Forum Activity for @TerryHo

I also have a real quick question which regards to tempering chocolate. Do you need to temper chocolate that contains cocoa butter and vegetable fats altogether? 

Dear sebastian,

Potassium carbonate seems like it doesn't dissolve in chocolate well, but it dissolve very well in water. Should I mix it with a little bit of water first, making it a concentrated water solution then add it to my chocolate? Will it seize my chocolate? or it will be ok and I can conch the water out later?

Thank you

dear sebastian,

thank you for your kind answers

May I put potassium carbonate directly into the chocolate solution? If so, how much? Should I measure the PH level of the solution while adding it in?

Hi sebastian,

I make chocolate from cocoa beans and cocoa butter. The recipe I'm using is 45% chocolate liquor 15% cocoa butter and 40% sugar. It tastes sugary at first then bitter and then sour ( wine-like ) after it melted.

The beans I'm using are from Vietnam which I believe Trinitario bean type. They doesn't smell like vinegar at all, just  a plain smell. But there is a little bit of the sour taste inside the raw fermentated beans when I bite it. I thought roasting can remove the remaining sourness ( the left over acidity ) inside the bean but it didn't work. Maybe the way I'm roasting it wrong that the sourness didn't completely evaporate during roasting?

Thank you

Thank you for all your kind answers,

I ran into some trouble with my new patch of chocolate. First of all, after roasting my cocoa beans in my coffee roaster for 40 mins at 150C, my beans didn't smell like baking brownie and it tasted a bit sour. I tried to remove the cocoa butter from my chocolate , but my cocoa powder still taste so sour and very bitter. So I tried to mix them all together to make dark chocolate and conch it for 24 hours to remove the sourness but the sour taste still remain in my chocolate after dissolving it on my tongue.

Can someone pls tell me what have I did wrong? And how to remove the sour taste in my chocolate? Could it be the problem with my beans? My roasting? Or my technique?

Thank you,

Thank you all for your kind answers. I also have another question that I'm trying to remove the shell of the cocoa bean from the meat ( winnowing ), but I can't remove all the chaff from it. Can anyone tell me what is the maximum percentage of chaff allowed in the final tage of winnowing before making the final chocolate?

Thank you

Hello everyone,

Could anyone tell me at what stage or conching/refining should I add sugar and lecithin to my chocolate? ( at the beginning of the conching/refining phase or near the end of the conching/refining?

Thank you!

For a patch of dark chocolate I'm working on and I want to add vanilla to it. What form of vanilla should I use while conching? ( whole vanilla pod/bean or vanilla powder) And at what stage is the proper stage should I add sugar, cocoa butter and vanilla into my chocolate?

Thank you

Terry

Thank you for your reply SeBastian,

I think if I want to make my own natural chocolate to dutched chocolate. I will just need to add 3 tablespoonsunsweetened cocoa powderplus a pinch (1/8 teaspoon) baking soda for every 1-ounce Dutch-Process Cocoa. Am I correct?

I know that the 2 main ingredients for dutching are Chocolate, alkalizingagent. Dutch-process cocoa powders and chocolate liquors are treated at the nib, liquor, or powder stage. *which stage and how to perform such process on chocolate* or just simply add a small portion of a alkalizing agent to chocolate during pressing stage? And will dutchingchocolate powder taste better as instant hot chocolate drink vs natural chocolate powder?

Thank you in advance!