I've been thinking about this, too, and playing around with grinding them up to a very fine, smooth, paste (they're pretty soft) and adding them cake/brownie batter. I haven't made any in a while - but it's on my list for something to do the next time I make a batch.
and the squirrels that eat them. And the boas that eat the squirrels.
grow them all the time here - keep it in a bright (indirect sunlight seems to work the best), very warm (85+ F), very humid place. Unfortunately, where I live, there's winter, and the only place in the house that meets those requirements is the bathroom usually. Water every 2-3 days (watering frequency/amount is the trickiest part for me, as it's very easy to overwater). In the summers, the trees thrive outside, but watch the night time drops in temperature. Japanese beetles also see cocoa as a special treat.
If you manage to keep it alive for a few years, you can hand pollinate. The largest one i've managed to eek out has been about 6' tall (and i've got a very, very black thumb..)
Growing a Cocoa tree indoor seems quite a cool thing to do, does any one have any link/direction on "how to grow a cocoa tree at home"? ... Thanks
NIno
Davy:
If you can grow cacao in New York City, you can grow it in Belgium. Indoors, under a daylight grow lamp (12 hours/day, regular cycles). You will probably want to start out on top of a heating mat, too. This will keep the tree warm and if you put a tray on top of the mat and put water in the tray the warmthwill help keep the moisture level up, too.
One reason you won't get pods is no pollinating insects, not just climate. I have seen pods on the trees at the NY Botanical gardens - never more than one or two. But they keep the ground under the tree completely clean of leaf litter and don't like many kinds of insect in the greenhouses, so no pollinators.
Where do you live?
I know you'll need a good climate for producing the pods, but the tree on its own, any chanse it will grow in Belgium? :)
I've got a couple potted cacao trees on my kitchen table. I guess I could move them into my bedroom, but I don't think that's what you're going for.
I was just thinking about life in the campo. Just wondering how many of us have slept within a 100m from a cacao tree? I am getting pretty close to 1000 days. How about you?
Hi everyone,
I'm new to chocolate makingso forgive my ignorance on the subject. I'm trying to learn the sciencebehind tempering, beta crystal formation, temperatures, seed chocolate, etc.
I'm in the process of buying a continuous tempering machine but I've found a few sites that state you can avoid re-tempering chocolatesince most chocolateis alreadytempered and as long as you don't exceed 90 F and melt slowly you can maintainthe original temper.
I'm planning on doing quite a bit of molding and I am curious if this is a viable option with a temperature controlled melter.I assume it's not thiseasybut tempering machines are quite expensive so I thought I'd askbefore purchasing.
Thanksin advancefor any assistance/advice.
Scarcity and uniqueness can also drive premiums. There are plenty of absolutely wonderful fine flavor cocoas out there that have amazing flavor profiles that people would (and do) pay premiums for. One of the Asian submissions this year to the aforementioned competition tasted like caramalized pears - now, i've been in cocoa for a long time, and this is the first time I've seen a cocoa that tasted like that. It's one of the reasons I've stayed in it, no matter how much one knows, it seems in cocoa there's always something new to experience and learn!
Most regions are heterozygous collections of multiple clonal varieties to begin with, primarily a function of their disease resistance, productivity, or just dumb blind happenstance with not much thought given to why that particular tree was planted. There are many, many clones to choose from, and numerous ways to approach planting materials - you can plant a new tree, you can side graft, you can shoot graft, etc. Your planting material absolutely, unequivocally influences the flavors you can get from your cocoa. Where it's grown and the agronomics at play also can have a huge impact on your flavors (soil nutrition, composition, elevation, climactics, etc). As I'm sure you're aware, by altering the fermentation and drying conditions, you can get a 100 different flavors from the same beans, so obviously there's much that can be done here as well.
Oftentimes, cocoa buyers are buying from 4000 miles away, and may rarely have 'boots on the ground' to know exactly what's occurring, regardless of what they think they're buying and what they think is happening 8-) Hence I'm guessing why you reference your experience in Papua. There are lots of reasons a corporation may have for identifying specific locations, of which flavor may be only one element.
