pans will have an affect on heat transfer, as will the use of perforated versus solid pans. Sebastian is also right that there are no good references on roasting for small producers.

I've been to the Eataly in Milan and Turin several times and never saw Gardini. If it's there now - that's new. And welcome.

The Eataly in Milan - when I was there last - was in the basement of a ... department store!

Mark -

Sorry for the delay replying. I saw this when you posted it (on my phone) and just found it again.

There are Kleegos at French Broad (2) and Starchild, among others.

The Kleego was designed to take the output of a melangeur and it functions as a real conche. Indian wet mill grinders do not conche effectively or efficienty - there is no control over temperature, no control over airfow, and the shear action is still grinding.

The shear in a Kleego is provided by counter-rotating stirrers. The top stirrer is fixed speed and the speef of the bottom stirrer is adjustable. The working bowl is wrapped with electrical resistance wire and the temp can be adjusted to 60C+. The built–in fan blows something like 100m3 of air/hour, and the temperature is adjustable from ambient up to ~70C. There is a pump that continously circulates the chocolate.

The action of the stirrers beating the chocolate against each other provides the shearing/beating action. 

What we've found is that the Kleego can conche many chocolates flat in about 2 hours running it hot. This is not the way people use it, obviously, but what it does give you is headroom. If you can conche a chocolate in two hours (as opposed to two days) you can afford to experiment and create conching profiles. Many people get it hot quickly and run it hot until the acetic acid disappears and then lower the temperatures of the bowl and the air. You can reduce them all the way to ambient and just concentrate on texture development or you can warm things up and play with flavor development. 

The great thing is that you have the headroom (in engineering terms) to test. Sometimes people do over-conche, but what they do then is blend small amounts back into other batches. This blending can be done to even tastes out (consistency), but also to create flavors that could not be acheived conventionally.

The RUMBO is a beast - real granite base and stones! - and FBM improves the mechanism to increase efficiency. The newest version has two mechanism for adjusting pressure - one on the drive shaft and one on the axle of each wheel. While the stones weigh on the order of 50kg ea, I was told that the force exerted by the stones exceeds 300kg. There is no easy way to lift the stones and run it loose - that's what the Kleego is for. The RUMBO, even though hot air is built-in, is also not designed as a conche. The hot air is there to warm the stones and to help liquefy the fat in the nibs. Another area of improvement is the scrapers - the RUMBO empties itself, the mechanism doesn't tilt. Also, the bowl does not turn, which eliminates a potential safety hazard.

The enrober attachment is an option for the Prima. It plugs into the Prima and not into the wall, if that's your question. The functions of the enrober are controlled by the control panel on the Prima, except for the stop/start using the pedal.

The Prima is available 220V 60Hz single-phase or 3-phase as well as in 50Hz versions.

Part 1 can be found  here.  Part 2 can be found  here.  

Note : When in Amsterdam for CHOCOA in early February, I spoke with someone who knows chocolate quite well, is a native German speaker with a very good command of English, and who is familiar with both the most recent German and the English–language versions of TRS. I was told that many of the factual flaws I point out in the English–language version are present in the most recent German-language version, and that at least some of the poor quality of the English–language translations can be traced to the original German: It’s just not that well written to begin with.

A Raw Deal

I have eaten a lot of brands of “raw” chocolate and, like Bernardini, find most of it to be unsatisfying. I don’t eat chocolate primarily for its health benefits and I tend not to eat things I don’t like the taste of just because of health benefit claims.

Those who follow TheChocolateLife know that I am skeptical of many if not most of the claims concerning raw chocolate. One reason (apart from the fact that the claims are not backed up by any reputable science) is that there is no definition for what is raw and what is not: There is even disagreement among the raw food community about what it means. I have seen temperatures as low as 40C suggested as the upper bound for being raw, though the most widely–accepted figure I have heard is 118F (48.7C).

Furthermore, there are no legal definitions in food law as to what constitutes raw. There is a legal definition in the US for white chocolate ( CFR 21.163 .124), but no definition for raw anything. There is no definition for raw in European food regulations that I can find.

Given that there is a lack of agreement about what raw is and is not, and there are no legal definitions, it's somewhat surprising that Bernardini singles out one company above all others for “lying” about a product which does not fit a definition that does not exist. The question in my mind is, “Why this singular focus?”

Bernardini devotes four full pages of TRS to raw chocolate and superfood (pp102-105). In this discussion of raw he mentions two companies, Pacari and Pana. Of Pana he writes, “If the very likeable and successful Mr. Pana Barbounis from Pana Chocolates assures me that he manages this [staying under 116F], I have to believe him. He can’t prove it to me and as there is no legal regulation, he doesn’t need to prove it to anyone else. As I still believe in goodness and honesty in people, I also believe Mr Barbounis.”

But, on the prior page, he is much less forgiving in his analysis of Pacari.

Apparently Bernardini believes the claims of every so-called “raw” chocolate company in the world, except the “very likeable and successful Mr. Santiago Peralta from Pacari Chocolates.” If you read the section on raw chocolate closely, and then follow it up immediately by reading the section on Pacari, it is not difficult to come to the conclusion that Bernardini has a specific axe to grind with respect to Pacari. Especially when you read what he has to say about other raw chocolate companies and other Ecuadorian chocolate makers.

The Unconfirmed

I took the time to reach out and ask some of the companies listed as “Unconfirmed” with respect to their processing status. Rather than my defending the practices of any of them, I asked them to prepare a statement responding to what was written about them so you can judge what Bernardini has written against the statements I received.

I have not edited the responses [other than to remove unneeded spaces], so any misspellings and errors in grammar are in what I received. I have translated some terms, they appear within [square brackets].

In alphabetical order:

Cacaosuyo
Contributor: Sam Giha

If I were to comment on Georg Bernardini's book I would actually say I like it, but I'm not quite sure it is actually a Referrence Book (unconfirmed). 

We purchased Georg Bernardini's book and find that the idea is a good one, but in line with what you mention, it could have been more thorough in order to leave out the unfortunate false rumors and rather offer verified information. We have always been "bean to bar" and not only that, but the beans we used have always been fermented and dryed by our team. We invested over a year of work with renown venezuelan specialist Gladys Ramos (mother of Guasare cacao) to find the right cacao and learn how to get them to be the best possible dry beans.

In our case he did write that he liked our chocolate and that was what I take from it, but since we have met and exchanged business cards, it was surprising that he didn't just call me and clear up his doubts to find that we are in fact "bean to bar" and even have two post harvest facilities to do our own post harvest process, so we more likely would be considered "tree to bar" because we work directly with small farmers picking our fruit and processing everything from there to get a prime bean that is later taken to our own factory to make our chocolate.

So you see, even with a website under construction, a simple phone call could have given an accurate reference about our company and our chocolate.

By the way, from 2013 we have had a plantation in Piura, eventhough the cacao wasn't ready for harvest. I don't believe owning the tree is what makes your chocolate from Tree to Bar.

I hope this answers the question.

Note: I visited the Cacaosuyo factory in July, 2015 and saw all of the equipment necessary to roast, grind, refine, conche, and deposit chocolate bars as well as many sacks of cocoa beans.

Chapon (Patrice Chapon)
Contributor: Patrice Chapon

Indeed, the book of Bernardini is a tissue of mensonge [lies].

He never came into my fabrique [factory].

[He] interviewed one of my ladies on an exhibition.

D'ailleurs [moreover] how can he write a book on as many chocolatiers in the world without validate their information and take time to meet the chocolatiers?

In addition, it mixes the chocolate that does not make their cocoa with other critère.

Gobino (Guido Gobino)
Contributor: Loredana Ligori

http://guidogobino.it/en/artisan-chocolate/
http://guidogobino.it/en/the-new-production-unit/

Note:  I visited the Gobino factory in Turin in October, 2015 and saw a complete bean-to-bar line in operation.

