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Post by chocolatemountain on Nov 24, 2009 3:46:28 GMT -5
I am new to making chocolate and have a question. I am reading in these posts about adding cocoa butter to the recipe. But isn't cocoa butter a byproduct of putting the roasted beans in the Champion Juicer? I have roasted beans and put them in the juicer until I get a liquid mass - doesn't that mass include both chocolate liquer and cocoa butter? So should I be purchasing cocoa butter from a store and adding that into the mass that I get from the champion juicer, as some of the recipes state?
I tried to make chocolate with the mass from the juicer, and added sugar, lecithin and milk powder and it tastes like crap, though I have the consistency right. I'm just trying to get the taste right.
Thanks!
Chocolate Mountain
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Post by Sebastian on Nov 24, 2009 7:33:57 GMT -5
Taste is such a subjective thing - you may think it tastes like crap, and i may love it w/o seeing it, it's hard to say what - if anything - you did wrong. It could be that the beans you used weren't 'right', or that you didn't roast appropriately, or perhaps your milk powder was rancid. or it could be that you got all of the above 'right' and there's nothing wrong at all, it's just that you don't like the flavor. it looks like you're trying to make a milk chocolate, so chances are high that you'll need cocoa butter to get the right consistency, and it'll also have the effect of lowering the %'s of all your other ingredients. perhaps post details of your recipe (in %), where you got your materials, how you roasted the beans, etc? might shed some light on what you've got...
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Post by chocolatemountain on Nov 26, 2009 2:33:25 GMT -5
Thanks for the reply. I like the idea of adding cocoa butter. Do you know where I would get cocoa butter, if I wanted to experiment adding it to the recipe? Should it be from the same type of bean that I am roasting for the chocolate?
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Post by Brad on Nov 26, 2009 12:55:38 GMT -5
Where to get cocoa butter? Quite often organic food stores have both food and cosmetic grade cocoa butter (at least our stores here in Canada do). If you can get cocoa butter from the same kind of bean, that's great. However you will most likely find deodorized cocoa butter before anything else. Sebastian's spot on with regard to taste. It's purely subjective. It's important to note that if you're expecting "refined chocolate" from your Santha, think again. You'll never get anywhere near that. In fact, you need to be careful when using that machine, because it can very easily overheat the beans and mass thereby giving them a distinct "burnt rubber" taste. If you don't like the intensity of the recipe, the nice thing about it is that you can always change the quantity of the ingredients. I would first try (measured by weight) 75% cocoa beans, 24.5% sugar, one half of 1% Vanilla bean. If that's too intense, use less bean and more sugar, OR.... Keep the sugar and vanilla the same, and substitute out cocoa beans for cocoa butter. The recipe we use in our shop is very mild. 40% cocoa bean, 30% cocoa butter, 29.6% sugar, and 0.4% vanilla bean. Hope this helps. Brad www.SoChoklat.com
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Post by chocolatemountain on Nov 27, 2009 13:12:37 GMT -5
Thanks so much! I'm going to try your mild recipe. I have only been using the Champion as I don't yet have a Santha (know where I can get one used?)
Question: if I use liquid cane sugar rather than granulated sugar, would that give a less gritty taste? I know, you're going to tell me to use the Santha to grind down the grit. But just wondering if the sugar will help.
Thanks again, your recipe is what I've been looking for, something simple to get me started.
Regards,
Paul Chocolate Mountain
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Post by Brad on Nov 27, 2009 22:05:27 GMT -5
Paul;
I would recommend that you spend an evening perusing some of the threads in this site's forum. The knowledge base contained in here will answer almost every question you have about ingredients for chocolate.
However, for the sake of answering your question about the sugar, if you're trying to make something that as closely resembles chocolate as possible, you can't use ANY product that contains water. All of the ingredients must be dry, or your product will seize, and you'll have a bigger mess than what you started with.
There is a whole very in-depth thread somewhere in this forum about various ingredients you can use to sweeten your chocolate.
Hope this helps.
Brad.
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Post by infotechproximity9 on Jul 8, 2010 7:30:31 GMT -5
you did wrong. It could be that the beans you used weren't 'right', or that you didn't roast appropriately, or perhaps your milk powder was rancid. or it could be that you got all of the above 'right' and there's nothing wrong at all, it's just that you don't like the flavor. it looks like you're trying to make a milk chocolate, so chances are high that you'll need cocoa butter to get the right consistency, and it'll also have the effect of lowering the %'s of all your other ingredients. perhaps post details of your recipe (in %), where you got your materials, how you roasted the beans, etc? might shed some light on what you've got... _________________________________________-- Used Auto Parts | Used Car Parts
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