Interestingly, on the wine - I enjoy wine. I'd say given my work in chocolate, my taster is a bit more developed than your average person. Last year, I had the experience of having a $25,000 bottle of wine. Now, it was good, to be sure, but I'm not sure it was that much better than a $50 bottle - I've had some pretty darn good $50 bottles. It could be that for me, in wine, my taster isn't sufficiently developed to appreciate that level of sophistication; if that's the case, the wine is $24,950 too expensive for me - there may be those out there who experience the same wine very, very differently than i do, and appreciate it much more - for them, the price may be justified. I find that to be the case for me with cocoa quite often - i 'see' things in cocoa that others simply don't pick up on, just because I've been doing it for so long and I'm so familiar with it. Generally speaking, those cocoa's that I love the most, I find that the general population has very little interest in, as they're too different from what they've come to expect as 'chocolate' as defined by their mainstream experiences.
However, it could also be that the wine's really meant to be a $50 bottle, and what we're seeing here is the power of marketing. Either way, the fact someone bought it reflects there's a value proposition there, be it on the merits of the intrinsic properties of the wine (it's flavor), or the extrinsics (marketing panache)
Thank you so much for this.
I don't think there is a danger of mainstream mild WA cocoas being lost to flavour. Take out Cameroon and the minor producers and we have basically CI, Ghana and Nigeria and 60% of world production. If that became flavour it would then be bulk flavour and consequently too mainstream to be unique. The bulk boys could not/would not pay a premium for such big quantities! (They might charge for a resulting product but certainly would not pay!!)
I agree on Gourmet. For me it is a tag people give themselves for their own ego trips and to prove they are "superior" to mere mortals like me with disturbingly underdeveloped taste buds and a dastardly poor knowledge of the 'finer' aspects of life, or, they give to their products to charge inflated prices. (I have a similar opinion of wine and wine connoisseurs who are really tripping most of the time.)
However, would you say that where planting materials, post harvest practices, etc are givens in that the trees are where they are in a given soil with a given climate (albeit variable season on season) and customary fermenting and drying systems, that a (unique) flavour can more usually be developed during the roasting? Is this the only time during processing?
I recall from PNG when I lived there that Rowntree went great lengths to identify and approve particular plantations and would buy by "plantation mark" only. (The fact that we used to buy in from other plantations to increase our supplies to them is purely incidental!!) However, my point is, would it be necessary to go to these lengths to identify good sources of WA flavour cocoa sources?
Are there other fora around the world where cocoas compete for the same kudos?
No new glasses required - you changed it to 14!!
In this years Cocoa of Excellence competition in Paris, 14 of the 50 cocoa's that were judged were from W. Africa. Now, many, many more were submitted, but only 50 get entered. Most of them were trying to deliver something other than conventional West African flavor profile, and many did just that. I tasted each and every one of them - some were better than others. However, there's currently a very vivid fine flavor profile that exists in many W. African countries already, predominately appealing to consumers in Europe and Japan - I'd hate to see the entirety of W. African flavors shift to something else (not that I think there's any danger of that happening, however the breadth of flavors across the world i think is quite marvelous, and to see them shrink would be less than ideal).
"Gourmet" means different things to different people. For some, "gourmet" is nothing than fancy packaging. For others, it has more to do with *absence* of flavors to give them a blank pallet to work from to allow their other ingredients room to shine. Yet others, it's defined more by the physical handling characteristics of the the chocolate (low viscosity). For some - it's very much defined by a unique flavor. W. African cocoas can deliver on all of these. The last one is probably the hardest to break into, as for many who are peripherally involved with cocoa/chocolate (even for those who believe they are experts, often times), there may be a perception gap equating W. African with bulk commodity and nothing special. Of course, that may be true 90% of the time depending on how you define your parameters; however it's also quite possible to make quite a range of products by manipulating your growing materials, the post harvest practices, and of course the chocolate production process/formulation itself.
Edit - sorry, i miscounted - i'd originally indicated 10/50 cocoa submissions were from W. African countries - upon recounting, it's 14. Time for new glasses.
