|
Post by sugaralchemy on Aug 12, 2006 17:25:52 GMT -5
I have been conducting dozens or hundreds of taste tests... there is an interesting trend emerging.
It seems, the "better" your make your chocolate, the less a lot of people like it. Those wonderful lingering chocolate notes become "a weird aftertaste" and a pleasant tartness becomes "gross sour taste" and ethereal vanilla notes become "weird tastes"! As the darkness increases, people thing it tastes "too dark" - even by just about 70%.
And the concept of milk crumb... wow... that just blows peoples' minds. Some people think it is the nastiest milk chocolate they have ever tried!
Now, conversely, another demographic appreciates the chocolate even more and more as these complex, nuanced traits become more prominent.
Has anybody else experienced this syndrome? Do you have any favorite approaches to split the middle between those who appreciate the complexity of chocolate and those who don't?
|
|
|
Post by dragonmama on Dec 3, 2006 17:14:20 GMT -5
Having grown up on crappy chocolate like common chocolat company often boycotted for it's other products and marketing and Hershey's, I used to find higher quality chocolates "Weird" tasting as well. Familiar is comfortable, and new is odd, after all. But it's a learned thing as well... if you're open minded, and get rid of pre-conceived notions of what chocolate should taste like, you're more likely to enjoy it.
No real suggestions... just something I'd noticed in myself.
|
|
|
Post by Brad on Dec 4, 2006 5:40:23 GMT -5
Sugar Alchemy;
I've found that "better" chocolate is a relative thing. Some people (actually I find very few) like a very dark chocolate (70% cocoa solids). It's simply TOO bitter. Of all the taste tests I've done with people, by far the most popular "dark" combination is:
40% cocoa solids (of one type only) 30% deodorized cocoa butter 29% sugar .5% Vanilla bean
It is very smooth, and has a very nicely balanced sweetness.
For milk chocolate it's a completely different story. I've gone as low as 12% cocoa solids to get a nice creamy milk chocolate that people like.
Brad
|
|
|
Post by sugaralchemy on Dec 13, 2006 13:14:21 GMT -5
Your formulation is right around the darkness of "Hershey's Special Dark" chocolate (which runs around 39% liquor) with your formulation there, although your fat content is dramatically higher (around 50-51%, versus Hershey's 30-31% or so, it is lower now that they use PGPR) and your sugar content somewhat lower (29% versus around 47%.)
I would expect your chocolate to be a lot lower viscosity, leading to a nice mouthfeel, but really, that fat content is way higher than any commercially available chocolates I can think of. The increased fat helps masks the bitterness of the cacao without adding the sweetness that sugar would. The result is a mildly sweet, mildly dark chocolate. Processed properly, it definitely would be a fairly nice chocolate "for the masses".
Interestingly, Special Dark is a very unusual chocolate: 1) It contains the equivalent of around 39% liquor, 6% cacao butter and another 4-5% milkfat (which creates a softer and probably less expensive chocolate, being that the only other fat than cacao butter allowed in "chocolate" is milkfat) 2) A portion of the cacao solids come from alkalized cocoa powder - probably for taste and cost reasons (My calculations above were based on if all cocoa solids came from liquor like they would when you make chocolate - in reality the liquor number is lower, the added cocoa butter number a bit higher and the cocoa powder level around 4-5%) 2) It contains lactose at a few percent, possibly to reduce the sweetness/cost profile without adding "costly" fats. 3) It uses artificial vanilla flavor, another cost-cutting measure, and quite a bit of it for a dark chocolate in my opinion. 4) Use of lecithin and PGPR has allowed the fat content to be slightly lowered in recent years, to around 30-31%. 5) It has a terrible gritty texture and overall unappealing taste (at least to me)
|
|
|
Post by Sebastian on Dec 13, 2006 18:48:15 GMT -5
Out of curiosity, how do you know the above percentages of liquor and cocoa powder?
|
|
|
Post by sugaralchemy on Dec 13, 2006 23:06:03 GMT -5
I have some data on Special Dark which has allowed me to calculate or otherwise make educated estimates of these values. Some of this data may be slightly old, I'm not entirely sure about the dates off the top of my head. So no, I don't find Special Dark interesting enough to have it sent off to a lab and analyzed.
