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Post by charlieangel on Oct 7, 2011 0:06:00 GMT -5
Took the rest of the summer off (too hot). New batch started saturday morning: started with 2 pounds of madagascar, with 1 pound of Venezuelan trinitario. I was hoping that the Venezuelan trinitario would "mellow out" the Madagascar. I let it grind in from saturday morning until about an hour ago (about 5.5 days total). What a difference this seems to have made. I just tasted it while cleaning the grinder... It's amazing. So it's not really a failure, but this is definitely better than a lot of so-called "commercial" chocolate I've had. Now I know what I want, will be placing more bean orders soon.
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Post by cocoabean on Oct 22, 2011 17:06:08 GMT -5
Hi, I am only on my first batch, so I dont know much about anything yet....... but I just noticed that you did it for 5.5 days, I was only going to let it grind in the Santha for the 12-16 hours, should I be letting it go for longer? thanks
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Post by charlieangel on Nov 2, 2011 17:19:16 GMT -5
I'm not sure 12-14 hours will do it, but I think the santha has variable resistance. I typically grinded for around 3 days (would put in the grinder on thursday night and pull out sunday evening) in the previous batches, but the madagascar bean I've been using is very.. potent? A lot of volatiles. So this time, I decided to let it go in the hopes that further processing/movement would encourage those volatiles to evaporate out, and the combination of time + the venezuelan bean bear out that it "worked", but I strongly suspect the blending with the milder venezuelan bean probably did most of that. It was worth a try and it didn't impact the flavor negatively, so I might continue to do so until I have time/bean enough to start playing with the parameters again.
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Post by cocoabean on Nov 3, 2011 4:43:06 GMT -5
So do you just let it go day and night, even if your at work or do you turn it off and restart next day.....
Also should I let the cocoa liquor just grind away without the cocoa butter and sugar and then just add it later? or do you put it all together at once?
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Post by charlieangel on Nov 7, 2011 15:31:16 GMT -5
Yup, night and day. I just leave it going when I'm at work. :: crosses fingers :: Ideally, I like to do it over the weekend when I'm home the most, at least for the intial grind. Well, it definitely takes awhile to get the full batch in. I then use the scraper and scrape it down in the morning and evening each day.
First, I put in the cocoa butter. I put it in the microwave for a few seconds until it's a little warm and runny, but not completely... I put that in the grinder until it's "down" and then add the cocoa nibs, handful at a time. About every 10-15 minutes, I throw in another handful, otherwise it bogs the machine down or stops it completely, at which point you have to turn everythign off, disassemble and remove the bulk of the crap that's got it bogged down, just a huge mess (speaking from experience). Finally, after all the cocoa nibs are in, I let it go for another hour at minimum and then I start adding in the sugar (gradually, over time, it'll bog it down, too) and finally I'll toss in the chopped vanilla bean.
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