Texture of Fresh Properly Roasted Beans?

[lilypa]

Hey All,

I'm still quite new to home chocolate making and I'm curious about the texture of fresh properly-roasted cacao beans. Should the texture have a mouth-feel of a) chewy, b) crunchy and brittle, or c) half-way between the two?

I've tasted the occasional raw cacao bean and they're definitely "chewy". Seems like over-roasted beans would be brittle and burned tasting. But, where is a good distinguishing line, based on mouth-feel, between under-roasting (chewy) and over-roasting (brittle)? (I understand to wait until you get that nice "baking brownie" smell before starting the cooling phase of a roast.)

Does a properly roasted cacao bean taste more brittle or a combo of chewy and brittle or just brittle? Or is there simply too much variability?

Thanks!
Dave

[Sebastian]

crunchy and brittle. chewy means it's still full of moisture.

[lilypa]

Thanks Sebastian! I recently switched from using our crappy 1960's GE "Automatic" oven to buying a Behmor 1600 from John. (We rent.) With our house oven, I experienced wild temperature swings but I typically tried to hold my roasts to about 350 F for the first 5-10 minutes, then drop the temp to "about" 300 F for 10 - 20 minutes, and then a cool down of another 5-10 minutes with the oven off. Typically, my roasted nibs tasted crunchy and brittle, but sometimes slightly burned. (I've probably made only about 10 batches of chocolate so far.)

With my first roast in the Behmor (2012 Madagascar Sambirano Valley) I decided to play it safe and simply follow John's generalized suggestion for settings of 1lb, P2, and drop the default time from 18 to 16 minutes. With those settings I definitely had a great "baking brownie" smell towards the end for several minutes. However, the nibs tasted like a combo of chewy & crunchy after the roast.

So...I started to question whether I had been over-roasting in our old GE oven the entire time or if the suggested settings for the Behmor weren't long enough. I think next time I'll roast these beans for 18 - 20 minutes instead of 16 minutes.

Thanks again Sebastian. I hadn't seen my question asked on any of the previous threads.

[Alchemist]

Lilypa, How long did you wait to taste the nibs? Are you talking somewhat immediately or the next day? They will certainly remain chewy/soft until fully cool. But also moving to 18-20 minutes is not a bad idea. Did you get any pops?

[lilypa]

Hey John,

I tasted the roasted beans both right away and the next morning. Chewy/crunchy both times, while slightly more crunchy the next day. Got maybe one pop.

I turned that batch of beans into chocolate last weekend. A couple of observations from that batch have me thinking the beans were slightly under-roasted:

1) When grinding the nibs into paste in the Champion Juicer, I noticed that the paste coming out through the filter was stringy and more solid than liquidy. Additionally, it was harder than any of my previous batches to grind these nibs into a paste (took more effort with the tamper to push them down into the Champion.)
2) Had to use the hair-dryer a lot longer than in the past to get the "paste" to the point where I could turn on the Santha without it seizing (from being to solid).
3) The finished chocolate was lighter brown than any of my previous batches. (Of course, they all could've been slightly burned. )

Does that sound like under-roasted to you? I'm roasting my 5 lbs of Chuao next. I'd definitely appreciate any Behmor settings suggestions you have for those!