Pacari
Contributor: Santiago Peralta

Pacari chocolates is a vertically integrated company working consistently from tree to bar in a cacao-growing country. We don't just buy cacao beans. We collaborate with farmers directly in farm management, genetic conservation and improvement, and we have a say in every aspect of production starting with the implementation of the organic agriculture methods that we have helped create with farmers all over Ecuador through intensive training and the personal involvement of our technical staff. We don't need to own farms, and we have never made such claims. What we have done is create sound socially and ecologically responsible agricultural systems involving not only cacao but other raw materials like the fruits we use in our flavored bars, which are all made in our factory not elsewhere. Pacari not only has helped create cooperatives of farmers, mostly women, who grow and harvest organic forgotten Andean crops uvillas [goldenberries] and harvest wild mortiños [blueberries], but has also helped them established a plant to process and dehydrate the fruit that we buy for our factory.

If Georg Bernardini had asked us about the way we work, we would have gladly furnished him the required information. Instead, he has chosen to rely on malicious hearsay from undisclosed sources. Georg Bernardini has only asked me personally about the making of our Raw chocolate. I have explained that it is minimally processed. He claims that we have not made this definition public. In fact, we have done it consistently in public presentations and on our packaging.

Our factory has been photographed and filmed for numerous publications and televised programs and visited by colleagues and journalists who have seen and experience every step of our work. Much of this information is public. In addition, all our production methods from farm to factory, have been audited by organic certifying organizations like BCS Oko-Garantie based in Germany. 

The day that I lose touch with the land and sit in an office and start ordering beans only from brokers over the phone, I will stop calling Pacari a tree to bar company.  But for as long as we function as an entirely hands on company with a direct involvement in every step of the production of our raw material, we will continue to define ourselves as a tree to bar company.  We have won that right since we started exporting our chocolate in 2008.

A Unique Point in Time

This is a unique point in history for food lovers of all flavors: This is not a modern craft chocolate movement. It’s not a renaissance or a rediscovery because chocolate as we know it is a product of the industrial revolution and before the industrial revolution there was no established history of connoisseurship in chocolate. Chocolate as we knew it is a product of the industrial revolution.

The craft chocolate “movement” is quite young. Arguably, we can pinpoint 1997 as the year it began, with the opening of Scharffen Berger Chocolate Maker in Berkeley. Prior to roughly 20 years ago there was no tradition of connoisseurship and literary criticism about chocolate on a par with that for wines, beers, spirits, balsamic vinegars, olive oils, and cheeses, among other foods and beverages.

We are making up what it means to be a ‘modern’ ‘craft’ chocolate maker as we go. We are at the very beginning of trying to figure out what that means, trying to define chocolate on its own terms, not in comparison with something else.

So I find it completely incomprehensible that, at this point in time, anyone should be narrowly defining what “good” chocolate is or should be. The idea that so-called “two-ingredient” chocolate is the purest form of chocolate and should be elevated above all other forms—as Bernardini explicitly states—is not what we should be doing right now. It’s way too soon, in my opinion, for definitions whose boundaries are hard–edged either/or.

That said, authors are entitled to define terms as they want, even bucking industry norms (ref the discussion re: Sanchez and Hispaniola). We may not agree with those definitions, but we need to understand what they are and how they inform and guide the writing and editing processes. Which brings me back to an earlier observation, “How many people closely read anything other than the reviews?”

Bernardini writes on p100 and p107 that, in order to be considered a true Bean-to-Bar chocolate company, all processes—from roasting to depositing—must be performed in-house on equipment the company directly supervises and controls.

I strongly disagree.

Roasting and grinding at origin adds value, generating more income at origin than simply exporting cocoa beans as an agricultural commodity. Roasting and grinding at origin also reduces the carbon footprint of the chocolate as the company is not transporting excess water and shell (in many cases, about 25–30% of the gross weight of the whole beans). Cocoa liquor is also denser than beans and nib (more product in a container) and is not as subject to damage during shipment by insect infestations or mold and mildew.

In my opinion, as long as the roasting and grinding are personally supervised on-site by the company’s chocolate maker for every batch (the chocolate maker is not just phoning in orders) I have zero problem with a company saying that they work from beans as opposed to liquor.

I have similar thoughts on what it means to be a Tree-to-Bar chocolate maker. A strict literal definition requires that the chocolate maker own the farms on which the trees are planted (exposing the chocolate maker to accusations that they are imperialistic landowners exploiting their workers), the trees are grown, the pods are harvested, and the seeds which get turned into chocolate in a wholly–owned–and–operated factory are fermented and then dried.

But the strictly literal Tree–to–Bar definition overlooks the very real fact that many chocolate makers work very closely with the farmers and co-ops they source from. These chocolate makers provide technical assistance and training, access to markets, access to capital, and more. TCHO is an excellent example with their flavor labs and innovations in fermentation approaches, which I have personally seen in Perú in several locations. Pacari works similarly in Ecuador: These companies work directly with farmers on their farms, helping them to improve their farming techniques to increase yields, helping them to improve post–harvest processing techniques to improve quality, and then buy the cocoa from the farmers they work with. Are these chocolate makers not working from tree-to-bar? In my eyes they are. Do they have to own the land on which the trees are grown and employ hired labor to work the trees? In my eyes they do not.

Perhaps we should recognize that the problems might stem from the terms themselves?

Is “bean-to-bar” helpful? (After all, it was coined back in 1997, before anybody had any idea how the industry would evolve.) Does using it, and tree-to-bar, craft, and artisan, among other terms create more confusion than clarity? If we are having problems stuffing 100kg of industry into a 65kg jute sack, maybe the problem is the sack.

Do the problems lie in the narrowness of the definition of the categories and forcing companies into too–small, awkwardly–shaped pigeonholes? I submit that these are discussions worth having.

I advocate for being inclusive, not exclusive, for expanding the realm of what chocolate is and can aspire to be and not say definitively, “This is what good chocolate is (or how it has to be made) and everything else, ipso facto, is bad or wrong. At this point in history, strictly literal and narrow definitions are: Bad for chocolate, bad for cocoa farmers, bad for chocolate makers, and, ultimately, bad for consumers.

While Bernadini may think that the evidence presented in his book is unequivocal and that he is being “fair” by branding some companies with the label (Unconfirmed)—the reasoning is unconvincing to me, and tinged with bitterness, astringency, acidity, and, with respect to one particular company, Pacari, with surprising venom.

As I was finishing up part 2 I started receiving private, confidential emails from people around the world telling me that one particular company—Ecuador’s Pacari—was a complete and total fraud. They were not raw, they were not bean–to–bar, they hired out all their production, and they were not tree–to–bar. Following up on the claims presented in those emails is the reason this third part has been delayed.

What I can say is that the people making the accusations have been unwilling or unable to provide any substantiating evidence to back up their claims and/or to introduce me to the representatives of companies they cite to whom I can talk to corroborate their claims.

Therefore, I have to treat those communications as hearsay, rumor, and innuendo sent to me to enlist my support in discrediting a single company: Pacari. More disturbingly, I have learned that I am not alone in having been approached.

I am not implying that Bernardini is in anyway involved in this.

What I am saying is that some people who contacted me cited my giving Pacari the benefit of the doubt in the first parts of my review of TRS as the reason for getting in touch with me. They felt compelled to share with me information about Pacari’s business practices. There was no mention of Cacaosuyo or Chapon or any of the other companies who were bestowed with an (Unconfirmed) status. Just Pacari. Which raised my suspicions, and my hackles.

The politics of cocoa and chocolate in Ecuador are hard for an outsider to comprehend, but it is a real shame that some in Ecuador feel compelled to reach outside of Ecuador to get people to choose sides. This is just sad. It’s sad for the reputation of Ecuadorian cacao. It’s sad for the reputations of Ecuadorian chocolate makers. It’s sad for chocolate lovers who appreciate Ecuadorian cacao and chocolate. And it has to stop, right now, for the good of the chocolate industry worldwide.

To everyone who wrote to me, if you have actual evidence to back up your claims, disclose it publicly so the claims can be independently corroborated. If your claims turn out to be true, I will be the first to acknowledge that I was wrong. But I will not be a party to presenting innuendo as fact.

In Conclusion ...

I have been accused—by readers of my review of TRS—of being a fanboy for this company or that one, and that the primary motivation, if not sole motivation, for writing my review of TRS was to take down the author.

