How small batch chocolate makers are revolutionizing chocolate as we know it.

There’s a feeling you get when something is done properly or to the best extent that you can do it.

That fuzzy uplifting feeling when it turns out (or almost turns out) they way you planned.

For us, that happens when we make a home cooked meal for the family. There’s something soul warming about sourcing ingredients that may be or may not be edible before cooking (raw veggies, a bulb (or three) of garlic, a ton of spices and a hunk of meat) and taking the time to turn them into something delicious.

And the same could be said for craft chocolate making.

We’ve done a lot of beans talking. A lot. (Before we get into it, if you haven’t read the other posts in this four part series we recommend you start here)

We started our own little experiment and grew cacao trees, we harvested cacao pods, manually extracted all that white pulpy cacao seed goodness and we’ve gone through the amazing and crucial processes of fermenting and drying. Those beans have been bagged and packaged and are enroute to the chocolate makers.

And while they’re making their trip to a completely different part of the world, we want to talk about what drives chocolate makers and chocolate fanatics.

And one thing we keep coming back to is a lot of people genuinely obsess about the taste of things:

• think coffee
• think beer
• cheese
• wine
• salt
• oils
• spices

So why not obsess over chocolate?

And when we think about it that way, it makes sense that there’s a growing community that want to be this familiar with chocolate and know the ins and out of it, and what draws out the best and most distinct flavours for that particular bean.

We can also understand why so many craft makers would’ve started enjoying chocolate and then thinking, “hey I could try making this” and then spend years and years perfecting their craft, really learning the equipment and the individual beans to get the most out of them.

And the magic to all of this is: They’re taking cacao beans, something that isn’t immediately delicious (its actually so bitter that it’s barely even edible!) and they craft it into something amazing, something that sits at what is probably the highest point of decadence.

And that takes time.

And that’s something to really appreciate.

[Tangent!!] Time taking reminds us that we live in a world where we want things almost instantly (think microwave meals, the invention of the airfyer (which we absolutely cannot live without!), and even the take away stores that give us food immediately). No sooner after we say the words are we presented with what we ordered.

But there’s a growing group of chocolate makers that are going against that and saying “hey, I’m not going to rush this. I’m going to give these beans the time and focus they deserve to make something wonderful.” And that’s why we love it.

As far as chocolate making goes, we’ve got two distinct industries to dive into – commercial large scale chocolate and then small batch craft makers. We’re going to visit the big chocolate industries later (there’s a teeny tiny intro here). For now, we’ll talk about chocolate making at a smaller scale, a craft making scale. And there’s two reasons for that:

• One – its more approachable. You can walk into your own kitchen and hopefully we can talk you through the equipment, time and skills needed to make your own chocolate and really appreciate how intense the chocolate making process is.
• Two – and this is our favourite reason – small batch craft chocolate is intentionally made to enhance the flavour notes of each bag of beans

And Number Two is our favourite reason because big commercial chocolate are experts at creating their brand of chocolate and flavour.

• The same flavour for each batch of cacao beans for years and years.
• Every time you buy your go to chocolate bar, you know what you’re in for and that’s why you’re buying it. As soon as you take a bite, the taste and the flavour is familiar.
• But imagine if the big chocolate makers had the capability and the drive to play to the bean’s strengths and really draw out the unique flavour.
• Imagine they could create bars where each batch was unique.

That’s what the craft makers are doing. They do so much trial and error to make sure they do those beans justice. We used to joke around that the whole idea behind Beans Talkr was to give little beans a big voice. And we pictured cacao beans with little arms and legs picketing for their rights to be tasted. But the further along we go, the more we realise that this is exactly what we’re trying to do. Beans have flavour. Beans are unique from batch to batch. How is it that we’ve never been told this?

[Alrighty that’s our rant]

Now to chocolate making. The cacao beans have arrived.

At the moment we’ve got a bag full of em ready to be made into chocolate. The question is how?

Since exploring the unchartered regions of cacao farms, we’re hoping that when you picture the chocolate making process it’s not just the big machines anymore.

So our “imagine this” scenario is:

• You’ve got bag of beans from a farm in Madagascar, and when you open that bag you’re hit with smells of cherries and coffee.
• You have another bag, this time from a farm in Ecuador. And this bag has a much darker aroma, think brown sugars, raisins and prunes.
• And that’s just the start.
• You want to make bars to cater to those bean’s inbuilt flavour notes.

There are so many variables that you start your process of trial and error.

But before we get into the variables, let’s quickly chat through:

The end to end process of the craft chocolate maker.

(And just note that commercial chocolate follows a very different process to cater for larger scale production an we’ll make note of the difference later this post.)