I won't claim these numbers are dead on, but I think they are very much in the ballpark. Out of curiosity, do you have any information that suggests these numbers are incorrect?
|
|
|
Post by Sebastian on Dec 14, 2006 20:52:03 GMT -5
Ah. I don't know that it's appropriate for me to comment on the formulation of anyone's chocolate, be it Hershey's or anyone else's - but I do have a pretty good understanding of who should know what with respect to most of the products out there. Being the curious sort, of course, i had to ask
|
|
|
Post by sugaralchemy on Dec 15, 2006 0:39:16 GMT -5
I don't think there are any rules on this forum that say discussing the composition of another's chocolate is off-limits. If there is a rule otherwise, I would be happy to comply. I didn't think chocolate composition was really a major secret? Even for a given composition, the choice of cacao, processing, vanilla, milk, etc. still has a huge impact on flavor - at least as much as the macro-composition does.
Legally, it's not an issue. If they sell chocolate without having the buyers sign a non-reverse engineering / non-disclosure agreement, it's legally fair game to dissect. Now, if it's patented, reproducing the product and (particularly) selling it is going to be illegal. But simply writing about the contents - even if they are patented - isn't illegal and I don't really see why it should be considered inappropriate. I figure the people who are determined to breakdown the composition of a bar are going to anyhow, and a lot better breakdown than I presented here. I'm sure the "big players" have ripped apart plenty of their competitors bars, so stopping a bunch of mostly home / small chocolate makers from talking about it seems like it is pretty pointless.
Also, I will note that all the information I have obtained is not under any non-disclosure agreement, therefore I am not violating any contractual agreements by releasing this information. I would never post information against a contractual agreement or which I am not entitled to post.
|
|
|
Post by Brad on Dec 15, 2006 2:02:42 GMT -5
With regard to the percentages of my "70%" chocolate, you are right about the mouth feel and the subdued bitterness. I've also done some homework and have found that chocolate manufacturers try every trick they can to reduce the amount of cocoa butter required to make a nice chocolate. The reason? It's expensive. Anhydrous milk fat (ghee) is usually the substitute, and serves not only the purpose of reducing the cost while keeping a nice smooth feel, but once it's tempered, the milk fat helps the chocolate to resist bloom.
I noticed that your comment on the Hersheys "Special Dark" used less CCB, more liquor and more sugar. That would make sense. More bitterness, hence more sugar, and less CCB. I've been told that about 36-37% total fat content is considered common in the chocolate industry for a "premium" quality chocolate. This could very well be 31% CCB and 5% milk fat too.
In any case, I've had great luck with this dark chocolate, and for what it costs me to process the beans, including shrinkage from roasting and winnowing, it's less expensive for me to use more cocoa butter than more liquor (at least in a home setting.).
Brad.
|
|
|
Post by Sebastian on Dec 15, 2006 6:34:46 GMT -5
SA - i'm not inferring you did anything wrong, just noting that from a professional standpoint, it would be inappropriate for me to comment on anyone's commercial formulations. In some cases I do have legal obligations not to, and in some cases it's professional courtesy.
|
|
|
Post by Alchemist on Dec 15, 2006 11:18:23 GMT -5
SA - i'm not inferring you did anything wrong, just noting that from a professional standpoint, it would be inappropriate for me to comment on anyone's commercial formulations. In some cases I do have legal obligations not to, and in some cases it's professional courtesy. I respect that from you Sabastian. On the same note, I think this guarding of "secrets" is a major barrier, and my my annoying, if not more useless than anything else. I can and do give out proportions of chocolates. That only gets you so far. Give 3 chocolate makers 1 recipe and I bet they can make 6 different tasting chocolate at least. So much is technique. As for those numbers above, I have done the same reverse engineering many times just from the label. Granted, the rounding errors are terrible, but with a list of ingredients and % of fat, protein, and sugar you can work out the recipe very close. A little algebra and the numbers pop right out. And in regards to "rules" here. The basics are be polite, no competition ads or urls, no flames. Other than that, Chocolate Alchemy is based on informatin propagation - not restriction.