Anybody who has knows me, and my work in chocolate since 1998, knows that if I am a fanboy of anything, I am a fanboy of and for good chocolate. If I write about a company or a chocolate it is not because I am paid, it is because of my honest opinions of the product and the people involved. I do get paid by companies (my consulting clients), but I only work with people and companies I trust and believe in. My opinions are not for sale. I am not going to sacrifice my credibility and reputation for a few bucks.

My motivation in writing my review of TRS was that I was astonished that a book with so many factual errors and inconsistencies in it thought to title itself The Reference Standard.

I am appalled that a book that is ostensibly about chocolate appreciation and connoisseurship contains sentences of such arrogant disdain as (p854): “It is not reprehensible on principle, when manufacturers use natural flavorings.” Reprehensible is defined as “deserving censure or condemnation.” Really? Wow. I am so happy to know that chocolate makers and confectioners don’t deserve to be censured or condemned in principle for using natural flavorings. Thanks for giving them your permission!

I am mystified how, on the one hand, that the author can rant on about how bad lecithin is at every opportunity and yet still give a five-pod rating to a subsidiary of Japan’s Meiji where, in his review of the company’s single-origin bars (p142 – the very first review in the book) he lists the ingredients: cocoa liquor, sugar, cocoa butter, and soya-lecithin.

I am similarly mystified that a book dedicated to “The best chocolates and pralines in the world” [cover copy] would spend even a quarter–page on mass-market chocolates given a zero-pod rating. Those are certainly products I would gladly forego [more cover copy].

I am stunned that an entire subcontinent—Central America—can be overlooked during editing and fact checking (pp32-36) in the discussion about cocoa aromas [flavors].

IS there value in reading TRS? I have to give it a qualified yes. TRS is a compendium of hundreds of companies (not all of whom are still in business) and products (not all of which are still available and that you can taste) that can serve as an introduction and guide to the glorious variety that is chocolate ... coupled with one person’s highly–personal opinions, some recent, some not so recent, about many of the products listed.

What TRS i s not is reliable when it comes to presenting facts, and it presents opinion as gospel. If it is the reference standard, then that standard has been set very low.

Roaster tech like the one Selmi employs results, I am told from someone who uses a similar machine, in a roast that is "brighter" than other roasters. This is in line with what I know about technical coffee roasting and the effect of changing the airflow in the drum - more air == brighter roasts.

If you are okay with this approach and it's okay to work in smaller batches, then something like the Artisan-6 from Coffee Crafters could work for you - and save you a lot of money.

I am very impressed with the new line of combi ovens from Unox - Mind.Maps. You can inject steam into the cavity, control the level of humidity ±10% and duration for an enhanced microbial kill step, and you also have control over the speed of the fans. All of these parameters, plus temperature, are programmable and you can create combinations of at least three steps for a roasting profile and save them for use. The largest one (16 pans) should be able to handle ~30kg batches. If you are looking for flexibility in terms of roast profile and fan control take a close look. I have reports that a chocolate maker in Mexico was very impressed. Plus - it can be used as a dehydrator when not being used as a cocoa bean roaster, and you can roast nuts and bake in it. Finally, it is self-cleaning. Push a button and it cleans itself.

Mill City Roasters in the US works with a company in China making what appear to be very nice gas roasters - and inexpensive for their feature set. Here's the link  to info on their 10kg machine.

As for the CocoaTowns. If you want the same footprint, I recommend you look at the machines from Premier/Diamond Trading. They are better built and are less expensive. If you are interested in a machine that uses real granite (same as in Lehmann melangeurs) for the base and stones, take a look at FBM's RUMBO - which has a capacity of ~60kg/batch. Pricing is in line with the additional capacity, and there are other features that make the RUMBO a very interesting option. Plus I helped design it.

Sebastian is spot on in his observations, and I would also ask about the quantity of chocolate you want to make.

If you are looking for a fluid-bed roaster then there are options that are far less expensive (like one-fourth the cost) than the Selmi roaster. Having asked I can also tell you that this style of roaster will not handle nibs.

There are some decent relatively inexpensive drum roaster options I've found, plus a line of combi-ovens that are compact, inexpensive, and feature programmable temperature curves, humidity control, and fan speed.

But - how much chocolate do you want to make?

Tony -

I don't disagree with your points.

However the value in the Chocolate Wave is the ability to work with lots of different chocolates quickly and easily with fast cleaning which means minimal times between batches. Can't do that with a 50lb Savage tank, and the Chocovision machines are not fast. EZTemper is a good option but you expressed worry about changing the fat content of recipes.

The cleaning thing is why you probably would not want a small continuous tempering machine as complete cleaning beteween batches might be easy, but it's not fast.

The enrobing option for the Chocovision machines is not well thought out, unfortunately. It would be great if it worked.

The least-expensive continuous tempering machine / enrober combination is the FBM Prima, I believe. Hourly tempering capacity is up to 30kg and, depending on the dimensions of the bars you can easily put hundreds an hour through the machine.

You can download a catalog page  here .

All of the enrober belts with FBM machines are complete - pre-bottomers (which you want for your product), net beaters, air, take-off belts, and double-curtain veils to ensure complete product coverage.

TCF Sales in Texas is the US dealer for these machines. I can put you in touch directly if you like.

The only lower-cost alternative I can think of is a used machine.

All -

The Chocolate Wave is a new product I saw at the FCIA meeting in January in San Francisco.

The circular granite or marble base rotates and you use a scraper to move the chocolate around. The IR thermometer tells you when you've reached the right temp. You can do 3-4kg chocolate at a time, very quickly, and it's supposed to be easy enough to learn to use in under 30 minutes.

This Chocolate Way looks to be a great option when working with small quantities of many different kinds of chocolate - including chocolate that does not have seed. It should also work for chocolates that are hard to temper, including two-ingredient chocolates, and doesn't require seeded cocoa butter, which changes the recipe.

Another place I think that the Chocolate Wave has application is front of house -it's pretty hypnotic to watch in use, and if put in a location that's highly visible would attract a lot of attention (traffic == sales).

If you're interested you can contact me - I have an arrangement with the inventor/manufacturer. Ex-works price is £3950.

Amber -

Without the ability to vent your options are limited. Is there existing HVAC system in the space (in the ceiling) that you can tie into?

What kinds of quantities are you talking about needing to temper?

Do not rely on Eataly! I have been disappointed in the selection everywhere I've been - Milan and Turin (two locations).

In Turin if you don't know Gerla - home to some of the only hand-cut gianduia you can buy - go. It's a short walk from Porta Nuova. Pepino is highly thought of for Gelato, and I visited Miretti and I can personally vouch for the gelato there. For lunch, try il Vicolo - the risotto selection is astounding.

In Rome - well that's covered in the post you cited.

IF you can find some GARDINI gianduja with cherries I will gladly pay you for a bar and to ship it to me when you get back.

Brad -

Just a quick note. Chocolat Naive produces a tempered chocolate bar that has honey in it. And they temper it in a continuous tempering machine. And it was not easy to figure it out how to do it. But - it's not impossible. 

All -

I do not want this post to get into a discussion on the flavor/health benefits/merits (or lack thereof) or validity of raw chocolate - there are other threads that cover those issues. 

Lets stick to the topic: tempering, and how the addition of honey affects tempering. That is a question that applies to all chocolates, not just "raw" chocolates.

A couple of other ideas. 

Using honey in a Chocovision machine may reduce the amount of mixing getting done. If the CB crystals are not distributed evenly then streaks on the front or back will be common. Break a bar at a streak to see if there is a difference in temper in the cross-section. If there is it is probably insufficient mixing, at least in part.

Also - you're working in small batches and even minute changes to the recipe and ambient humidity will affect the rheology of the chocolate, which will affect temper. You need to assess the temper for every batch, not rely on the machine to do it for you, or rely on a specific set of temperatures. This is a common problem that people who make chocolate fail to take into account. The recipe might be "the same" but small differences in processing and mixing can make a difference in the working characteristics of a chocolate.

Calibrating thermometers is important, but it's also important to know what the temp and RH are in the immediate vicinity of the tempering machine. Keep a notebook and when things don't go as planned, you might find that temps and/or humidity are part of the issue.

