Wow! I must see the process and taste it too, I can't imagine what the taste will be like, cause the fermentation process, in my knowledge so far, that take charge for the flavor development in cacao bean. But, isn't nibs, cocoa butter and powder need process from cacao bean, to make those form?
See your raw group soon,
Willy
Alas I'm a long way from nurturing a plantation! One day maybe.. Raw chocolate is working with the unprocessed, un-roasted bean, nibs, butter and powder. A superior health food! Big Tree farms has a revolutionary process here on Bali, currently offering the world's only guaranteed raw product. I'll start a raw group when I figure out how :)
Suki
Hi Suki,
Nice to know you. I've been spent my holiday at Bali in 2004, it's been a long time and I never go to Ubud though. And I just knew when I learn about chocolate recently, that Bali have cacao plantation too. Need saving money from now for go to Ubud, visiting your plantation. I have spent a lot money for chocolates and books about chocolate recently:-p
I don't get what is raw chocolate mean, can you explain it for me? Or, is there any discussion about raw chocolate here?
Regard,
Willy
Hi Willy,
I'm new to Ubud, Bali - I'm making some raw chocolate & just starting with growing my own cacao plants.. Suki
Wow! It's shocking me, for someone here greet me with Indonesian :p
I live in Jakarta, the capital city of Indonesia. Are they member to this community too? I'm looking forward to meet them.
Thanks for your support, your Indonesian is good, have you been here before?
Apa kabar, WIlly?
Welcome to The Chocolate Life. Where in Indonesia are you? I have a friend in Sumatra who is growing cacao and wants to start making chocolate there. There are also a few growers/sellers in Bali you could talk to.
Good luck! Selamat tinggal!
Greeting everyone!
My name is Bong Willy, you can call me Willy or just Will.
I live with my family that work in micro scale garment industry. So, I'm a newbie to this gourmet food thing, especially chocolate (before knowing fine chocolate, just knew chocolate as a snack and in cheap confection). Oh, and also, pardon for my bad English, not having any formal course except from school.
When first met with Jeffry Lukito (TCL member too) and a pastry chef, named Markus Andrew, opened my mind about real chocolate (they using couverture term) and compound. Then, after tasted Valrhona, I realized that there is a different categories for chocolate, it is fine chocolate.
Not satisfied with the last meeting, I start looking about fine chocolate from internet. The more I learn, the more I don't know about this. Start with how to taste it, how it become from cacao plant into chocolate bar, the brief history and then, this community. My mind was blew with this information about fine chocolate and make me have this passion to jump in chocolate industry.
In my country, only people who have been live abroad (Europe, Australia, or USA) or have formal study in culinary school that have this passion about gourmet food, especially fine chocolate. So, I rarely have friend to discuss and share this passion. But, I see this as a good challenge for me.
Before I read Discover Chocolate, I've got plan to write a book about fine chocolate in Indonesian, so people will know this and get passionate about fine chocolate too.
The problem is, I don't have the needed experience and support yet, so it will take a long time for this plan to realize. Hope from this community, I will learn faster from another chocophile who have more experiences and knowledge.
Oh, not just write book about fine chocolate, I want to make my own bean-to-bar chocolate company too, so I can help local cacao farmer gain more living from their plant; arrange tour and travel to the chocolate maker country; educate people with tasting event.
Wow! There are so many home work to do, and hope my passion can keep me on track. Still not find the track though, so I start with learning from books and internet (thanks to Discover Chocolate that have book reference); improve my English so I can learn faster from this community and other site; learn French and other languages used in chocolate maker country; and the most important one, make some money first (not from chocolate industry yet), so I have the capability to travel around chocolate maker country and learn directly from the plantation to chocolate factory.
Well, that's about me, nice to know everyone. Hope we can meet someday.
thanks for the input, by the box does make sense and I already do that. Locally it's either or, nothing set. I will do some more research though.thanks
Dirke:
Pricing by weight makes it easier for consumers to compare the prices of similar products. It's not a universal requirement ... there are many chocolate stores here in NYC that sell by the piece and do not advertise price/weight.
In Paris, I noticed that pricing was by weight for everything - boxed (which makes sense) and loose pieces.
Pricing by the piece makes sense to reduce sticker shock. A 15-gram piece costing $2 means that 2 pieces cost $4, which, to some, is less costly than $60+/pound, which is the equivalent.
