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Post by chocojake on Dec 4, 2017 18:46:09 GMT -5
So, I've been making chocolate for about 3 months now, with great success, heading toward opening a small production facility next summer.
Before jumping in, I did a ton of reading and research, especially about beans and roasting. My first batch was a great bean from Belize that I could just eat roasted all day long; very fruity and smooth. The second batch was from Costa Rica and roasted well but made a pretty bland chocolate. The third is supposedly a fruity bean from Peru used by Choba Choba but was extremely bitter and astringent, even after some pretty heavy roasting.
At first, I thought I had screwed something up with my Behmor 1600, but I was able to duplicate my original results with the good beansagain. So, now I'm afraid I've gotten some "bad" beans that just aren't the quality I need.
Had anyone else run into this problem or see any obvious flaws in my process? I have a pretty simple roasting profile: roast on P1 until the beans start popping regularly (usually about 16-20 minutes) then cool for several hours. The last batch from Peru never did start popping though, and I pulled after a full 20.5 mins in the Behmor.
Any thoughts on what's wrong or how to fix it? I'm afraid to make chocolate with beans that don't smell or taste right after roasting. Some are still pretty astringent smelling, even though the shells separate easily. Could this be a problem with fermentation?
Thanks,
Jake L.
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Post by bmikiten on Dec 4, 2017 23:40:24 GMT -5
Fermentation is always in question when you see the results you describe. If the process didn't change, it is probably the beans. There are beans that need different roasting times and profiles (to a lesser degree). We generally run 1kg tests at three very different times for each bean then move in on the perfect times after that. Also, do the beans look normal? Visual inspection should be the first test and after some practice, you can tell quite a bit by tasting the raw bean.
Brian
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Post by Brad on Dec 4, 2017 23:59:58 GMT -5
The problem you're running into is that not all cocoa beans are alike. Some are just plain crappy. Part of it can be because of the soil conditions, and part of it can be because of the grower and how they treat them, and part of it can be simply because of the strain of cocoa. For example CCN51, Toro, and Cone are all promoted heavily by Ecuador, and they all suck. Yet, I have tasted a forastero from Ecuador that is absolutely amazing.
This is no different than the use of grapes in the wine industry. Not all grapes are equal, and not all vineyards do a good job.
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Post by Ben on Dec 5, 2017 8:20:34 GMT -5
Brian and Brad make great points. Every bean needs a different roast to bring out its best flavors--you can't just use the same profile for everything and expect all beans to be at their best. I've found that some of the cacao I work with benefit from dramatically different roast profiles. But, some beans just aren't good and no roasting profile is going to change that. Brian mentions a couple steps to take to evaluate cacao (visual inspection and tasting the raw bean). I've adopted the FCCI's protocol for raw cacao evaluation which incorporates and expands on those steps. It's given me a standardized process that has helped me to better evaluate cacao samples. It's much more thorough than my previous process, which was mostly a small cut test and tasting a few beans. One of the best parts of it is that you take a bunch of beans, shell them, grind them into a rough powder, and then taste a standardized portion of that powder. This gives the benefit of getting an idea of the overall flavor of the sample, rather than the couple beans you happen to taste (which may or may not be representative of the overall flavor profile). You can download the protocol and a evaluation sheet at the links below: Protocol: chocolateinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/FCCI_protocol_english_1_0.pdfEval Sheet: chocolateinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/FCCI_evaluation_english_1.0.pdf
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Post by chocojake on Dec 5, 2017 9:52:18 GMT -5
Thanks, guys! I will consider these points. Not having a lot of experience, I've tried to rely on testing by the warehouse distributors, but I'm suspecting some fudging of the numbers. I know about differing roasting profiles, but even so... Yuck! I also think that sellers might dump older beans on the small guys because they might not recognize the difference. More research and roasting trials await!
- Jake L.
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