The messaging system is set up so that messages can only be sent to people who follow each other. This is make it impossible for spammers to join the site and then immediately start contacting members privately and spamming them. Members have the option to auto-approve followers or to manually approve them (the default). Go to your profile page and look at the "Approve Followers" checkbox.

Of course, a deodorized cocoa butter could not remotely be considered raw.

Gustaf Mabrouk: Clay,

I can see the "trouble" with showcasing this at this stage. Where is this seminar being held? I want to attend as well

Here is the link to the event listing here on TheChocolateLife. If you scroll down towards the bottom of the page you'll see the link to the site for more information and registration.

Norbert:

Georg clearly states in his book that he will not likely publish an update to it, something he also told me in person when we met in Amsterdam at the Origin Chocolate event. Therefore I saw no point in contacting Georg privately by email.

Besides, you have to wait until p855 in the Acknowledgements section to learn that he wants readers to contact him, and the email address. I did not discover that bit of info until today.

Also, I felt that the flaws I saw in the book needed to be made public so that people could approach it critically, knowing that there were many factual errors. If I contacted Georg privately I had no way of knowing if my concerns would be made public - and based on his response to the first part of my review, I am fairly confident they would never have seen the light of day.

Another reason to go public is that because Georg is now making chocolate under his own brand he cannot, in good faith and conscience, even think about working on an update to the book as it represents a direct conflict of interest.

I am glad you find the book very useful, even with the flaws I point out. I know that others find it useful, too. I also know from speaking with native-German speakers that many of the flaws I found in the book are in the German-language version and that there is controversy in Germany over the book - not everyone feels as you do about it.

Most of the people I have spoken with who feel the way you do have not closely read any part of it, including the reviews. But, if they read the front matter and the back matter closely they would treat the reviews differently. I am not so concerned about the reviews, except where Georg is not consistent with his own stated editorial policies.

As for Hoja Verde ... I have been in touch with Jose and Eduardo in Ecuador by email and saw Jolanda in Amsterdam -- were you there? I was told you would be. If so, we did not connect and I am sad we did not get the chance to talk about this in person. I don't need to consider what brands are and are not known in Europe, I am concerned with how brands are represented (and not) in the book. 

And - you are wrong when you say that only Criollo and Nacional survive as 'true genetic types'. All true Criollos have a genome with 420,000,000 base pairs. All Forasteros have a genome with 440,000,000 base pairs. All Nacionals are gentically Foresteros. Really. That's what the DNA says.

[Feb 11 - edited for typos and clarity]

Gustaf -

I don't know how to talk about the varieties yet. The industry has spent so much money on Criollo/Trinitario/Forastero/Nacional that it would take a lot to introduce new thinking to the general public. But I think that people in the industry need to know about them and work with a more nuanced understanding. 

From my last conversation with Ed Seguine on this topic, basically everything is either a Criollo (420,000,000 base pairs in the genome) or a Forastero (440,000,000 base pairs in the genome). So with the exception of the Criollos, everything in Motamayor's list falls into the Forastero camp. Everything. Nacionals are Forasteros. Trinitarios are Forasteros, even though they contain some Criollo ancestry.

What Ed thinks is that this is a matter of what's in accessions and what was tested. If there were more testing done on the Criollos we'd see similar differentiation there.

There's a cacao research conference at the end of May/early June that I want to attend and I think that that might be a place to start asking some of these questions.

What is making the whine? The motor or the phase converter?

Preface

At times I wonder if I am the only person who has read the English–language version of Georg Bernardini's Chocolate—The Reference Standard   critically because it seems like mine is the first review of any edition of TRS that is anything less than glowingly positive.

In his response to my review (which is now Part 1 of what will be a three-part series),

Georg writes:

The best chocolates and pralines in the world
What’s behind it all and what we can gladly forego

"Sorry that you don’t understand the phrase. Perhaps the translation is not correct [emphasis added], but the initial idea was not that the two phrases are in context.

"But I understand. You want to tear up the book and everything you find is good to massacre."

The fact that I don’t understand what the author and publisher actually meant is precisely my point: Difficult-to-understand translations are present on nearly every page and annoyingly confusing, detracting from TRS’s usability. The problem starts on the front cover.

Summary

"I don’t think that any of your accuses is correct. There are perhaps some delicate details which could be more clear, but in summary I don’t agree at all with your opinion."

I never expected Georg to agree with my observations (not opinions)  but I did not write my review for Georg . He has said he will probably never update the book, never giving himself the opportunity to correct any of the points I bring up. So why bother?

My review was written for people who have purchased the book—or are thinking of purchasing the book—so that they can see that there are some serious concerns with a lot of what is presented as fact, along with editorial inconsistencies, and the reader might want to consider those concerns as they are reading the book.

All comments refer to the 2015 English–language edition, except where explicitly mentioned otherwise. I did not look at any prior edition of TRS to see if the issues I raise are in any other versions.

The Cultivation Countries pp27-37

Fine Flavor Cocoa Classification (p30)

Bernardini states “… ICCO classifies the cocoa and bindingly regulates [emphasis added] the percentage of cocoa which a country may export as fine flavor cocoa.”

This was not my understanding, so I reached out to someone who was at the ICCO Ad-Hoc Committee meeting in London this past September to confirm that the committee agrees upon a percentage of exports that can be considered as fine flavor as reported by the countries themselves . ICCO absolutely does not regulate exports .

A cocoa expert should be expected to know this. (As an aside, the numbers are from 2010 and at the September meeting some of the percentages were changed. Thus, the percentages reported in TRS are out of date but I don’t know if Georg could have known about them before TRS went to print.)

The Cocoa Varieties (pp27-28)

Bernardini says that there are four main varieties of cocoa: Criollo, Trinitario, Forastero, and the (Ecuadorian) Nacional sub-variety of Forastero.

We now know that not to be true. Perhaps the first most obvious place where the book was out of date before even the first edition was published , in my opinion, is that there is no mention of Juan Carlos Motamayor and team’s 2008 research paper, Geographic and Genetic Population Differentiation of the Amazonian Chocolate Tree (Theobroma cacao L) .

Motamayor’s paper mentions ten distinct varieties, and several more have been identified since then.

For Bernadini not to even mention Motamayor’s work is baffling to me (and to others to whom I mentioned this omission) in what aspires to be the reference standard.

Cocoa Aromas of Different Countries of Origin (pp32-36)

You mean, apart from the fact that the author conflates (or confuses) aroma (smell) with flavor? (Or is it a problem with the translation?)

The list omits Central America entirely : Nicaragua, Guatemala, Honduras, Costa Rica, Panama, El Salvador (Mexico was somehow transported to South America): other than Mexico (see S America) not one of these countries was found deserving of a discussion.  How did an entire sub–continent go missing during the editorial review and fact–checking process?

The list omits several African growing countries: Cameroon, Nigeria, Tanzania, and Liberia.

In South America, Colombia is misspelled and has been ceded a new country: Mexico!

In Oceania, Fiji and Samoa are missing.

In the Caribbean, Haiti is not mentioned.  St Lucia is not not only given more coverage than either the Dominican Republic or Grenada—both far more significant producers—but is treated fundamentally differently from every other entry in the section.  Research into another question uncovered a possible reason for the length of the entry on St Lucia: The mention of a specific brand (glaringly, the only entry in this section to do so) that sources some cocoa from the island. Coppeneur (at which Bernardini worked) made (and may still make, as—lazy me—I did not try to find out) chocolate for Hotel Chocolat, the mentioned brand. I am not claiming this as any sort of proof of anything, I am just pointing out an undisclosed connection that could provide a reason this baffling editorial inconsistency.

Bernardini calls the carmelo cocoa grown on Rancho La Joya, Porcelana (p34), while labeling it extremely acidic. When discussing Venezuelan Porcelana (on the same page), he describes it as “absolutely not bitter, acidic or astringent.” One of the reasons for this is that carmelo is not genetically a pure Criollo like Porcelana. The term Porcelana refers to porcelain white, and is virtually synonymous with particular Criollos. While carmelo does have 100% white beans, it has been identified as a genetic amelonado, a fact confirmed to me by a member of the team who did the SNP analysis. One reason carmelo may be acidic is that it is not being processed properly post–harvest: It's being fermented as if it were a Criollo (which might account for excess citric acidity as well as a lactic tendency). But excess acetic acidity is almost certainly a result of poor drying practices, which Bernardini should know. I know this because I visited Rancho La Joya in December 2015 and saw their operation and asked what they were doing and tasted fresh pulp and beans.

