Post by charlieangel on Mar 17, 2011 12:29:17 GMT -5
Not as bad as batch 01, but still not satisfactory.
This time, went a full 3 pounds on the Madagascar. Roasting was uneventful, less of an acetic aroma from the beans. I actually hand shucked* each bean as I was bored and didn't want to wait until the morning to drag it all outside to winnow. Most beans were easy, just a squeeze and the shell popped off, leaving me with a huge bean. Other beans I suspect were "over-roasted"? as they just crumbled between my fingers (exploded) and i picked through these as best I could.
I used the following "formula":
961g cocoa beans, winnowed
107g cocoa butter, deodorized
267g cane sugar
This works out, according to the calulator, to about 72%.
Procedure:
Heated cocoa butter to about 200 degrees. Started Ultra and poured in.
Added cocoa beans, whole, a handful at a time. The grinder did an excellent job of just tearing these to pieces. I used a hair dryer to bring it up to temperature. Took about an hour to get it all in the Ultra. After another hour or so it was very nice and fluid, at which point I started adding sugar, about a quarter every 15 minutes.
Then I left it alone, stopping only to scrape down the center and the scraper a few times. It ended up going for over 60 hours in the end, and the end product was really smooth.
However.
Maybe my taste sucks, but the acetic/strong taste from batch 01 was still present, but was greatly mellowed. Not altogether pleasant, but I can taste potential? I get some dark cherry in the back of my throat, and a very unidentifiable fruit at the front. The middle is washed out in that bitter, aceticish taste. I'm definitely going to have to lighten it up. Perhaps moving to a 64% range would help bring out the flavors better and temper that bitterness down even more. I'm toying with the idea of dumping this batch back into the Ultra and adding more sugar and letting it run for a day to see if that can help "fix" the flavors a bit because I don't want to toss 3 pounds of chocolate.
*Brought back a lot of memories when I was kid and my mom bringing home huge sacks of purple hull peas and various beans from my grandparents gardens and spending every night for days shucking peas. My thumb is still a little sore.
This time, went a full 3 pounds on the Madagascar. Roasting was uneventful, less of an acetic aroma from the beans. I actually hand shucked* each bean as I was bored and didn't want to wait until the morning to drag it all outside to winnow. Most beans were easy, just a squeeze and the shell popped off, leaving me with a huge bean. Other beans I suspect were "over-roasted"? as they just crumbled between my fingers (exploded) and i picked through these as best I could.
I used the following "formula":
961g cocoa beans, winnowed
107g cocoa butter, deodorized
267g cane sugar
This works out, according to the calulator, to about 72%.
Procedure:
Heated cocoa butter to about 200 degrees. Started Ultra and poured in.
Added cocoa beans, whole, a handful at a time. The grinder did an excellent job of just tearing these to pieces. I used a hair dryer to bring it up to temperature. Took about an hour to get it all in the Ultra. After another hour or so it was very nice and fluid, at which point I started adding sugar, about a quarter every 15 minutes.
Then I left it alone, stopping only to scrape down the center and the scraper a few times. It ended up going for over 60 hours in the end, and the end product was really smooth.
However.
Maybe my taste sucks, but the acetic/strong taste from batch 01 was still present, but was greatly mellowed. Not altogether pleasant, but I can taste potential? I get some dark cherry in the back of my throat, and a very unidentifiable fruit at the front. The middle is washed out in that bitter, aceticish taste. I'm definitely going to have to lighten it up. Perhaps moving to a 64% range would help bring out the flavors better and temper that bitterness down even more. I'm toying with the idea of dumping this batch back into the Ultra and adding more sugar and letting it run for a day to see if that can help "fix" the flavors a bit because I don't want to toss 3 pounds of chocolate.
*Brought back a lot of memories when I was kid and my mom bringing home huge sacks of purple hull peas and various beans from my grandparents gardens and spending every night for days shucking peas. My thumb is still a little sore.