Forum Activity for @Sebastian

Congrats on discovering you've got a surprise cocoa farm - not many can say that i don' t think 8-) Some things to consider moving forward, if i may. Whomever originally laid out your grandfathers farm had some knowledge of cocoa - i can tell from your photos. I can also tell from your photos that the trees have been there for some time - now, from what i can see they're all still pretty healthy and productive, but if you're going to migrate this from a discovery you didn't know you had to a sustainable business venture, you're going to want to give some consideration torehabilitation, and may wish to speak to someone about grafting and replenishment planting materials.

Best wishes to you in your new adventure!

taste it and tell us. it's a bit like me asking you which citroen is the best - you may have something compeltely different in mind as to what constitutes 'best'. the 'best' way , imo, is to decide for yourself 8-)

malt is made from wheat, maltose is a sugar.

Vanillin is available in two types - ethyl and methyl. The ethyl version is much, much stronger than the methyl - so use it very, very judiciously. Assuming it's pure (which it may not be - it my have a very substantial amount of what's known as a carrier or bulking agent added to it - usually dextrose or maltodextrin - your supplier could tell you) - I'd say you're off by 2 orders of magnitude. Remember, it's easy to add more if you don't like it; it's awfully hard to take some out if you've overdone it.

I think malt makes for a wonderful addition to milk chocolate, by the way. I wish more used it, but it's wheat derived, so allergens play into things for most folks.

Lactose, by definition, is milk sugar. You can get it in two forms - anhydrous and alpha monohydrate.

It's far less sweet than sucrose (40% or so). It's much, much harder than sucrose (harder to mill). You willcertainlyget a sweetness reduction by using it, i'd not say you'd get an increased milkiness as a result. Historically, it's been added to help lower costs as it's less expensive than milk, and may be considered a milk ingredient in some countries (important distinction for standards of identity). You also may end up with a chocolate with a slightly harder texture as a result of it's use.

In my opinion, if used at the appropriate levels and in the appropriate process, you can produce a product that may be quite similar to your 'control'. I do not believe you'll make something that's better as a result. But 'better' is a tough thing to define 8-)

Talk to a warehouse at a receiving port. You'll not get new bags, but so what, they're made out of plants. They'll have them by the truckload.

I've never been very impressed with the consumer grade food printers out there - if you look up some of the threads on the pastry and baking section of egullet, kerry has done some silkscreening of transfer sheets you might consider...

Well, the problem with 'the best chocolate' is that everyone believes they already have it 8-) it's a nebulous definition. Columbian beans can be absolutely wonderful. Think about what flavor profile you want; have a target in mind, and then work to custom taylor your beans to that profile. I would urge you to identify a partner to work with that has the ability to source a large amount of beans at a given time (ie more than a single family with 20 trees) as fermentation quantities are important. Start to play around with various fermentation protocols and drying methods and roast conditions until you find a flavor you're after. I would not simply identify a family, and ask them for beans, as you'll end up getting a highly variable result - if you liked it this time, you better really like it because you probably won't ever get it again.

Of course. I'd say, generally speaking, post harvest practices vary wildly almost everywhere, and there's a very, very low level of understanding on most farmers part of what good agricultural practices are, and the importance of good post harvest practices are and how they translate to the final product (or even what the final product is, which is a shame!). In every origin, you'll find extremes - those who know it very well, and those who don't - Columbia is no different than others in this regard.

The DR has moved largely to a wet bean buying model over the last 5 years - which has been a bit transformational for the farmer. It's much less labor for them, reduces the risk of theft, and speeds up their cash flow cycles. Most origins aren't sufficiently coordinated to do this on a large scale, and the more we see co-ops rise, the more this will change. The co-opfermentationapproach should, under the right guidance, lead to increased consistency, reduced defects (you'd hate to have highly consistent defects - which is what some origins have), which in turn should lead to a sustainable business model if the profits are applied thoughtfully for the future - one problem is many farmers don't think much about the future as they're so very focused on meeting their immediate needs. The more tools we can provide to prepare for the future, the better, and this includes not onlytrainingaround GAP's and quality, but soil nutrition, planting materials, education, health care, IPM, etc.