In the end, I think it's really up to what are the local rules for pricing (if there are any - and where Ruth is there are), plus the local market's perception about pricing is.
I like the mix of both - professionally speaking - because it enables me to establish value for products based on my experience with other chocolates.
It makes sense. I am wonder why the weight is requested? I don't know anyone that would really care one way or another, I believe? Still want to work it out so i know. thanks for the input, it's appreciated
Dept of Ag tells me that I have to sell by weight, not piece. I get around this by pricing by the piece but putting the weight on the box. Did that make any sense?
Yes. Lecithin is called an amphiphillic emulsifier, which means one end likes to stick to fat, and one end likes to stick to water. if your chocolate has adsorbed some ambient water, it thickens the chocolate by dissolving some of the sugar (even though it's a very small amount), and makes a syrup,, and as we all known, water (syrup) and oil don't mix - and it gets thick. The lecithin can 'bind up' some of the water in that syrup, making it 'slip' past the oil so it doesn't get thick - but if you use too much (hence the suggest to use vey small quantities), it can actually make the chocolate thicker. It's not a cure all by any stretch, but can help tweak viscosities when small amounts of moisture have been taken up.
Thanks for the reply, even though the news was not quite what I hoped for. When you speak of "adding a little (0.05-0.1%) more lecithin" I assume you mean a little more than is already in the chocolate. That's what I was concerned about--especially white chocolate always seems to have lecithin in it.
Once your chocolate has adsorbed ambient moisture, it's very difficult to get it to give it up. You may be able to compensate by adding a little (0.05-0.1%) more lecithin to get it to bind up the moisture, but that only works to a certain extent. Prevention by keeping the RH low is the best medicine to cure this problem. If you can't prevent it, you may be able to make it better by adding lecithin. If that doesn't work, a high shear high temperature mixer can be effective to a smaller degree, but i'd keep that the last resort option, and you risk other damage via this method if your temperatures are too high.
I am adding a question to this older topic as it is more or less the subject of my latest chocolate issue.
I have been using Felchlin Maracaibo for dark and Valrhona Opalys for white. During the winter both behaved fine. For my Easter 2014 batch of chocolates, I was able to prepare several molds with the Opalys when it thickened up to the extent that there was barely any space for the ganache in some of the cavities. I raised the heat several degrees, and that did not appreciably help. This job was done at the beginning of April, not particularly warm or humid. A few days ago, the same thing happened with Maracaibo, and raising the temp even above 90F did not help. It wasn't quite as thick as the Valrhona had been, but for a dark chocolate, it was really viscous. This time we were experiencing some warm, humid weather--though I was running the AC to try to prevent the thickening.
On another forum a chocolatier from Richmond, Va. (about 100 miles from me) wrote that she had experienced a similar thickening of chocolate on the same day and attributed it to the humidity. She mentioned adding some cocoa butter.
So today, aware of the possibility of humidity, I turned up the AC full blast. I added cocoa butter to the Opalys, and it was perfect. My recently ordered hygrometer arrived, and revealed the humidity to be around 20-25%. So I'm thinking I may have found the issue. The problem is that it is not consistent (the first thickening of Opalys was not on a humid day). Tomorrow I'll be using Maracaibo and will try the same routine to see if it helps. I won't add cocoa butter, however, unless it turns out to be necessary.
My question relates to the humidity issue: Assuming that is the problem, is the chocolate I used on the humid days permanently "humidified" or will it return to its previous state once it is out of the humidity? I don't want to have to add cocoa butter to the chocolate from now on, nor do I wish to discard the chocolate.
Incidentally I was tempering the chocolate in a Chocovision machine. Someone at that company recommended raising the working temp for the Valrhona to the 90F range, but that seemed a bit high to me (Valrhona recommends 84F).
Thanks for any guidance.
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I have always cooked the bacon crisp and prepared within 24 hrs of taking to an event.
Now someone wants in their boxes of Easter Truffles. It would be eaten within a week.
Safe?
The Food Channel show Unwrapped had a 2008 show titled "Candy Bar Bonanza" that talks in more detail about the Vosage bacon in chocolate process. I know that it showed again on 10/25/10 at 7:30PM. Not certain if you could Hulu it or find it some other way. Hope it helps.