Rancho La Joya is in the state of Tabasco whereas “the Xoconusco” is in the state of Chiapas, an important distinction to the people who live and farm there.  Between them, Tabasco and Chiapas produced about 22,500MT of cocoa in the 2015 harvest according to the Minister of Agriculture for Tabasco, a figure I learned during a meeting with him during a trip there in December.  It is estimated that less than 50MT of the combined total was exported as fine flavor cocoa—a fact corroborated by someone who arranges for the export of fine flavor cocoa from Mexico.  This argues against the claim that the majority of cocoa grown in Mexico is mostly Criollo and Trinitario and not much Forastero. If they were growing a lot of high quality Criollos they’d be exporting a lot more of them.

Bernardini reports that the main variety of cocoa grown in Ecuador is Nacional (p33), but also Forastero. While there is mention of CCN-51 on the next page, it naïvely misrepresents the current situation with respect to production in Ecuador.  During the recent ICCO ad-hoc meeting, Ecuador presented records showing that more than 25% of current exports were CCN-51. A colleague that I reached out to who works for a firm that exports large quantities of cocoa from Ecuador provided figures from INIAP that about 40% of what is currently produced in Ecuador is CCN-51, another 40% is Nacional, about 10% are Trinitarios, and the last 10% is other hybrids.

On p34, Bernardini fails to mention that a significant portion of the cocoa crop grown in Peru (and exported) is CCN-51.

Made up Terms (p34)

In his response to Part 1 of this review, Bernardini disagrees with me about the use of the terms Sanchez and Hispaniola with respect to so-called “varieties” of cacao grown in the Dominican Republic.

A quick survey on the topic with more than a dozen colleagues at the Salon du Chocolat in Paris last October and during the recent Fine Chocolate Industry Association Winter meeting suggests that he is alone in this belief.

On p27 Bernardini lays out the four main varieties. By using the word variety in his description of Sanchez and Hispaniola (and calling Hispaniola prestigious), Bernardini suggests to an unaware reader that Sanchez and Hispaniola can be used the same way as Criollo and Forastero, which is clearly not the case.

In his response he doubles down on his assertion.  Bluster does not confirm the truth of something.

Idiosyncratic Translations

Why should readers be asked to parse sentences like, “On the other hand it looks after reduction of the still retained moisture and escape of undesirable flavors”(p49)?

If this were the only instance, it could be seen as a charming artifact. But there are way too many lazy translations and they quickly cross the line into being annoyingly confusing.

Questions about the quality of the translation are at the heart of one of my main criticisms of TRS. Bernardini mentions that he hired a translator. But just because he hired a translator does not mean he hired a translator whose background and skills were up to the challenge of a book like TRS. Was the translator a subject-matter expert on chocolate? Based on my less–than–superficial reading of the book I have to conclude, no.

The Concept of the Book (p17)

In his reply to the Part 1 of this review, Bernardini states:

“Sorry, I don’t think that there is any really important company overlooked. Give me a sample, please.”

Well yes, actually, there is one that jumps out very quickly: Felchlin .

Bernardini does give himself the out on this one (and points it out in his response to me). On p17, he explicitly states, “Only companies which are present in retail with their own brand are considered in this book.”

Does he mean present in retail at the time the book was published? Or at any point, ever?

Rules are meant to be broken, and Bernardini breaks this one on p281 with the inclusion of Chocovic (four pods). While Chocovic used to produce retail–branded products, they were purchased by Barry–Callebaut several years ago and no longer make chocolate bars for retail sale, a fact that Bernardini laments while including the ratings for products that can no longer be purchased. Why is Chocovic included?

He overlooks this rule even earlier, in the review of A Xoco by Anthon Berg (p144) in one of the single most confusing entries in the book—and it’s just the second entry!

A Xoco is listed as a partial bean-to-bar brand in the processing stage (also using couverture). Yet in the company portrait, he says that neither chocolates nor confectionery have been produced since 2014 .

“Even if I regard drageés as confectionery, as neither chocolate nor traditional confectionery is offered, I can no longer consider the brand in my book.”

He then goes on to list the reviews—from the first edition!—for six bars and three confectionery collections that are no longer available . A whole page is spent that could be put to better use on another brand whose products you can actually buy.

He overlooks this rule again on p405: Gnosis Chocolate has been out of active production since December 2014. (I had conversations about this with founder Vanessa Barg in December 2014 and in November 2015 here in NYC).  There may be others.

“Quite assuredly, one will miss the one or the other brand in the book,” followed later on in the section by, “I had to draw a line in the case of 550 brands.”

We can wonder about that number and the selection of the brands and products, and it’s Georg’s book as he’s the author and the publisher, so he makes the rules. But we should recognize that the self–imposed limit is a limitation of the print format itself, nothing more, and the author argues against hIs own claim of being comprehensive (on the back cover).

“Every brand included in my book is portrayed—depending on how intensely it influences the market, in more or less detail. Brands of particularly good or bad products receive more attention independent of their size and significance for the chocolate market.”

In Part 1 of this review, I pointed out that Ecuadorian chocolate marketing company Hoja Verde (four pods, private label, made by Ecuatoriana, a large private–label producer in Ecuador) received four full pages of editorial whereas much more highly regarded companies—including Valrhona, Bonnat, Cluizel and Pralus to name just four—received half the love. I questioned the reason why .

I have mentioned this curious fact to many professionals in a position to know and the reaction I invariably got was, “Hoja Verde who ?”

Which returns us to the question of the selection criterion about “intensely influencing the market.” Hoja Verde influences the market intensely just how, precisely? Their products are middling—neither very good nor very bad—and it gets a four-pod rating. So, why so much love? It’s a reasonable question to ask.

I wondered if there could be any connection with the fact that Bernardini consulted to Hoja Verde. I am not offering this up as proof, just asking the question. It’s a reasonable question for a reviewer to ask.

Bernardini may say that he published guest reviewer Mark Christian's reviews unedited but that explanation falls flat given how concerned he is with the available space. He could easily have asked Mark to edit them. He asks us to  trust him, there is no conflict of interest, but I have no way of confirming that. I am supposed to trust Georg and no one else ? Or the evidence of my own senses or experience as a published author? Why? On what evidence given how poorly much of the rest of the book was edited and fact checked?

“There will always be exceptions, and I cannot and do not wish to subject myself to a rigid rule [emphasis added].”

But, for The Reference Standard (and maybe the last edition its author will publish), don’t readers who are asked to depend upon the information being comprehensive and reliable deserve of the author a rigor in the selection criteria used for inclusion?

Isn’t it his job to communicate to readers clearly what the criteria behind his selections are?

The above statement illuminates why, in the author’s own words, I think TRS is an ambitious compendium, and not a good reference standard.

But in the end, it’s Bernardini’s book — his playground, his rules, and my lack of understanding about which companies were chosen and why is my concern, not his.

What I am doing is pointing out inconsistencies and questioning them, and considering whether these inconsistencies contribute to, or detract from, TRS’s claim to being the reference standard.

My opinion is that these inconsistencies result in a deeply flawed book. It cannot be taken at face value as being either comprehensive or accurate. It is a compendium that did take a lot of work, but some very important work was left undone.

Reviews and Ratings (pp142-837)

I have no intent to do an entry–by–entry fact checking of the reviews. That is an editorial task that requires many hundreds of hours of work that, quite frankly, Bernardini needs to hire editors and fact checkers to do. What I can do is point out a few “facts” that weren’t vetted properly. These may seem small, but they make my point that TRS was lazily edited and fact checked. A closer read will probably reveal hundreds of these errors.

Bernardini does mention in his response to Part 1 of this review two late changes that were caught before going to press. But catching two instances in no way proves that all of the information is up-to-date.