|
|
|
Post by sugaralchemy on Dec 15, 2006 11:41:24 GMT -5
John,
Thanks for clearing up the rules. I agree that guarding these "secrets" is a stupid barrier - it just serves to frustrate little people and has no impact on anybody determined commercially. By and large, the real uniqueness of chocolate is the processing and sourcing of the cacao. If you have something that extremely unique and important, you better just go patent it. The point of a patent is to protect something unique for a limited period of time while also providing full public disclosure as to how it works.
I will add, the data I posted here about this bar does go beyond what you'd get off the usual nutrition label.
|
|
|
Post by Sebastian on Dec 15, 2006 11:51:16 GMT -5
I can appreciate your position. I would respectfully disagree with it being stupid, however, if I were to be sued into bankruptcy or if I'm having to write this from jail as a result I've happily provided as much help as I'm able to, including private formulation assistance, to many here on the board, because I think this endeavour is neat, and I'm happy to help if I can. However, I also need everyone here to recognize that there are limits - both legal and professional - to the extent to which I'm able to do so. Trade secrets are the foundation of many businesses, and are not to be taken lightly. The disclosure of them can have profound repurcussions. The original question was relative to a specific product made by a specific company - regardless of the company or the product, i'm simply not going to comment on the accuracy of what's believed to be it's formulation.
|
|
|
Post by Alchemist on Dec 15, 2006 12:38:33 GMT -5
I refer to the attitude of "keeping it secret" as being stupid. And in hindsight, stupid is a pretty juivinile word. Highly frustrating is more to the point. I never considered your position "stupid" at all. I completely understand NDA's and the like, and are under a few myself. Mine all concern equipment R&D in pre-patent state - no formulations.
You are in a special situation and do indeed have to be careful with what you can comment on due to your "inside" knowledge. BTW, I really appreciate what you have contributed here.
|
|
|
Post by sugaralchemy on Dec 15, 2006 12:47:47 GMT -5
Let me clarify my original post: I was talking about the macro-composition of chocolate when I said guarding secrets is "stupid" and I'm really trying to say that if your business relies on the secrecy of the combination of the main ingredients, you probably don't have a very good business model, because it's not really that hard for anybody who is very determined to figure it out once your product is on the mainstream market. On the other hand, other trade secrets can be critical to business, particularly in terms of processes, sourcing, flavor types, etc. But I wasn't talking about any of these kinds of things. I still don't think it's ethically wrong to discuss, hypothesize and explore these matters *provided* that you are "clean" and have not been exposed to privileged/confidential information or have agreements otherwise. I believe the law generally agrees with this stance as well. I understand people have differing obligations, and I don't want anybody to feel like I am pressuring he/she to disclose any information you're not comfortable disclosing or legally obligated not to disclose. I certainly don't want anybody to be sued over something like this. I understand that could be a reality for some people. Specifically to Sebastian: I appreciate what you have been able to share and don't want to you feel like you're being grilled on things you can't discuss. We live in a society that relies on competition and free speech. I believe this forum provides a lot of insight and understanding on a field that can be somewhat closed and I know it is planting seeds for some new little chocolate companies. I plan to continue to provide whatever information I feel may be useful to furthering this forum, limited of course by my time and provided that it does not conflict with any other "obligations" which I have. I want to add that I do take nondisclosure agreements seriously and can, do, and will continue to protect any information received in a confidential manner. I also have a variety of things I keep secret for my own purposes. But none of that applies to Hershey's formulations right now
|
|