I'm unclear on what you're question is or what your goal is - if you're looking for a book to read to teach you how to do this, i don't think you're going to find one. If you're looking to create an organization that follows through to commercial sales, I'd urge you to contract or partner with someone who has some experience here vs trying to go it alone.

Actually, a great deal of the commercially available beans have remarkably great traceability. Some origins are obviously much, much better than others, but the traceability systems, in general, are better than you might expect.

Felipe - I've found that, generally speaking, unless the farmer has specifically asked me for something, my presence can often be perceived as an intrusion. When the tall white guy shows up, telling you to do something different than you've done for generations, there's almost always a skepticism. Often times a farmer doesn't realize he has a problem. Almost always he has no idea what his beans are used for, so how could he know what quality is? And they're often quite proud of their heritage and what they do - which is great. But it can make asking them to do something different difficult - even if it will dramatically improve their yield, reduce their disease, etc.

In the event someone has helped him understand quality, there's often conflicting information - ie i may tell him to do one thing (because that results in the outcome im' interested in), whereas someone else may tell him not to do that (because they want a different outcome).

The most effective way, imo, is to build a relationship that's mutually beneficial, and be overt about what you're asking them to do and why, showing them the results of both the good and the bad so they understand.

Once you apply for the permit, it will be reviewed at your state and federal level, and the gov't will come back with a list of conditions under which you must agree to in order to import the material. If you agree to those conditions, yes, you can import fresh pods.

Easier would be to simply order them from someone in hawaii (perhaps sharkman here).

Know that importation of viable plant material from outside of the US without a valid USDA APHIS permit will result in the shipment being confiscated at the border. Attempting to import plant materials illegally into the US may also result in you spending some time in a 12x12 windowless concrete room will a large man named Spider, and a fight over who gets which bunk.

Hard to say exactly not knowing your storage conditions, but chances are the white powder is either yeast or mold. Pretty normal, i'd not be overly concerned unless it's fuzzy.

Glad it worked! Since you pulled all the levers at once, it's hard to say which one did it 8-)

Letting dry beans age for 5 months is actually very, very good for the beans. Don't worry about that (as long as you stored them properly)

Altering post harvest practices can have a tremendous impact on the flavor of the beans - chances are his beans are of decent bean stock, and that it's the handling after growing that would be tweaked to get him something he's after. Age of beans (both from a maturity as well as how long it's been since they were 'picked'), disease state (especially in his part of the world), fermentation quantity, configuration, and protocol are immensely important, as is drying. If he's driving down to see the plantation, it's my very strongsuspicionthat whomever is providing him with beans isn't very well versed in post harvest control, and doesn't really know what 'levers' to pull to adjust the outcome. I assume you're working with Darin at UWI - he's great - just remember that he's got a very specific field of vision (WI specific), which has lots of history with their local govt's influencing things, and the origin has somepeculiaritiesthat would have me caution you on drawing too many parallels using the results from here to other origins.

In general, i'm of the opinion that it's a much smoother road to spend the time with your supplier(s) up front to direct the outcome so that 'fixing' it later doesn't have to be done. Some 'fixes' can be affected with processing, but it's a much tougher road to travel, and there's no guarantee of success!

Just noticed your location. Do you have any insight as to how the beans were dried (or better yet, any influence over how they're dried?). Which country are the beans coming from (i'm assuming they're in your region..)

You're quite likely not doing anything wrong; what you're seeing is the result of fermentation, which generates lots of organic acids - and may have been left to go longer than it probably should have. Remember that there's no 'right' way to ferment beans - this farm you're working with may very specifically be targeting acidic beans, as that may be what someone has directed them to do in the past for a specific flavor profile, be it alone or in a blend. Or it could be that they screwed up. Hard to say w/o more details. You've got a few options you could try, i think:

1) Roast at a lower temperature, for a longer period of time. You might even consider wetting the beans a bit and trying to steam off the acetic acid by azeotroping it. I probably wouldn't start with that, but it might be something to try at a later time of other approaches don't give you what you want.