A Few Out of Date Facts That Were Not Caught

As has already been pointed out, Gnosis (p405) is no longer in production. Nor are A Xoco by Anton Berg and Chocovic.

Scharffen Berger no longer manufactures product in Berkeley, CA.  In 2009, operations remaining in the Bay area after the 2005 sale were closed down and all manufacturing was taking place in Illinois.

TCHO no longer manufactures product in San Francisco.  TCHO also purchased equipment from the Berkeley factory when Scharffen Berger closed down and moved, an interesting part of their origin story.

Stale Entries

The author makes a great deal of the number of brands and products reviewed. As he should – the book is a mammoth undertaking. But, again, is that labor everything it seems?

A close look reveals that not all of the products included in this edition were reviewed for this edition. Many were reviewed for the first edition. Anything not specifically tasted for this edition lacks tasting notes (pages!), and are thus incomplete and stale.

That would be okay (maybe) if there were just a few. But, perusing alphabetically from the beginning, the list includes:

A Xoco by Anthon Berg; Amatller; Amrani; Australian Homemade; Beschle; Bioart (partial); Bovetti; Butler’s; Cacaoyere; Café-Tasse; Charbonnel et Walker; Chococo; Chocolate Orgániko; Chocolove; Chocovic; and Coco Bruni. Sixteen companies whose reviews are implicitly labeled as stale (IMO) in the first three letters of the alphabet.

I did not have the patience to count through the entire 550 reviews, but a casual extrapolation suggests that there may be 100 or more entries— or 20% or more of the total —whose reviews and/or tasting notes were not updated for this edition.

This again speaks volumes for my thinking of the book as a compendium and not as the reference standard .

In his response to Part 1, Bernardini says, “

Again an error, Clay. Some batches are published (example: Brazen p227). … But who cares which batch was tasted? The reader? What the hell you think is usefull [sic] to him to know that I tasted 6, or 8, or 10 months ago Batch #40, Bar 32 of 44 from Brazen Bar Dominican Republic 70%??? … How many pages would I have to add if I note all the batches?”

Seriously? Let me unpack this for you:

Pointing out one instance I did not see and claiming that this proves his entire point is not proof.

If Bernardini thinks that the batch information is not useful, then why include it in any instance in the first case? ( I do agree that listing bar number figures is pretentious in most cases.)

Wines are vintaged because we know that they vary from harvest to harvest. Even mildly aware wine drinkers do not expect the 2010 vintage to taste the same as the 2011.  Batch numbering is important because (especially in the case of small craft producers), the chocolate is very often not consistent from batch to batch. Everyone with a decent amount of experience tasting craft chocolate knows this. Many craft chocolate makers embrace this: It’s at the heart of my distinction between craft and industrial chocolate.

So, if someone reads a review of a small-batch craft chocolate maker based on a review, knowing the batch number signals to them that if they buy a bar from a different batch it might not taste exactly the same—or be even close.

For Georg not to understand this basic fact of chocolate demonstrates to me a pretty fundamental lack of understanding. And not to even recognize the validity of my raising the issue . Seriously, Georg? Really?

I have recent personal experience with this issue. I was in a specialty chocolate store in NYC and purchased 10 bars each of three chocolates as a part of a horizontal flight from the same origin. I was not paying attention and it did not occur to me that the store would stock a shelf with bars from different batches at the same time. When I got to the tasting (in a foreign country) I realized that I had bars from two different batches of “the same” chocolate. However, they tasted nothing alike: they were not even recognizably the same chocolate. If I had purchased one of the chocolates based on Bernardini’s reviews (not knowing the batch number), I might have been bitterly (literally) disappointed in what I bought. Thank goodness I know enough to understand why, but many consumers would not. BTW, a ll three chocolates were produced by companies that the author gives decent to outstanding ratings to in TRS and that have won awards in international competitions.

On a side note, this is a fundamental problem I have with virtually all bar ratings that get published. I mention this not in defense of Georg, but in a book that calls itself the reference standard I expected a less cavalier approach to the topic.

As I pointed out earlier, the limitations of length are an inherent limitation of the print format. To suggest that a reason not to include potentially valuable information is because of a lack of space undermines claims of being comprehensive and again begs the question of why many companies were included at all.

Ironically, if Georg had done a good job of editing the English translations from the German and fixed the awkward construction of many sentences it would have eliminated a lot of redundancy—freeing up more than enough space to include batch information in the ratings of bean-to-bar companies. On the other hand , using a construction in the Brazen review Bernardini offers up of Dark: Dominican Republic 70% (B#37) would not have changed the length of the book by a single page.

Lazy Editing in the Reviews

Some city names are not spelled in English (e.g., Belgrad [which is German, where Beograd, which is Serbian, and in English it would Belgrade]), where others are (Lucerne [Luzern], Cologne [Köln]). Consistency is important—either all English, or all in German, or all in the local tongue, but not a mix. This is what good editors do. What the publisher fails to want to understand is that these kinds of mistakes undermine the credibility of everything else in the book—for educated readers.

Some terms are just plain not translated (e.g., preiskategorie in the entry on Damian Alsop).

Apagey chocolate uses Barbarian [sic] sugar.

At least one entry lists a website URL and a Facebook URL. Why only one? Why not every company that has a Facebook page? Space? That's been addressed already.

The Rating System Used in TRS

Those of you who have been following my work on chocophile.com starting all the way back in 2001, on TheChocolateLife.com, and/or have read Discover Chocolate know that I am not a fan of numerical rating systems for chocolate.

Why is that?

In part it’s because I am partial to systems that make sense emotionally, that embrace the idea of “liking” a chocolate for reasons beyond a simple sensory evaluation. Such as, “Is this chocolate a good value for the price?” or “How fiercely do I like this chocolate?” These are concepts that are not conveyed by conventional numerical ratings.

Another part of the reason is that I struggled endlessly with where to establish the relationships between the different sensory characteristics that come into play. I asked myself (this was beginning back in 1998) “What percentage of the final score should flavor be? 25%? 20%? 40%? Aroma? Texture? Or technical aspects such as snap (hearing) and sheen (sight) which speak to how well a bar is made and attest to the skill of the maker in different ways?”

There is no standard around these weightings, making comparing ratings that assign different weights to variables or that have a different number of variables pretty much useless because an 87 in one rating is very likely calculated differently from an 87 in another rating system.

But a main part of the reason is, to this day, nearly 20 years on, I that I still ask myself: " What is the meaningful difference between an 87 rating and an 89 rating?"

What is the difference in perception created in a reader’s mind between an 89 rating and a 91 rating?  Even though the 89 and the 91 are the same distance apart as the 87~89 rating?”

Why is it important? A 91 often leads to the mistaken impression that it is much better than 89 just because the leading digit is a 9 and not an 8. It's the psychological difference between getting a B+ and an A-.  I have no good answers to these questions—and I suspect that they are not answerable in any satisfactory way.

Bernardini takes the inherent dysfunctionality of numerical rating systems as I point out to an illogical extreme: not only does he ask us to believe that there is a meaningful difference between fractional points (e.g., an 81.00 rating and an 81.10 rating) but that his palate is discriminating enough to reliably tell the difference .

He also asks us to believe that he can reliably distinguish the difference down to hundredths of a point! It is just not reasonable to ask anyone to accept that there is a meaningful difference between two chocolates rated 62.75 and 62.63 or that Georg has a palate that can reliably and repeatedly operate at that level of discrimination. (Examples of hundredth–point differences in ratings can be seen in the entry for Richart on p676.)

I am confident that this is actually an artifact of the math used to calculate the ratings, and not a reflection of any preternatural tasting ability on Bernardini’s part.

But it is precisely this very precision that implies a credibility that cannot exist except in the minds of unsophisticated and unquestioning readers.

Summary of Part 2

In his response to my review, Norbert Mergen-Metz effusively praises TRS, calling it a “master piece” [sic]. A dictionary definition of masterpiece is, “a work of outstanding artistry, skill, or workmanship.” There is an enormous amount of work involved in compiling, writing, editing, and publishing a book like TRS. But the amount of effort involved is not listed as a criterion for attaining masterpiece status.