Is there a legitimate role for the mild West African cocoas in the Gourmet Chocolate industry?
http://www.musee-du-chocolat.com/
Has anyone been to this museum? Is it worth making an effort to go and visit? Is it appropriate for the experienced Chocophile, or only the novice?
Any feedback and thoughts and tips would be appreciated!
Best wishes,
Sunita de Tourreil
The Chocolate Garage
Palo Alto, CA 94301
Mark;
Thank you so much for taking your time to be so thorough in your answer. I will try and digest everthing you said and modify my technique accordingly.
Matt
The temperature you cook to will determine flavor and color. Once over 300F you are down under 3% moisture.
Doctor solids are anything dissolved in the water that isn't sucrose. This typically includes glucose syrups, invert syrup, salts, proteins, etc. They affect cook temperatures, browning rate, inversion, but are primarily used to controlsucrose crystallization, and give final desired texture and shelf life.
The added water affects more caramelization, not burning.
Rate of cooling primarily affects caramelization.
Humidity is a big factor. Once the toffee cools, it will begin to absorb moisture from the air. Needs to be below 45%RH, but below 35%RH is ideal. The sugar is in its amorphous, or glass, form rather than crystal, or solid.
Boiling the sugar and butter first is common practice. Add the sugar while stirring, and once all in, the sugar should be all in solution about the temperature it begins a full rolling boil, somewhere near 225-230F depending on the amount of water you use. A rule of thumb is the water should be a third the weight of the sucrose. Once boiling wash any crystals off the side of the pot, andyou can remove from heatto check clarity on the side of a metal spatula, just note the difference between crystals and bubbles, you can feel the crystals. You may need to wash down the sides a few times through the cook.
Reducing the heatas you near the finish helpsprevent burning.
Do I need to always cook to "at least 310 degrees", or only if I add water if things begin to separate?
The batches tried yesterday still tended to have that terrible "fudge like texture", unless they burned, being darker and stickier. Since you're sayingadding water can increase the chance of burning due to longer cook times, is there anything else I should try first?
What do you mean "doctor solids"?
Are you saying that above 255 degrees (if the syrup is properly "supersaturated") and if at a low enough temperature, I needn't stir the mixture at all?
As I seem to continue to have problems, I could only come up with 3 possible things which I didn't know how much they did or didn't affect things.
1. I use unsalted butter--does this make much difference (realizing that salt lowers the boiling temperature of water)?
2. I am placing the toffee into a sheet metal pan to cool on top of the wooden table (I don't have room for our marble slab at present)--I didn't know if perhaps not cooling quickly enough created additional problems?
3. Humidity seems to affect the outcome--I didn't know the significance of this, nor any adequate work-arounds.
Ruth stated that she brought the water and butter to a boil and then began to stir in the sugar. If that is the case, can the sugar be "completely dissolved in the solution" before boiling?
I know I'm having quite the fits with toffee and your help (as also Ruth's) is greatly appreciated.
Matt
Thanks Mark. I've always wondered why it did that. I never have a problem in the large batches in a copper kettle over an open flame, but have had a problem using an induction burner.
Make sure that when you start boiling the sugar that all of it is completly in solution. Wash down the sides with a brush and water, but make sure it's all dissolved. The reason it seems to separate at about 250 - 255F is that that's the point that the saturation and boiling curves intersect. If you still have crystals there, especially not using any doctor solids, the sugar will continue to crystalize out to thesaturation point of the curve, giving you the fudge like texture. Adding water can help redissolve but the additional time held hot will increase your inversion level,with enoughresulting in a stickier, darker piece with increased bitterness from the new compounds formed. Also once above the above temperatures, since the syrup is supersaturated, minimal shear will help prevent crystallization. I typically don't stirr at all, using reduced heat to prevent burning.
Ok (equal parts butter and sugar). Thank you very much.
Matt
I forgot one very important part. Weight your sugar, don't measure it. You want a pound.
Ruth;
Thank you extremely much! I will try it (and I'll take the "luck") :-)
Matt
Reduce the water to 1/4 C. Cook in a tall rather than flat pan. I heat the water and butter to a boil, then stir in the sugar. Cook on med to med high, stirring constantly. If it is going to separate, it will do it at about 250. Adding water and continuing to cook will solve the problem. You need to cook to at least 310. Good luck.
