Moisture content...

[jwalter]

I just received an order of the PAPUA NEW GUINEA 2014 from this site.

I sorted 2lbs & set the Behmor for 1lb, P1, 20 mins

I preheated it for 60 seconds.

I thought maybe i smelled brownie at 12:00 and heard the first pop at 12:12 so I started cooling it.

The nips are just a tad chewy, although they taste really good. I taste the smokey notes that I am looking for.

My weight dropped by apx 3%....

First, is it even possible to run them back thru or will that ruin them?

If so, is there any definitive way to tell moisture content before I do so?

Also, if they start to crack should I always stop immediately. Crack is bad?

[Sebastian]

First, i'm going to buck conventional wisdom here on the boards, and what i'm going to tell you is likely contrary to what you've read.

Going by the 'brownie smell' is an incredibly ineffective way of trying to ascertain 'doneness'. it has absolutely nothing to do with final moisture content.

There are a couple of ways to check for moisture. one is expensive, but accurate. The other, cheap, but not accurate.

Both ways you should let your roasted nibs cool prior to assessing. i'm guessing yours were still hot (warm) when they were chewy. Just a guess.

1) Costly but accurate - get a thermal balance or another piece of analytical equipment. Probably not an option for you.
2) Cheap but inaccurate - once it's cooled, if it's still chewy, moisture is too high. How high? Who knows... you don't have a balance
3) Midrange - you can get a gram scale for less than $100 used i'm sure. One thing you can do is use it to be a relatively inexpensive thermal balance. Weigh out as much as the balance will hold before roasting (A). Roast it, then reweigh (B). Record all your numbers. A-B will give you your moisture loss, but you still don't know what the content is, only how much you've lost. Put those beans back into the oven and roast for 2 hours, then reweigh (C). A-C gives you what your raw bean starting moisture was (pretty close). You can then take the result of A-B and subtract it from your now known initial moisture to get a pretty close estimate of what your roasted moisture is.

Most beans, raw, *should* be between 6-8%. Perhaps yours are, perhaps not...

[jwalter]

Thanks for posting.
My goal is a 1-2% final moisture content, correct?
Mine were well cooled when I posted but maybe not fully. this am, I tasted & there is still a tiny hint of chewy left at the end of tasting the nips.
Based on my math & the assumption a raw bean is 7%, Im still a little high.
I'm going to use you method shown above to test initial moisture content.

Lets assume I need to come out with another percent or 2 of moisture.
I use a behmoor 1600. Can I now put my previously roasted beans back in to try to take out the remaining moisture or do I only have 1 shot at getting it correct & trying a second time will cause a problem due to the time it takes to bring the beans back up to temp.
thanks

[Ben]

One maker I visited had a bunch of roasted nibs in a bread proofing cabinet to remove more of the moisture remaining after roasting. If I remember correctly, the proofer was kept at 160 F or so. I'm not sure you could keep the behmor cool enough to just dry and not re-roast.

[Sebastian]

J - very hard to say what your original moisture was with only 1 data point i'm afraid. what i'd do is put it in the oven until it stops loosing mass - i said 2 hours initially because that's probably a pretty good time at roast temp, however the real answer is you continue to heat until it stops loosing mass. i'm not sure you need that level of precision however...

[lyndon]

Does having "left over" moisture in the beans matter? I usually lose 3-4% in weight after roasting, but I have not noticed any problems.

[Sebastian]

What having higher liquor moisture does is make your chocolate more difficult to work with due to increased viscosity. It's harder to temper, is 'thicker' for molding/enrobing, etc. At the levels you're talking about, it's not a food safety issue, but more of a functionality issue. This can be compensated by adding more cocoa butter, and to some extent by adding more lecithin - but of course there's both a nutritional and cost impact to doing that.

Now, of course if your moisture is too high, you run the risk of micro growth. It's more important to think about that in terms of water activity (Aw) instead of % , but again, at the ranges you're talking about above, your Aw is going to be low enough that that's not a driver of micro growth.