Forum Activity for @Clay

Rosen -

Welcome to The Chocolate Life. We are here to help!

What tempering machine are you using?

Who in your operation knows how to temper properly by hand? Part of the issue is that you may be relying on the machine to temper and you are using a temperature formula that does not work for your chocolate. This is less of an issue with commercial couverture (but it is an issue). When you are making your own chocolate, the challenges are much greater.

Changes in humidty can affect temper. If the humidity is 55% one day and 75% the next then the temper points are likely to be different.

Just because you use a high-end tempering machine (what brand?) does not mean that the chocolate is in temper. The machines are not artificially intelligent - they only do what you tell them to do. The moisture in coconut palm sugar is particularly problematic.

David -

The whole idea of TheChocolateLife is open sharing. I hope people will answer publicly here - perhaps in addition to responding privately.

October is shot for many of us. There is a chocolate show here in NY the first weekend, then Chocolate Week in London followed by Origin Chocolate in Amsterdam and then the Salon du Chocolat in Paris.

In the US, anyway, you have the NW Chocolate Festival in mid-November followed by Thanksgiving. Trying to get most people out of their workshops to travel in December is going to be tough.

So that leaves September. After the 11th and then finish before the end of the month.

You want a mix of people to attend - buyers for sure (specialty brokers and small chocolate makers), but also people who can promote more generally ... writers, video production, and etc.

The organizers at the Salon del Cacao y Chocolate have done a great job of organizing these kinds of events/trips over the past five years.

I am interested in attending!

Grant -

Brad gives a lot of good advice here. 

Right now it sounds like everything is abstract. Actually make the products and try them and then give them to your friends and have them try them. Test them out. You won't know what works until you do.

One thing we don't know is where you are. Brad's shop is in Calgary, Alberta, CA, and that market might be different from other markets.

Using butter is a bad idea - there's already enough fat in cocoa. If you want to make your product thicker/richer just use less liquid or mix different milks. See the Wikipedia entry on this .

Why are you reluctant to use cornstarch? Have you tried it?

The most important take-away from what Brad says is that by trying to be everything to everybody you end diluting (pun intended) the brand and end up being ... without a viewpoint. You cannot cater to every potential food allergy or dietary fad out there.

Pick something and do it well. Own it unapologetically and do the best you can. Yes, you will lose some business ... but focus on the 90% who want your product and not the 10%. (Is there a vegan meetup in your area?)

If you want to do a water base and then prepare it with milk or water that's about as far as I would go ... but if you are steaming will you have to have two of everything (do you have room in your mobile environment?) to avoid cross-contamination -- the fraction of your customers who are vegans (research suggests that about 2.5% of the population is vegan - at the high end - but I bet the percentage of vegans in Omaha, NE is a lot less than in San Francisco) will require it.

But until you actually test in your market you can't know.

Brad - $6 Canadian? What's that in real money? [ Tongue planted firmly in cheek - it's a joke everyone. ]

Grant - there's some good advice in what Brad has to say. One is that you need to take a look at how long it's going to prepare a serving. One of the fastest ways — if you are committed to a la minute preparation — is to steam/froth an already prepare liquid. You don't have to have a 100% prepared in advance mix if your concept is something else, but take into consideration preparation times. It shouldn't take longer than preparing a cappuccino.

Water and milk make very different products. One is not necessarily better than the other, they are different. Traditionally, dairy was not used, water was. Cornstarch is a pretty modern ingredient in hot chocolate mixtures and is great (in small amounts) for adding mouth feel and body. Keep in mind that it does take some extra time for the starch to fully hydrate and if you serve it too soon it can have a pasty texture whether you use milk or water. In Mexico they used (and still use) very finely ground corn flour in their atole (also called champurrado).

If you wanted a very "authentic" product then water and very fine corn flour are one way to go. A more modern take (and one that might appeal to more customers) would be dairy and cornstarch. Of course, they aren't necessarily mutually exclusive.

AND, if you are going to use dairy, use the absolute best — freshest and most flavorful — dairy you can source.

:: Clay

Sanja -

The chocolate is not tempered properly. What you have here is a classic case of fat bloom.

The best way to fix the problem is to hone you tempering skills. That said, what are you using to sweeten the chocolate? Some sweeteners have a lot of moisture in them that interferes with the tempering process - so it could partly be a recipe issue.

Also - ambient environment can have an affect. Do you monitor temperature and humidity where you temper?

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?