There is no question, whatsoever, that Chocolate – The Reference Standard (“TRS”) represents an enormous amount of work. It is a not-close-to-being-comprehensive-compendium of many things chocolate and attempts to treat the subject holistically (literally from tree to mouth) at a scope that no other book I know of has done. For that effort the author needs to be acknowledged, and I did and do. But again, I caution that it is important not to confuse quantity with quality.

I have been approached privately by several people who have chastised me for the tone I used in my review and to say that the reviews in TRS corresponded with their own tastes and so they found them useful. But I am not concerned with TRS just for its reviews, and I acknowledge that the reviews serve a purpose and are a useful guide for some readers. O thers who have been in touch with me find the reviews less useful. YMMV – your mileage may vary.

Georg suggests that companies who feel slighted by his reviews should look at his comments as an opportunity to improve going forward (as if they should change their practices to meet Georg's standards). Georg should feel the same way about many of my comments—as constructive criticisms to address for future editions of TRS.

Except there probably won’t be any future editions. So, what he has published, warts and all, has the potential to become the reference standard purely by default .

And therein lies the danger. There is an awful lot of information in TRS that is inconsistent, incomplete, and just plain wrong. As the reference standard, these inconsistencies, partial truths, innuendo, and errors have the potential to become the truth as they are repeated on the Internet by people who don't know any better.

And that would be a very sad thing for chocolate.

I stand by my basic conclusion that the finished work product does reflect considerable laziness: laziness in editing the translation, laziness in basic fact checking, and laziness in not being internally consistent in the application of its own guidelines.

Stay tuned for Part 3 !

[Feb 2: Edited for typos, grammar, and clarity.]

Daniel -

All good suggestions.

Ian -

It sounds like what you are trying to do is to make a lavender-scented chocolate using flowers. By adding scented cocoa butter to nibs and sugar you need to make the lavender flavor in the butter very strong to be evident in the chocolate. You are using fresh lavendar, right?

The way the Italians did this traditionally (albeit with fresh jasmine) was to aromatize the beans. They put layers of beans in boxes alternated with layers of jasmine and the fat in the beans absorbed the aroma of the flowers, which were discarded before the beans were processed further.

Try an alcohol extraction of the lavendar using everclear. This will pull out different aromatic compounds than the fat extraction. Evaporate off the alcohol by pouring it over some nibs and put in a very low oven. You can still use the fat extraction to deliver a fuller flavor.

You could pre-process some of the sugar in a food processor with some of the lavendar flowers. This would extract the aromas in the sugar and the particles would be further refined in the grinder/melangeur. Might not be perfect, but the little hits of lavendar from the larger particles could be an asset, not a defect.

Sebastian - Do you have any experience or opinions using permethrin spray to control and combat cocoa moths? It's available commercially in quantity, not too expensive, and appears to be harmless to humans and lethal to moths and larvae of not only cocoa moths but other insect pests.

Disclaimers

I purchased my copy of the English–language version of  Chocolate – The Reference Standard at full face value at the Origin Chocolate event in Amsterdam in October 2015. It was not given to me as a review copy. In reading, I noticed a favorable mention of TheChocolateLife (p875). This did not influence my re view. On a side note, it was the marketing department of my publisher, Gotham Books, who decided to include the phrase “… The Ultimate Guide …” as the tag line on the cover of my book, Discover Chocolate, over my objections. Sadly, to me, “ultimate” was prophetic in one respect – it is still the only book of its kind.

Chocolate - The Reference Standard

Germany [Bonn]
http://www.thechocolatetester.com/home/

Overall Rating:  Six pods (out of six) for sheer scale. One pod (out of six) for objectivity and reliability of information.
Processing stage : Unedited or lightly edited translation (Unconfirmed).
Price category: €€€€€

As Rick and Mike Mast  have been so publicly reminded over the past few weeks, if you are going to make superlative claims for your product, you had better deliver on those claims. This is a lesson that Georg Bernardini, author of Chocolate – The Reference Standard (“TRS”), may well be forced to learn.

By deliberately renaming this edition of his book The Reference Standard (p14) , the task the author set himself was not just to create a broad survey of available chocolate (4,400 individual products from 550 brands from 70 countries, according to the author: I did not count them) but also to ensure that the information presented as fact is, in fact, factually accurate. In other words, to create a volume that actually deserves to be held up as not just a reference standard, but as the reference standard.

With respect to the former task of creating a survey of currently available chocolate, Bernardini set himself an almost impossible task because no matter how comprehensive the attempt is or was, there were and are bound to be many companies overlooked or given short shrift, and much of the information, especially about the products and companies would be out of date by the time the book went to press.

Nonetheless, it is the scope and expansiveness where TRS is the most satisfying. Although I have been involved in chocolate professionally since 1998 and have been writing about and reviewing and rating chocolate since 2001, there are companies in this book I had never heard of before. Not “known about but never tried,” but genuinely never heard of before. The little trill of discovery when running across a new name is cool—it some rate an entry in my travel journal as a place to visit when I can.

The information about the companies is presented in a reasonably consistent and generally approachable and understandable fashion. It’s possible to skim the book looking for a known favorite brand (entries are arranged alphabetically and there is a listing up front) or to scan the book for companies that are rated highly (five or six pods) or that Bernardini is less sanguine about (none or one pods).

It’s this grazing aspect of consuming the book that makes it fun but the fact that there is a whole lot to consume lends an un warranted perception of value to the book; it is when you stop grazing and actually start examining TRS closely that some very real flaws reveal themselves.

Flaws, that, in my opinion, make the book dangerous and its author not someone to trust, let alone laud.

To be fair, it’s hard for me to know from where many of the flaws stem, because I am not fluent in German. But when you start reading the book it’s quickly clear that after the book was translated there was none, or only very little, editing or fact checking done by anyone whose first language is English or who is knowledgeable about cocoa and chocolate.

TRS is littered with grammatical and typographical errors, and the awkwardly convoluted structure of many sentences clearly comes from TRS’s German–language origin. The first times I came across these, they struck me as amusing. Very quickly, however, the quirky sentences became annoying because they make trying to understand what the author actually wants to convey much more difficult and many times impossible.

More troubling, to my mind, is that there are some things that are presented as fact that are ambiguous or just plain wrong. And it’s here that my lack of understanding of German (and my unwillingness to fork over another €50 plus shipping for a German-language version of TRS) comes into play.

I just don’t know how many of the errors are in the German-language original or if they crept in during the translation. The translation may be the source of some specific jarring language choices that are not in the original. Two examples, gladly forego on the cover and the overuse (to my mind) of the words tolerate and suspect . (TRS is offered up as a reference standard, so nothing should be suspect. It should be verified and fact-checked as true, or it doesn’t warrant inclusion.)

I suspect (this is a review and I am not claiming it to be a definitive reference and I am going to use the word to highlight several points) that the source of some of the factual errors in TRS are a result of the translation, but I don’t know that this is the case in any specific instance.

For example, in the section on cocoa sourcing and the Dominican Republic (p34), the text reads, “The two most frequently cultivated varieties are Sanchez and the prestigious cocoa bean Hispaniola.” Actually , Sanchez and Hispaniola are not varieties of cacao, they are terms that refer to fermented beans (Hispaniola, from the name of the island), or the lack of fermentation (Sanchez, from the name of a port). The question is, is the source of the error the translation (I think not in this case), or is it actually a fundamental misunderstanding on the author’s part? If the latter, then that calls into question everything the author claims as fact: What does he really know? What can we trust? What can we take at face value as being true?

I don’t know.

And in this specific instance I am consciously committing the same act that lies at the heart of my main criticism of TRS and the one that undermines its credibility and any claims it has to authority: I am being lazy . I could easily reach out and find someone who owns the German-language original and ask. But I did not, in order to make the very particular important point that there are many places in TRS where Bernardini has been lazy, and dangerously so because of claiming the mantle of reference standard.

An egregious example of this laziness is in the entry for Perú’s Cacaosuyo (pp 239-40). Bernardini opines that the processing stage Cacaosuyo occupies is “Bean-to-Bar (Unconfirmed)”.