I'm having trouble with my Toffee recipe (which is as follows);
1 # butter
2 cups sugar
1/2 cup water
bring to boil, then turn down heat tomedium-high until starts to thicken, then turn on low heat until mixture reaches 295 degrees F., then pour in pan to cool.
Half of the time, the toffee turns out well. The other half, the toffee turns dark and tends to separate, and the toffee turns cake-like.
I've tried a suggested "fix", which was to take off the heat and add 1/2 cup of hot water in the final minutes and stir well, but it didn't help (well, it stopped the mixture from separating, and the mixture didn't turn cake-like, but it didn't set up.
I don't have the background knowledge or experience to know why sometimes the toffee turns out great, and sometimes it fails. My best guess is maybe humidity changes are making a difference, but I don't know. I've tried different pans, different stoves, adding a little bit of corn syrup, etc.
Any suggestions?
Matt Erickson
(360) 601-7235
You may be able to spend some time at Esmereldas by contacting the Rizek's in Santo Domingo. They'll be in the book (web).
I am spending a week on the Samana Peninsula of the dominican republic in January & wondered if anyone had any suggestions for any plantation tours in that area?
I'm a huge advocate of letting your chocolate age 3-4 weeks before finalizing a recipe; however in my experience bitterness is not one of the elements that changes significantly over age. The components that result in bitter attributes are not volatile.
I realize this is a very old thread, but I am just starting and coming across the same challenge. Until today I had no idea how much resting could help with the bitterness of the chocolate. I have battling the bitters for months. Today I reached into a box of chocolates and grabbed a piece of milk chocolate I had made over a week ago. Last week the bar had a bitter aftertaste. Today, I noticed none.
Normally after I mold any candy that I make, I put it into plastic bags.
My question on the resting, under what conditions should the chocolate "rest"? I typically keep my un-molded chocolate in plastic bags, but should it breathe? Have some airflow? Or should it at least be in a large container that is not airtight?
Thanks,
Mark C.
Is the broker telling you that the whole beans you are receiving are, in effect, sterilized? If so, I would absolutely, unequivocally, insist that they demonstrate proof of that if you do not have a kill step of your own, and I'd challenge their results by having them validated yourself with a 3rd party. A piece of paper saying they're clean is meaningless.
Hi Clay,
thank you for your help. Actually I buy the beans from a broker and he gives me all the sanitary certificates. Do you think that there is a risk ?
A read that salmonella and all the possible bacterias are killed if the temperature is 70C or more. May be for cocoa beans is different ?
Maria -
It's not so much the difference in gross origin (Venezuela vs the DR), it's differences in the variety (genetics) of the bean modified by various aspects of terroir, and I include post-harvest processing techniques as a part of terroir.
If 15min at 140C is what works for you - then that's what works for you. Your beans, your roasting technique.
The exact times and temps for others does not really matter.
EXCEPT ... in the absence of testing, 15min at 140C does not guarantee that pathogens (e.g., salmonella) on the outside of the beans are killed to an "acceptable" level. So, you probably want to do some lab analysis on a regular basis (e.g., each new shipment of beans at least) to make sure that everything is safe.
I roasted today my beans from Venezuela; before roasting the beans were not acid, no bitterness, just a taste of butter.
Firstly I tried the same temperatures and time as for DR beans, just to compare the results. The result for the beans from Venezuela was: the beans developped bitterness and no chocolate aromas; I tried another roasting, at lower temperature, for 15minutes, and the flavours were so different ! beautiful chocolate taste, no acidity, no bitterness. I tasted the nibs with some cane sugar and it was delicious.
Do you think that 15min ( 140C ) is ok, or it's not too much... ? the result was good, but I see that many of you roast the beans for at least 20minutes.
Thank you in advance.
Hi Brad,
Interesting to read! You mention your porcelana is so acidic, but why is it so acidic, you know? You mentioned that beans are not properly fermented, but from a porcelana you would expect proper fermentation isn't it?
Best
Rodney Nikkels
Amsterdam
Here here! Science backing up what my nose tells me. Low and slow....
cheers
Brad
