Hello everyone,
Nibs + sugar = chocolate, right? This post is about the decisions that go into our batch, and “become” the batch.
Before we break it all down, thank you and welcome to all the new folks who’ve subscribed recently. If you have questions or thoughts, pop them into the comments at the bottom. If you just have thoughts and want to mull it over, that’s okay too :) If you landed here looking for the main website with class registration, that’s over here. If you love chocolate and want to learn how to turn cacao nibs into it, you’ve come to the right place.
which origin will we use?
In craft, the focal points of single origin—quality cacao, ethical sourcing, highlight origin flavor—are what “make” the chocolate.
As the bean to bar craft (or specialty) chocolate movement has grown in the 25 years since its emergence through Scharfen Berger, the ideologies behind “what makes it craft” have continually shifted.
The parameters now include three-ingredient (added cocoa butter), the use of different sugars, milk—dark milk—vegan milk bars, inclusion bars well beyond handfuls of nibs or sprinkles of salt, and craft in as many forms as the maker can care to imagine and create (bonbons to drinking chocolate to baking supplies to spreads to confections).
What has not changed is the focal point, and the defining decision that lead early craft makers to take the first-ever steps away from the industrial chocolate mega-manufacturing complex: it all comes down to origin.
what roast profile?
This points to a few more questions; if you’re new to all this don’t stress over this rabbit hole! what roast profile will work to bring out the flavor notes we want to highlight? and, what are the flavor notes we want to highlight?
Sensory evaluation—and understanding the flavors of chocolate—begins with our approach to the roast. Roasting is the first step solely in our hands as we’re getting to know an origin; aromatic volatiles offer sensory clues about potential flavors we will work with during refining. Visual quality of the beans (and by “quality” I mean are there defects like mold? blackened clumps?) hints at the post-harvest care the beans were shown, and possibly—definitely not always—the flavor potential in the beans.
About those potential flavors: what are we working with in a cocoa bean origin?
Origins have a predominant flavor potential. These are chocolate forward, spicy/woody, earthy/vegetal, or fruity. Each of these has a wide range of possibilities, and the results all lead to chocolate flavor. Takeaway: if we’re working with a fruity origin we can’t turn it into a cocoa-forward one, and we can’t change an astringency-prone spicy/woody bean into a fruit bomb.
Roasting is where we can aim for the flavor potential we want to highlight.
what % we will use for our batch?
What percentage of cacao will we choose that will best match the origin flavor profile and (aromatic volatiles enhanced during the roast), and the chocolate experience we want to create?
This one is important, but sadly, many makers opt for a one-%-fits-all approach (ask yourself now: do you want to make chocolate “for everyone”?). Percentage has the potential to make the best use of available flavors.
Craft chocolate came about out of a desire to provide products that show there is much more to cacao than a one-size-fits-all approach. Choice of %—and how a bar’s formulation of its ingredients work in harmony with an origin’s unique flavor profile—plays a tremendously important role in the “craft” of making chocolate.
will it be a two-ingredient (no added cocoa butter) or three-ingredient (with added cocoa butter chocolate?
Each component plays its own significant role in the final outcome. If you thought I was going to weigh in on the 2 vs 3 argument, sorry (not :) to disappoint. Here is my rule of thumb, because I make both: some origins (and all the above-mentioned decisions) call for no cb, while others call for yes cb:
Before adding cocoa butter we need to evaluate how the aromatics of the cocoa butter will interact—or distract, or enhance—with the inherent cocoa fat of the origin, and the flavors it is bringing to the batch.
Cocoa beans, and nibs, contain cocoa fat (butter); aproximately 50% of “a cocoa bean” is the fat. Cocoa fat creates flow, and is key to transporting flavor by melting on our tongue, and for tempering chocolate (it’s the cb that’s tempered, not the cocoa solids). It can enhance flavor by creating a smooth texture, add flow (more liquidity), and negatively overwhelm both flavor and mouthfeel if too much is used.
Forms of cocoa butter include: single origin, which is useful for matching to nibs;small batch pressed, also useful for matching nibs with added cocoa butter; bulk supplies of either natural (yellow color, has aroma) or deodorized (light yellow to white, less aroma).
which sugar/sweetener will we use?
Sugar is not just a sweetener, it is a solid that adds texture and viscosity, and depending on our choice, can impart chemical reactions the arise during refining.
Cane sugar is the standard sugar most often used in craft chocolate. Sugar cane is 11-17% sucrose; the raw juice of crushed/milled canes is used to manufacture dried sugar. Cane juice contains more invert sugar than beet sugar, which makes cane sugar more difficult to crystalize, and rid the impurities that cause brown coloration; bulk cane sugar is still sometimes processed using bone char to add in bleaching and thus is not necessarily vegan. Cane sugar is crystalline (vs amorphous). What this means for us: cane sugar has exact melting points, while amorphous (molasses is an example) has a range of melting points. I think this is why darker sugars that retain molasses (like panela) react differently in the melanger, besides having a bit more moisture.
Beet sugar is also used. A 2014 study by University of Illinois researchers, published in the Journal of Food Science, compared white granulated cane and beet sugars. The study found that beet sugar's aroma is different than that of cane sugar, and was characterized by off-dairy, oxidized, earthy, and barnyard aromas and by a burnt sugar aroma-by-mouth and aftertaste. In contrast, cane sugar showed a fruity aroma-by-mouth and sweet aftertaste.
Powdered sugar should not be used, as it usually contains anti-caking ingredients, such as corn starch.
Natural cane sugar is available and widely used, at least here in the U.S, by craft makers of all sizes (Native Green Project sugar is the most popular, and there’s some thought it’s what Costco packs as their organic natural sugar). It is usually organic certified, and bone char isn’t used. Typically natural cane sugar has a less-white hue, and slightly larger crystals. I’ve ordered bags that wonderfully “dry” and opened others that contain lots of hard, large clumps.
Panela is dehydrated, non-centrifugal sugar, with a higher mineral content and a deep amber hue than cane sugar. In texture it is a combination of sandiness meets granules, with a definitive molasses-ish aroma.
Amorphous sugars can effect flavor by easily absorbing nearby flavors, including volatiles during grinding process. They can also effect flow: an amorphous state is unstable, and in the presence of water will become crystalline (and clump together). Honey is amorphous, including honey powders. Coconut sugar is amorphous, and made from boiled coconut palm flower sap, and adds a distinct coconut flavor in the way that maple sugar adds an identifiable maple aroma and thus, flavor. Date sugar is also amorphous, and because of the fiber composition can be tricky to work with for making chocolate.
Low-glycemic/alternative sweeteners (monkfruit, allulose) can be used, but can contain anti-clumping agents, and are often (like allulose) highly processed.
what size batch?
This choice depends on the size of our refiner (melanger), whether or melanger is belt-driven (small tabletop melangers use a rubber belt, which lose tension with each use and thus, become less powerful, whereas a direct-drive melanger like the DCM-20 is consistently powerful), the amount of batch we want to craft, and the weight of our ingredients on hand.
Batch size has effects: For example, a tiny batch in a large powerful melanger will refine faster in terms of particle size reduction, and thus has less flavor development time, while a full batch in a small belt-driven melanger may take longer to refine.
we made our choices and started the batch, now what?
Decisions decisions decisions: yep, they just keep coming. ICYMI, here are a few earlier posts on the subject of batchcrafting.
Thanks for joining me here! and happy chocolate making,
Mackenzie