The text reads, “It is not quite sure whether the company actually manufactures the chocolate itself. Too often it is rumored that they are private label products … It is hard to believe that the company controls all steps from cultivation to manufacture … For this, the communication and transparency are too meager for me [emphasis added].” And in the Summary, “A little more communication and transparency on their website because, apart from a logo, there is nothing and it would do the credibility of the company good.”

The only way I can read this is that Bernardini relied on reports of rumors and a lack of information on their website to punish the company by questioning its integrity with the Unconfirmed label. Apparently, Georg did not actually take the time or make the effort necessary to find out for sure one way or another: he perpetuates rumors with innuendo. To what purpose? What does this say about Bernardini’s integrity?

Note : I have personally visited the Cacaosuyo factory in Lima and have seen the process from the bean to finished bars. I have not visited the farms, but have spoken extensively with Samir Giha about them.

The entry for Pacari is similarly lazy and dismissive, but here’s where the deep waters of editorial decision-making become murky when a competitive entry is examined closely.

Quite rightly, Bernardini recuses himself from writing the review for Ecuadorian chocolate company and Pacari competitor, Hoja Verde (four pods, pp440-43), because he points out that he consulted to them in 2013.

Notwithstanding this distancing, Hoja Verde, which does not make its own chocolate, is given four pages of editorial where Pacari, a much more highly-respected and better-known brand internationally, a brand that consistently places highly in international competitions where Hoja Verde does not, rates the same four pods but just two pages (pp641-42) and is given the reputation–questioning (Unconfirmed) status label.

Even Valrhona , arguably one of the five most important companies in the book, rates only two pages plus a paragraph (pp792-95). Bonnat gets two pages (pp220-22) and six pods; Cluizel, a shade over two pages (pp289-291) and the same four-pod rating as Hoja Verde; Domori two-and-a-half pages (pp339-241) and six pods. Utterly bafflingly, Felchlin rates zero pages though is mentioned in passing as one of the best, if not the best, private-label manufacturers in the world!

Given these direct observations of what did and not make the cut, I can’t help but wonder how much Bernardini’s involvement with Hoja Verde did actually factor into the hard–to–believe editorial decision to give them far more love than many far more important and deserving companies. As the publisher, responsibility lies solely in Bernardini’s hands.

Favoring Hoja Verde with so much unquestioning editorial makes no sense in a book that purports to be The Reference Standard with a focus on “the best … in the world.”

Note :  I have not personally visited Pacari’s operations in Ecuador. However, I have contacted people who have visited Pacari over the course of years, who know what to look for, and whose integrity is above reproach.

There are other examples of this laziness, or suspected undisclosed bias, throughout the book. Patrice Chapon (for example) is also punished with the (Unconfirmed) label, and reading the lazy and superficial explanation leaves me wondering if there is something personal behind the review.

For me, this consistent pattern (barely–known companies being given a lot of coverage and well–known companies being overlooked entirely or having comparatively few products reviewed and rated) who are clearly not “the best in the world … [that] we would gladly forego”  is a key factor that undermines both the credibility and authority of the book as there are no clear guidelines about what was included—other, I suspect, than what Bernardini could get his hands on to review.

And It makes me wonder if there are any other instances where editorial coverage was influenced for personal or business reasons. Was, for example, the Maison Boissier review influenced in any way by the full page ad for The Salon du Chocolat?

Why I Say TRS is a Dangerous Book

TRS is self–published, and hiring experienced and knowledgeable editors and fact checkers to review a book of this breadth would be a very expensive proposition. However, for a book that calls itself The Reference Standard , it is precisely at this point where the author/publisher has undermined his own efforts, let down his readers, and created a situation ripe for dangerous exploitation.

As was revealed during the unfolding Mast Brothers story, the people reporting the story took the claims the Brothers made at face value and, at least apparently, did no fact checking. This meant that no one methodically looked at and publicly challenged their claims to have (for example) created/invented/innovated the entire production pathway they used until the series of articles on DallasFood.org. The Brothers (deliberately and cynically in my mind) took advantage of the lack of knowledge of media covering them and the consuming public, and coupled with some strategic endorsements from chefs who probably should have known better, were able to advance their claim that they made the best chocolate in the world.

It is exactly this confluence—ignorance (of chocolate), gullibility (it’s such a huge book it must be valuable/good), and lack of critical questioning—that lulled media and organizations and individual that should have known better into endorsing (explicitly or by implcation) both The Reference Standard and Georg Bernardini.

This uncritical institutional acceptance only serves to give weight to the claim that the book is, in fact, deserving of its self-attribution as The Reference Standard . There are ideas and errors of omission and commission in TRS that will be perpetuated for years, and reputations called into question because Bernardini was either lazy or cheap in not editing the translation or fact checking very important facts, and possibly favoring at least one company over all others.

Despite these flaws and many others, people are citing the book as a credible and authoritative source. The fact that TRS is a print publication does a great deal to imply the credibility that to my mind it does not deserve; the book was out of date before it went to press; any errors due to mistranslation or other reason cannot be corrected or discussed. If the information were online it would be far more usable (assuming the database was searchable), though far less valuable – to Bernardini’s reputation. A point that I believe is not lost on the author (who is also the publisher).

Summary

In the end, readers of Chocolate – The Reference Standard  should recognize that the ratings and reviews represent the opinions of a single person (with the exception of the troubling Hoja Verde entry). They are not gospel, the truth. They represent the opinion of one person. Your experiences tasting these chocolates will differ.

In part this is because not all products mentioned in this edition were rated specifically for this edition and may not represent the current state of the product, which may have been reformulated since being reviewed in a prior edition. Furthermore, among craft bean–to–bar chocolate makers especially, great pride is taken in the fact that their chocolate is not meant to be the same from batch to batch. Nowhere in any of the reviews of bean–to–bar chocolate I read did I notice any indication of which batch was tasted, even when that information would have been available. Thus, it is virtually guaranteed that whatever you taste it will not be what Bernardini tasted, reviewed, and rated.

And where is the reference standard value in that?

While we can marvel at the effort required to compile such a collection of entries in a very short period of time, it is also that effort in such a short time frame that undermines their reliability. We should not blind ourselves into believing that the quantity of effort involved is in any way equivalent to any qualitative aspect of that effort. I have pointed out just a few of those aspects above. There are many, many , more.

At best, TRS is a survey of a sampling of products from over 500 brands that Bernardini could get his hands on, and not, as the cover proclaims “The best chocolates and pralines in the world; What’s behind it [sic] all and what we would gladly forego”. If these are the best chocolates and pralines in the world – why would we gladly forego any of them? So, it’s important to recognize that TRS is a personal, idiosyncratic survey and sampling, one that because of its vastness is rife with errors of omission and commission, filled with factual errors, and that would be far more usable and useful if it were not distributed on dead trees.

Conclusion

I would like, in any comments, for members to focus on fact checking the book, not engaging in nit–picking the ratings and reviews of specific products, which, as I mention above, are completely personal. But – if there are factual errors in the book, I think everyone who owns a copy or refers to TRS as a reference standard should know about them. I can’t know everything and I don’t have the time to go through the book with a fine–toothed comb looking for them.

Read Part 2 of my review.

Listing image by @vera-hofman as posted on TheChocolateLife.

There is no particular reason to heat up cream in the Cadix and transfer it to a Stephan unless the Stephan has a vacuum attachment and the Cadix does not. If that's the case, then it may simply be a volume issue - the Cadix is a large heated vessel. You can get Cadix Pros with vacuum attachments.

As Sebastian points out, heating the cream to a certain point can help with shelf life and a high shear mixer is good for creating stable emulsions.

If your volume requirements are much smaller and you don't need the vacuum, something like a HotMix Gastro Pro might be worth looking at.

@dallas - commonly used on enrober (take-off) belts, no; they are most often found on cooling tunnel belts.

The take-off belt on most enrobers is too short for the chocolate to completely set, that's why paper or parchment is used to cover the belt and to make it easy to transfer the product to some other location to finish cooling. The textured belts (often with a logo) are custom-order items.

It's a product from CadixPro in France. Similar to a Stephan or RoboQbo. http://www.cadixpro.com/portfolios/sugar-cooker/?lang=en