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Post by trimaniac on Sept 25, 2013 18:01:05 GMT -5
Hi, This is my first post. First of all, thank you all your knowledge and inspiration. I admire you all for taking your time to help out. I just made my first batch this week. I originally started out making an 80% with beans ordered from John (Belize being the origin). After using John's excel spreadsheet to calculate ingredients, it turned out to be a 90%. Anyway, the initial taste was great and texture was very smooth but there was a lingering bitterness at the end. I read some posts and came to the conclusion that it could be a few factors: either my refiner (premier wonder grinder) was brand new and I didn't run any sugar through it before grinding beans or there was residual husk left after the winnowing process. I refined/conched for 48 hours. So for this next batch, I am shifting through the nibs and am coming across what look to be stems (picture attached). I am correct? And do these affect the end taste. The problem is that this amount is just from 3 handfuls of nibs so to take these out from even a 2lb batch would take a few hours. Can these be left in or do i need to be patient and take out all the stems? Sorry to be so long winded. Sent from my SPH-L710 using ProBoards Attachments:
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Post by Ben on Sept 26, 2013 7:14:30 GMT -5
Welcome to the forum, trimaniac.
Those are the germ/radicle of the cocoa beans. If the seed were planted, that would become the root of the resulting cacao tree.
They are bitter, but shouldn't affect the final chocolate too much, as they're tiny compared to the nib. If you wanted, you could separate them out using a strainer of some sort. I've used a perforated sheet pan for this, but it also lets smaller nib pieces fall through, too. The best would be a pan with long thin holes that would only let the radicle fall through.
My guess, though, is that they're not what's causing the bitterness. A 90% cacao dark chocolate bar is going to be pretty bitter. You could try making a lighter bar--I think the 70% - 80% range is the sweet spot for getting the best flavor out of a bean. Another thing to look at is your roast. Roasting too light can give you strong acidity that some people describe as bitterness, and roasting too dark can definitely result in bitter flavors.
-Ben
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Post by trimaniac on Sept 26, 2013 8:29:02 GMT -5
Hi Ben,
Thank you very much for answering my question. I will remove them with some sort of strainer. I didn't even think of that. As for the beans them selves, I did finish a second batch yesterday which I had refining since Sunday at 1:30pm. It has been going for 72 hours and is a 75%. It has no bitterness at the finish so I am relieved about that.
As for the beans and roasting, I will study the posts on this forum to get tips and reference points. Thank you again!
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Post by Ben on Sept 26, 2013 8:54:34 GMT -5
No problem! Glad to help.
You may want to try doing two batches--one with the radicles removed and one with them still in. You'd want to make sure all the other variables were consistent*, of course, but that would show you how much difference the radicles make.
-Ben
* It'd probably be best to do one big roast that you split in two for the two batches. Or, if you don't have the capacity to do that big of a roast, do two roasts, mix them together and then split in half. Either of these approaches would take roasting differences out of the equation.
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