Degustação de chocolate
Wild Chocolate Academy
Quinta das Barradas
Bean-to-Bar
Bean to Bar is the process of making chocolate by controlling every step of the way, since the cocoa bean to the actual chocolate bar.
Cocoa beans are bought directly from cocoa farmers in the pursuit of a fair, more sustainable partnership that ensures their workers receive fair value for their product as well as working rights and conditions.
© 2021 Anthony Dendauw
The scientific name of the cacao tree was given by Carl Lineu. “Theobroma Cacao” which means divine food, from the greek Theós = God and Brôma = Food. It was considered a divine food due to all its beneficial properties for our organism. Initially, the indigenous people consumed raw cocoa, as a simple energy drink.
Native to the tropical forests of Central and South America. It is a small tree that can vary between 4-6 meters in size. It takes about 4 years for the first fruits to appear.
Unlike most fruit trees, the cacao differs by its unusual type of flowering and fruiting. The flowers and subsequent fruit are born directly from the main stem or the branches nearby.
Since the first step of harvesting the fruit until we obtain the so-called “chocolate”, there are a series of meticulous and laborious steps to be taken to achieve the final result and obtain a superior quality product. Especially when it comes to handmade chocolate, made from scratch, without any additives or genetic modifications.
© 2021 Anthony Dendauw
Have you ever wondered how the cocoa fruit becomes a chocolate bar?
In fact, most big companies buy the chocolate in large quantities, melt it down and create their own bars, with added additives to make it easier to work, such as lecithin. Losing product quality and obviously generating a cheaper result, that is often controversial.
Unfortunately, there are several evidence of slavery, lack of conditions and child labour in the cocoa production fields.
The process that goes from planting the cocoa trees to the production of chocolate is a long, complex and expensive one, the fact that the fruit only grows in certain areas, with very specific climates, makes it already from the start an expensive ingredient.
It is questionable when we come across a chocolate that has a very low price, something is not right.
© 2021 Anthony Dendauw
The cocoa beans develop inside vibrant cocoa pods, which grow directly from the tree trunks. Harvesting cocoa is a difficult task, one of the biggest challenges lies in knowing when the pods are ripe.
To ensure that a good cocoa bean is obtained, it is important that the fruit is harvested at the right ripeness, the pod that is not yet ripe will not have developed all its flavours and aromas, it will have too much acidity.
On the other hand, overripe fruit will start to germinate and ferment inside the pod.
Pods do not ripen at the same time, even if they are on the same tree. The harvest is always done manually and taken to fermentation in the shortest possible time, between 24 to 48 hours.
© 2021 Anthony Dendauw
The farmers pick the cocoa pods, cut them in half, remove the beans, which are surrounded by a white fruit pulp, the mucilage.
The broad beans are then removed and placed in large wooden boxes to ferment. The mucilage is made up of sugar and water and serves as “fuel” for fermentation.
Fermentation is when sugars and starches are broken down into acids or alcohol. Without fermentation, we could never have chocolate.
It is an extremely important step for the final quality of the cocoa beans, as it is in this process that any overly strong acidity is eliminated and all the flavours are developed and intensified, which will later be released in the roasting phase.
To stop fermentation the beans are removed from the boxes and put to dry in the sun or in greenhouses. Depending on the type of beans it may take around 5 to 7 days until they are fermented.
After the beans are dry, they are finally ready to be packed and shipped.
© 2021 Anthony Dendauw
The first step is to examine our raw material. We need to know the physical and sensory profile of our cocoa beans to understand the best way to roast them. How big are the beans and how much humidity is present.
The cocoa bean doesn’t change colour with the roasting, as many things do, so you can’t tell from that whether it’s finished or not. Therefore, it will always be an experimental process and there will never be two equal roasts, there is no recipe, it is here that each chocolate maker also has the opportunity and the challenge to create his own profile.
The final taste will depend entirely on the way the maitre chocolatier decides to work the cocoa, in all stages of production. The process is 100% handmade.
At this stage we will remove all the outer skin of the cocoa beans and separate them from their interior.
This process is done with the help of a machine called Winnoer, when we put the beans in the machine it breaks them into small fragments, the “cocoa nibs”, separating them from the outer skin.
These nibs are what we will transform into chocolate.
We grind the cocoa nibs, to reduce them into smaller and smaller pieces until it reaches a fine texture and subsequently a paste, as the cocoa butter naturally present in the cocoa bean is released, obtaining the so called “chocolate liquor (liqueur)”.
This process is done with a machine called Melanger that works with granite stones that rotate continuously and reach temperature through friction.
After a few hours in this refining process, we add whole cane organic sugar according the cocoa percentage chocolate we are producing, and a variable extra percentage of cocoa butter. This process is called conching.
The Melanger continues to work the cocoa to develop flavour, texture (mouth feel) and humidity reduction to achieve the right fluidity. The harsh and acidic components of the cocoa bean evaporate during this stage with the introduction of oxygen to the mixture.
In this phase, we will work on the structure of the chocolate.
Cocoa butter crystals tend to be unstable, but through the manipulation of heat, movement and time we can improve them.
Basically, we will raise the temperature of the chocolate and control its descent. In doing so we will obtain a chocolate with a smooth glossy finish and an homogeneous structure. When we break a piece we will hear a clean “snap”, this is a sign that the bar is well tempered, the snap is one of the most important points of a good chocolate.
All these characteristics will affect the final product and its behaviour once we put it in our mouth, its structure will influence the way it melts homogeneously and our experience when tasting it.
Finally, we come to the last step of handling our chocolate.
In this step we pour our chocolate properly tempered in different moulds of various shapes and sizes, after cooling we unmould it and it is ready to be packaged.
After many working hours in our production, not to mention the months and years of work by the cocoa farmers, our chocolate bar is ready to be consumed.
So, the next time you try a piece of artisan chocolate, we encourage you to pay attention to its smell, its texture, the way it ‘pops’ or melts in your mouth – all of which are influenced by the chocolate making process.
We encourage you to stick to good quality chocolate, experiment with different origins and varieties of cocoa, take your taste buds on a culinary adventure through the wonderful world of chocolate.