For now, the following list of steps is one of many ways that craft chocolate makers make their chocolate:

1. To start, the craft makers hand select beans and manually sort through them. You’re looking to take out irregular beans and sort them out by size to ensure even roasting, because if they’re all done at once the small beans will roast faster and may be burnt while the large beans may be under roasted.
2. After sorting The beans are then roasted to reach a particular temperature for a set amount of time which is optimised for the beans. This is trial and error process #1, to find the optimal time and temperature for those beans.
3. Then you let them cool down.
4. Once cool we need to “crack and winnow” the beans. That is we crack the beans and then separate the shell from the nibs by using air and gravity to keep the heavier nibs and discard the lighter shell.
5. Once we’ve got the nibs, we grind them down using stone grinders. The friction from grinding the beans creates heat which warms up the cocoa butter within the nibs, turning the cold crunchy nibs into a warm molten chocolate liquer.
6. And we keep grinding and grinding until its at the chocalte makers desired texture. This is trial and error process #2, because the texture of the bar affects how it melts and how the flavours present themselves. It’s important to know that “fine chocolate” doesn’t necessarily mean the texture has to be fine as well (and if anything a slight grain can also improve the eating experience.)
7. Once we have our desired texture, we then loosen the stone rollers of the grinder to further refine the chocolate and conch the chocolate. This means we’re aerating the chocolate to let the cacao breathe and make the chocolate milder, less bitter, remove and volatile acids and just let the chocolate relax. This can take days and is trial and error process #3.
8. We can add in our ingredients. This is trial and error #4. And the end recipe requires so much trial and error to figure out what best suits the beans.
   • The amount of sugar and milk powder and any additional cocoa butter determines the final percentage of the bar.
   • Say 30g sugar and 70g chocolate liquer makes it a 70% bar.
   • Adding in milk powder would lower that percentage even further.
   • Some makers add an emulsifier here as well to make the chocolate easier to work with.
   • There are so many variables in this step alone and really lets the chocolate maker personalise their craft even further.
9. Once we’ve found our desired recipe, its solidified, becoming couverture chocolate (which is the point where most places would buy their chocolate starting product)
   • think Belgian or Swiss chocolate” – this means that a commercial Belgian chocolate manufacturer has done the above steps for them), which can then melted and tempered, making it ready to to mold into their own chocolate
10. And if you like: Step 10: We could also add any inclusions so nuts, spices dried fruits, whatever your chocolate making heart desires (Noting that any liquids would cause the chcolate to seize and spoil the batch – so take some caution!!) And that’s trial and error process #5
    

So as you can see, there are a lot of steps in chocolate making.

In summary 1) Sort the beans, 2) roast the beans, 3) cool down and winnow the beans, 4) grind down the remaining nibs, 5) refine and conch the chocolate liquer 6) add our base additional ingredients to the chocolate liquer which when hardened creates 7) couverture chocolate. And this couverture can then be 8) melted, tempered and pour into molds and (optional 9) add in any additional ingredients to create our final product.

PHEW

And look there can be changes:

• adding sugar in earlier or later has an effect,
• choosing whether or not to add any additional cocoa butter can have an effect
• adding vanilla
• adding any lecithin to make the chocolate easier to work with can have an effect.
• Even choosing to crack the beans first and roasting the nibs without their shell, instead of roasting the whole beans can also have an impact.

Craft chocolate makers are testing ALL of it and finding what works best.

Now that you’ve got an insight into the precise steps craft chocolate makers take to make specific small batch chocolate:

Let’s take a quick look at big chocolate (and we’ll do another post on this soon).

They need to buy tons and tons of chocolate, and instead of focusing on the batch from each farm, the bags are mixed together and still they make a product that tastes the same every time.

We’ll come back to this in a few posts time, but for now the key difference is craft chocolate makers make each batch shine, whereas the commercial makers are really good at creating a consistent product out of inconsistent beans.

Machinery

And the other thing we want to highlight here is that chocolate has been made by the bigger commercial companies since the 1850s all the way through to the early 2000s. And because all the equipment for chocolate making has been tailored for manufacturing at a global scale, there actually isn’t proper equipment available for small batch makers.

• The machinery used by craft chocolate makers to grind the nibs down is actually just repurposed stone grinders used in Asia to grind rice.
• And many have created their own winnowers using fans, hairdryers, vacuum cleaners and juicers where the juicer crushes the beans and the vacuum will suck the husks out and the remaining nibs will fall due to their weight into another container.

It’s actually quite clever, and again shows the length the craft makers are going to so they can make a quality product.

And that, together with the last two posts is the entire end to end bean to bar process. Phase one: Create a cacao bean, Phase two: The farmers get the beans ready. Phase Three: The chocolate makers craft their bars (heads up the last link is a time loop, you’ll just end up back here… but our OCD couldn’t leave it “linkless”).

Thanks for talking beans with us and hopefully we’ll see ya soon!

Where to next?

That’s the end of this four part post, but if you’re after a little more food for thought:

And if you’re still not so sure, check out what events or makers are in your area:

Talk Beans with us!

Got any questions? Feedback? Want to hi say? Reach out below – we’re always happy to chat!

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