2) Take the lid off your melanage, and let it melange for 3x as long. Acetic is a fairly low molecular weight organic acid - you can tell this because you can smell it. If it wasn't, you couldn't smell it. It wants to go away. You're trapping it in by keeping the lid on, and the longer you let the cycle go, the more opportunity it will have to escape. Also consider heating environment (keep it below 160F) as heat has a direct impact on volatility.

3) Try adding a little bit of baking soda to your batch. Baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) is a very weak base. You've got some acid present. Give the two a chance to dance and neutralize one another. You'll have to play with the levels, but i'd start very low.

lots and lots of places do confections training - i was approaching the question from a bean -> bar perspective. If he'd like more general confectionery training, there's hundreds of places to go for that...i may have misunderstood.

Depends on what the choices of microbrews are at the local pub afterwards 8)

It's been my experience that there are very few schools out there - ZDS in Germany does a bit of it, but not many others. Not many people have the full breadth and depth of knowledge to span the full range of ingredients (cocoa, milk, sugar, emulsifiers, flavors) as well as processes and how they interact. Might be an opportunity for some enterprising person to try to assemble an educational event targeted to specific needs.

I've actually had some made from camel's milk - completely unhelpful, i know, but it was actually very, very good. not entirely practical for you however 8-)

Under no circumstance do i advocate adding fluid milk to your santha. Unless you've got a very good understanding of the microbiological dangers (and controls), and have the appropriate equipment in addition to your santha to help control that, i'd urge you to steer clear from this approach.

is a red car better than a blue car? 8-) appeal and personal preference are multidimensional - and dependent upon many factors that have nothing to do with the final product itself, but involve perception. folks might perceive it to be better because it's made with liquid milk. will it taste different or feel different? that depends entirely on how you process it.

Many - it's how milk chocolate was made for a long time, before drying technologies were invented. It's also the reason crumb was invented. Wet milk brings with it a host of challenges, microbiological and physical. It'll be quite challenging for the average joe to successfully incorporate fluid milk into a moldable chocolate. I'd strongly urge you to take the dried milk approach.

Even for those well versed in the practice of making chocolate, with lots of years of experience and fancy machines - most will elect to go the route of dried milk.

I think there's two salient points:

1) Hsy has a large enough momentum to affect change, and change has to begin small. There's insufficient capacity in the network to make sudden, large movements

2) Hsy doesn't really source much cocoa anymore, Barry Callebaut does it for them.

The Bliss move is simply reactionary to what Mars did with Dove (Bliss is, afterall, a 'me too' product that competes head to head). Dagoba's simply the easy one to do because it's volume is so incredibly small. it's effectively an easy gimme for Hsy. CdI is a tough place to work in now, what with all the unrest of last year and the current reorganization of the cocoa sector by the gov't at the behest of the world bank(ironic, if you know the history). Although the scale of the issue is larger there simply because the scale in general is larger, the achievable momentum is in Ghana, which is why they probably started there. That, and that's probably where BC told them they could do something. I'd give Hsy the benefit of the doubt that they're intent is good; we can argue what is the most effective way to go about it, but i think it's safe to say that they're not simply doing it for the soundbite on the nightly news. People will always argue that someone isn't moving fast enough or grandly enough. Little guys will always look at whatever the big guy does with distrust, regardless of intent or facts. At current production rates of farmers, and current global growth rates, combined with increasing quality issues and decreasing generational farmer intent to continue farming, the industry as a whole should be quite concerned about it's future, and everyone involved should be looking at ways of addressing sector rehabilitation in general. Few people get to see (fewer yet understand) the scope of the problem at hand.

Brown sugar will indeed add moisture to your chocolate, which can be a problem. I'd say, generally speaking, just make sure you've got enough white sugar on hand before you start 8) however, now that you've got brown sugar in it, here's what I'd try:

1) if it's not 'chunky' (rather just sandy feeling) let the grinder run for another 24 hours. if you've got the ability to run it in a 'hot' area (lets say 30-35C), do so, with the top off the grinder.

