Deconstructing Cocoa Content
Posted in: Tech Help, Tips, Tricks, Techniques
The term "cocoa content" refers to the combined total percentage, by weight, of all the ingredients in a particular chocolate that come from the cocoa bean. In most cases it is the combination of the quantity of cocoa mass (or cocoa liquor or chocolate liquor, etc.) plus any added cocoa butter.Cocoa beans naturally vary between 45-55% cocoa butter content depending on the type of bean and where the bean is grown.Technically, cocoa butter is referred to as cocoa solids and cocoa powder is referred to as non-fat cocoa solids. Most people find it easier to think in terms of cocoa butter and cocoa powder, but when you come across a reference to non-fat cocoa solids it's referring to the brown stuff that gives chocolate its color.Cocoa butter is added to the base quantity of cocoa mass to influence mouth feel and make the chocolate less viscous. Lecithin - which is an emulsifier - is also used to reduce the viscosity of chocolate and so reduces the amount of extra cocoa butter that must be added (lecithin is a lot cheaper than cocoa butter).The exact ratio of cocoa mass to added cocoa butter to total fat content is usually not included in the information you'll find on the package. However if you get a chance to look at the technical spec sheet for a chocolate it will usually list out the percentage of cocoa mass, percentage of added cocoa butter, and total cocoa butter content.For Guittard's Orinoco (a 41% milk) the ingredients list is:Pure cane sugar, cocoa butter, full cream milk, cocoa beans, soy lecithin, vanilla beansThe technical spec is:Total cocoa content: 41% minimumCocoa mass: 18%Added cocoa butter: 25%Total fat content (including milk fat): 39% =/- 1%Sugar: 38%Lecithin and vanilla together typically total about 1%. The rest is non-fat milk solids.It is important to keep in mind that there is no correlation between cocoa content and chocolate quality. Cocoa content is a quantitative measure, not a qualitative measure.In this respect it's more like the proof (percentage) of a spirit such as gin or vodka. Knowing that a gin is 40 proof tells you nothing about the quality of the ingredients used to make the gin or the care and attention that went into its manufacture. Similarly, about the only thing you can confidently infer from the cocoa content of a dark chocolate (i.e., a chocolate with no dairy ingredients) is the percentage of sugar in the chocolate. There is no magic percentage amount that separates semi-sweet from bittersweet chocolate.Cocoa content tells you nothing about the beans used, how the beans were fermented and dried, nor does it say anything about any of the steps in the manufacturing process (all of them) that affect flavor.There is no consistent correlation across the board between cocoa content and any sensory aspect of chocolate: not texture (mouth feel), aroma, or taste. Even the perception of sweetness between two bars of chocolate with exactly the same sugar content will be different (this is one of the first things I noticed back in 1994 tasting six different Bonnat bars all with the same cocoa content; the difference in sweetness was startling) depending on the beans, the roast, and the presence (or absence) of vanilla and the kind and form of vanilla used.70% is a marketing hook - or gimmick, if you prefer. A 70% chocolate is not necessarily better than a 68% chocolate or a 65% or a 64% just because it has a couple of more percent cocoa.
updated by @Clay Gordon: 04/11/25 09:27:36
If the cacao is fermented it is washed of any fermentation byproduct, because I picked up a handful and smelled it and there was no smell but cacao shell/husk. Oh and in Mayordomo there appears to be 2 ways to get your ground chocolate: with shell and without. And of the couple times I saw the chocolate being ground the bean was put in whole.
