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Post by lilypa on Jan 4, 2015 23:09:50 GMT -5
Hey All,
My wife and I recently did a taste test of some chocolate I made in October (70% Belize - Maya Mountain) composed of only beans and sugar. She commented that this chocolate seems to have lost A LOT of its flavor from our initial tastings back in October. It's basically gone really flat. It had been stored in a heat-sealed plastic wrapper (ClearBags.com) and placed into a zip-lock baggie the entire time. We had done a comparison of my chocolate with a commercial small-batch chocolate maker's Belize bar as well (also made in October). When we first compared the two bars, we both actually liked my chocolate bar better. However, after our recent taste test, it was no comparison. The commercial Belize bar was much better and popping with flavor.
So, do you know if plastic packaging doesn't help with flavor retention as much as aluminum foil? The commercial maker's bar was wrapped in aluminum foil which was inside in a box. Can anyone share anything they know about the best inner-wrap packaging choices for good shelf-life and flavor retention (even anecdotal info that you may have)?
Cheers, Dave
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gap
Apprentice
Posts: 390
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Post by gap on Jan 4, 2015 23:37:57 GMT -5
Upfront - I don't know the answer. I'm jumping in to get get a discussion going and see what others think.
Guessing though - chocolate flavour changes with time. The exact workings are hard to get at without doing a lot of testing yourself. I've read a few articles on it (and a few posts on various forums including this one) and from what I can gather, the majority of flavour change happens in 0-3 weeks after made and then less so in 4-6 weeks. The consensus from my reading is that most of the flavour changes are done after 6 weeks (although some people reckon they can age chocolate for up to a year before releasing it).
My guess is that you tasted your chocolate relatively "fresh" and then again "aged". Its flavour changed over that time. My guess is that your control bar was "aged" when you got it so its flavour profile was fairly consistent between the two tastings. So maybe it wasn't to do with the packaging at all??
Purely hypothesising though.
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Post by Sebastian on Jan 5, 2015 18:17:49 GMT -5
metallized film, heat sealed.
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Post by lilypa on Jan 5, 2015 22:48:28 GMT -5
Thanks Gentlemen.
Gap - Yes, we tasted my bar fairly fresh. Probably a week after tempering. The commercial bar had an October batch date, so I'm assuming it was quite fresh as well. My chocolate was also "aged" for a month pre-tempering, but I'm guessing that's irrelevant to the post-tempering flavor change you mentioned.
Sebastian - do you know of a supplier of metallized film that works with small orders? Could you point me to a web site?
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Post by Sebastian on Jan 6, 2015 7:00:41 GMT -5
lilypa i'm afraid i don't - i'm not that close to that part of things - i'd imagine there are lots and lots of them out there, unfortunately i can't point you to any of them.
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Post by timwilde on Jan 6, 2015 18:14:36 GMT -5
I'll agree that it's more than likely not packaging though. I just tried my chocolate that I tempered back in April. Since that was the last batch of the season (started getting to hot) I just left them in the molds, open air. Just had a bar and while it's still flavorful, I can see that aging more or less balanced the flavors out quite a bit. When new, there were sharper flavors that popped out and after almost 9 months, those flavors are still there but they seem more balanced with all the other flavors. No one thing pops anymore. I thought it was a little odd, but tried the others I had wrapped up and placed in a ziplock bag for transport/storage, and they had that same flavor.
So not entirely sure how much packaging will change flavor more than simply protect the chocolate from the elements. Could be wrong, but this was my experience.
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Post by Sebastian on Jan 7, 2015 6:34:52 GMT -5
All chocolate mellows as it ages. Part of that is because the cocoa butter continues to solidify (most bars still have a LOT of liquid cocoa butter in them), the crystals convert to higher melting point structures over time (both of these things mean that flavor release is hampered), flavors oxidize (chocoletes a terrible o2 barrier), and volatiles escape. low permeability packaging protects against the last two - but won't impact the first two.
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Post by lilypa on Jan 7, 2015 17:04:24 GMT -5
Thanks Sebastian! That's good to know.
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Post by cheebs on Jan 10, 2015 11:36:08 GMT -5
There are two things that I don't like about metallized film: Firstly, it's very difficult to re-seal or re-close if a bar is only partially consumed. Second, metallized film is NOT recyclable, as the technology to separate the plastic from the metal is not available yet. So, every last bit of this goes into landfills or is incinerated instead of going to recycling facilities. Aluminum foil, on the other hand, is 100% recyclable (and usually comes from over 95% recycled material). That is why if I ever switch to a barrier bag, I will go with the biodegradable stuff even if it doesn't protect as well as foil or laminates.
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Post by Sebastian on Jan 11, 2015 7:47:59 GMT -5
That might be worth a re-visit cheebs - polycorp is separating the layers, as is plastic recyclers, terracycle is utilizing metallized film in their processes, etc. There's a new patent that was just issued a couple of months ago (WO 2014162238 A2) on this - i'm not very close to that end of the market, so i don't know a great deal about it, but i do know it has been recyclable for a number of years at least.
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Post by kevin on Jan 11, 2015 12:53:45 GMT -5
Cheebs, you are right about the re-sealing and re-closing. It does not behave so well after it is opened.
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Post by vxaktor on Feb 14, 2015 13:29:07 GMT -5
Lilypa, PAK- SEL www.cellobag.com. They have metalized bags as well as recyclable cello bags available. Robert
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Post by lilypa on Feb 17, 2015 0:19:06 GMT -5
Thanks for the tip Robert.
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