2) additionally, you didn't mention anything about lecithin. If you have some, add 0.5% of fluid lecithin after you run the grinder for another 12 hours. that'll give time for the water to evaporate off, and the lecithin will help bind up any remaining water.

I think you'll find much better texture with that option - it'll put you somewhere in the neighborhood of 34% fat (maybe a touch higher depending on what nibs you're using) which should be liquid enough for the grinder to function properly. Your fineness will now largely be a function of how long you leave it in- the longer it spins, the finer it'll be. Enjoy!

W/o having a formula, it's impossible to determine how much fat you have. However, i'm going to guestimate that you've got about 25% cocoa fat in there - which is low. To tom's point, one of your issues may be that it's simply not enough fluidity for the unit to grind efficiently, and you're going to have to find a way to further fluidize it - either via some lecithin or additional fat. It's my guess that you're low enough in fat that lecithin's not going to get you to where you need to be, so you're prob looking at additional fat. Now, i'd not monkey around with veg fats. Unless you know what you're doing, there's a very high likelihood that you're going to very quickly run into something called eutectics, which will give you all sorts of troubles should you want to temper this. Rather, i'd look to add cocoa butter. Now, yo'uve got two options:

1) add pure cocoa butter, bring the total fat up to, oh, say 35%. Or, if you don't have access to cocoa butter

2) remove the contents of your grinder, and add more roasted nibs. Liquify those nibs - they'll have an approximate fat content of, lets say 52%. Once you create you fluid chocolate liquor, slowly add in your original paste batch, using the fluidity from the extra liquor to assist with the grinding. 0.2% fluid lecithin will also help at this point.

It's important to have the right tool for the right job. Each tool has it's limitations, and once you ID the right tool, it's just as important to understand how to use the tool. For the vast majority of folks on this site, a micrometer will likely be the right tool - as long as it's used right. For this group of people, actually, the mouth itself is probably the right tool. Given sufficient experience, I've found that I've been able to 'resolve' down to 15-16 um particle size (largest particle), w/in a +/- 4/5 um range. Most of you making chocolate here aren't going to need a deep, deep understanding of particle size, shape, or distribution, and spending lots and lots of money to get a number that your tongue could probably tell you may not be money well spent.

It's important to ask yourself "why do i need this piece of information, and what will i do with it". If the # itself isn't important to you , and really the information you're looking for is 'do i have a chocolate with a good mouthfeel or not' then just put it in your mouth 8-)

Remember there are caveats with any tool. Caliper type micrometers with spinner adjustments:

1) only measure the largest piece in the sample, and the sample presented to the tool is very, very small

2) can actually crush the largest piece by using the spinner to close the gap, thereby resulting in a smaller reading than it should be (can compensate for this at some level by having a pressure guage affixed to it)

3) only measure in one axis. ie, if you put a pencil in it and measure the width of it, you'll get a small reading. however, it's unlikely the pencil would be presented in such a fashion as to have the tool 'see' it from eraser to lead - which would be a much, much larger reading. those types of shapes exist in chocolate.

Still a very useful tool, just need to be aware of what it's actually telling you and what it's limitations are 8-)

chocolate is a suspension of mostly solids in a bit of fat, the more fat you add, the more disperse your solids are, and the less likely that they'll be 'stacked' or agglomerated together on your measuring device. strictly speaking, you don't need to add a dispersant to your chocolate to measure it, but it sure does help with the precision.

Definately suggest you run some tests batches before you buy it. Make sure you run enough of it to get it to steady state, and think about cooling, because it's going to get very, very hot.

A grind gage will do ok for rough and dirty process control. will do a terrible job at PSD.

Lots of different types of colloid mills. Be sure you run your product, at your formulation, through the mill before you spend a lot of money to buy it. You'll want to understand if it makes what you think it will before you own it. Regardless, after coilloid or ball milling, you're going to have another grinding step, i assume? Or are you planning on running your milk, sugars, and nibs through the colloid mill? Probably not what you want to hear, but i don't think i'd treat a colloid mill as a 'one stop grinding shop'.

