The Chocolate Factory

The following is a description of the stages through which chocolate takes on its glossy, smooth, delectable form:

Chocolate goes through many steps before it ends up on a shelf or at a manufacturing plant. First and foremost, the cocoa beans must be picked, cleaned, and fermented before they can even hope to be processed. Cocoa beans are harvested by taking a long, sharp knife and cutting the beans from the tree. Terroir, the composition of the soil in which the cacao trees grow, has a bit to do with what flavors the cocoa beans will develop. Similar to wine grapes, cacao beans take on essences and qualities from whatever was growing around them.

There has been more talk recently about single-origin chocolate, which means the cacao was picked from one region, plantation, country, etc. While this may ensure certain characteristics will remain more consistent in the final product, this doesn’t necessarily promote an undying quality. There are so many variables that can affect the harvest of the cacao beans—like anything in the agricultural world—that it is hard to say that remaining faithful to one region, plantation, country, etc. is always good advice.

Cocoa beans, after being harvested, are placed either in wooden boxes or wrapped in banana leaves, and fermented, which takes about 5 days. The fermentation step is very important, because that is how the cocoa beans begin to develop their chocolate flavors. After the five day period, the beans are cleaned of all the oils that have bubbled to the surface, and then dried thoroughly, so the beans don’t develop mold. From here, the cacao beans are ready to be packed and shipped to their destinations…the chocolate factories.

When the cacao beans reach their destinations, they are then placed in big, rotating roasters that look like the shell of a large drum. The beans can be roasted one of three ways: while the beans are still whole; when the cocoa beans have been cracked and shelled, and only the innermost part of the beans remains, which is called the cocoa nib; or third, after the cocoa nibs have been ground into cocoa liquor, which is a fluid paste, more commonly known as unsweetened or baking chocolate. Roasting brings the chocolate flavors in the cocoa beans to the forefront. Before this, the beans really don’t have a lot of flavor, merely hints of what their potential will become.

When manufacturers have beans from different regions, it is advised that they are roasted separately, and combined only after the roasting stage is complete. That way, the different beans take on their chocolate notes individually, and then blended for the flavor desired by the manufacturers.

The next step in the process of creating chocolate is micronizing. This is when the cocoa beans are broken into pieces, and the separated from the shells. This can happen before roasting if nib or chocolate liquor roasting is being applied, or after roasting if the whole beans are being roasted. It is important to get all the cocoa pieces to be all the same size in order for it to continue on through the stages.

Winnowing extracts the bits of shell from the broken-up cocoa nibs. According to the description of winnowing as put forward by Chef Peter Greweling in Chocolates and Confections, “By FDA standards, chocolate liquor may not contain more than 1.75 percent cocoa shell,” (Greweling, 2007). From here, the broken, roasted cocoa nibs enter the grinding or milling stage. Here, the cocoa nibs are crushed into the paste chocolate liquor. This procedure is done for two reasons: one, to separate the mixture into cocoa butter and cocoa powder. Or two, it moves to the next step of the process, which involves mixing the chocolate liquor with other ingredients. Chocolate liquor is what would have been ground, liquefied, and then cooled into cakes to be sold for drinking chocolate during the nineteenth century.

Mixing, as mentioned above, takes the chocolate liquor and mixes it with a variety of different ingredients, depending on what the desired end result is to be. These ingredients usually include sugar, cocoa butter, vanilla, and lecithin. Lecithin is a natural enzyme which is, for the most part, derived from soybeans—and sometimes from eggs—and acts as an emulsifier in chocolate. It acts as a binding agent in order to make the chocolate become a more homogenous mixture. Milk solids may also be added if milk chocolate is being made.

Before the refining stage of chocolate, the cocoa mass is a relatively coarse mixture. The granules of sugar and other ingredients can still be perceived when tasted. Refining reduces the cocoa mass into smaller particles so they can no longer be discerned when consumed. For most chocolate, it is pressed until the particles reach a size of about 25 microns. For finer-quality chocolate, the cocoa mass is pressed until the particles reach a size between 15 and 20 microns (Greweling, 2007).

We are nearly at the end of the chocolate-making process as far as manufacturing goes. The next step is conching which, as mentioned previously, was a procedure invented by Rudolphe Lindt. Up until this point, the chocolate, while it has been refined, still does not very fluids, and still resembles more of a paste. It also still contains some of the acids that have been present since the fermentation process, and give the chocolate mixture a sour odor and taste that really isn’t very appetizing. The friction inside the basin as the chocolate is agitated helps to remove said acids from the mixture, and melts the cocoa butter which causes the paste to become fluid. This stage can take anywhere between 3 and 96 hours to complete (Greweling, 2007). After this stage, the chocolate is ready for tempering.

Tempering is the stage where the chocolate is mixed into a frenzy while being cooled quickly in order for the particles in the chocolate to crystallize and solidify. If this is not done properly, you get a mucky brown blob that sets with streaks in it. This is called bloom. If anyone has left a chocolate bar out in the sun for a few minutes, have come back and found that the chocolate bar had melted and then solidified, but now looks more like chalk, then you have experienced chocolate bloom. It takes on the characteristics of chalk, too, and it loses some of its flavor. Manufactured chocolate is placed in machines that temper and seed the chocolate before it can be molded.

The tempered chocolate is then poured into molds and cooled gradually until the mixture sets. Once it sets, the chocolate is ready to be unmolded, wrapped and shipped.

Another optional step is the dutching process. As mentioned before, this step involves treating the cocoa powder with alkaline salts. This decreases the bitterness, and darkens the color of the cocoa powder, as well as improves the absorbency. Also, if alkaline salts are used, the label on the can or box must indicate this.

Greweling, P. (2007) The Culinary Institute of America. Chocolates and Confections. Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons

Moss, S.; Badenoch, A. (2009). Chocolate: A Global History. London: Reakton Books Ltd.