Edit - i'm afraid omar, that you'll find that any tool, used to measure micron precision, that's worth using at all, will likely cost more than you think it will, and take longer than you'd like it to for it to arrive. You'll have to decide if it's a need to have or a nice to have.

The most appropriate ones are those with built in pressure guages to avoid overtightening. Mitotoyo (spelling?) can make them but i believe they're special order.

Your particle size is just fine. I admit i've not had a bar in a while, so i'm going from memory (and i eat far more chocolate than your average bear...) - but from recollection, i'd put the max particle size somewhere in the 20um range, which is a nice place to be. I do think you've got too much much cocoa butter in the last bars i tasted (which you already know 8-))

of course, always willing to give a sensory/phsyical analysis update on fresh samples 8-)

I've got a laser particle size distribution of chocolates made with the melanges somewhere. If i can find it, i'll post it. To be honest, when these first began to be used, i was inordinately skeptical. i didn't think it could be done either. What i've observed is that they're able to make chocolates that, from a particle size reduction standpoint, exceed almost everything that's commercially available via conventional processing. Now, that's not to say conventional processes can't do it - they can - but in order to get that fine, it takes a long time - same as with these machines. If time is not an issue for you, you can make exceptional product with them.

From reading your material, you appear to be at the same level of skepticism i was 10 years ago. Do this for me - there's any number of artisinal chocolate products available today that are made via this fashion. Select a few to purchase, and taste them. If you have the knowledge and resources, analyze them. Then make your assessment. If you've never used the equipment, and you've never assessed product made on the equipment, it may not be fair to judge it.

Disclaimer - I have no vested interest in the home chocolate maker, the equipment used to do it, or the ingredients that go into it. Quite the opposite actually.

I would disagree with your statement that the stone mills aren't able to produce a chocolate <30 um. I've had results as fine as 8um by micrometer, and that method measures the largest particle (meaning most of the particles are <8um). Now, the grinders are exactly standardized, so your results will vary from grinder to grinder, which may be why you're saying what you're saying. However, it is quite possible to make a fine particle size chocolate using one.

Assuming you're not too creative with your ingredients (ie you're n ot using nuts or nut oils), yes - temper it properly, ensure you cool it appropriately, and then don't store it in a warm place - and you'll be good!

You're getting into some very fine technical points here that, while interesting, i'd not spend a great deal of time on learning and trying to control the finer points of. What you're referencing is the fact that cocoa butter is polymorphic - ie, when it converts from a liquid to a solid, it can take one of 5-6 different solid forms. Tempering is the process of trying to control that to some extent, and result in a cocoa butter that is predominantly what we call beta prime. Without having a great deal of very expensive equipment, you'll not know which form you have - however, if you temper the chocolate, and it releases properly and doesn't bloom, you've got what you're looking for. Conching has almost no impact on your crystalline form - it's the tempering process that controls crystallization (well, that and cooling after tempering, and storage).

wow - that's a terribly inefficient way to make cocoa butter! It'll be < than a 50% recovery even on the best days i suspect.

The other thing to consider is that consistently fermenting 100lbs can be tough - it's not much mass to work with, and as a result your mass temperature will be limited, and your bean surface:atmosphere surface ratio will be huge - not sure what your intent was for these 100 lbs (if it was just for butter or not), but ultra small scale fermentations can be a tough road to travel.

What do you mean in the first paragraph of 'cocoa butter being cooked out rather than pressed'?

Your formulation looks to be 70.8% nibs, 11.6% cocoa butter, and 17.5% sugar. roughing the nibs out at 50% fat, this puts your total chocolate recipe at 47% fat - which is on the high side (and in all likelihood it's a bit higher as DR beans will almost assuredly be more than 50% fat). It's hard to quantify what "very liquified" means in text - but at 47% fat, one can expect to have a pretty fluid chocolate even w/o lecithin.

If you're happy with the flavor and the physical properties 'work' for how you intend to use the chocolate, i would'nt worry about it. if it's too fluid for you, take 7-8% of the cocoa butter out and massage the recipe until you hit your sweet spot.