I know you all must be biting your nails, waiting for the taste results of our roast test last week. Well, I won’t make you wait any longer!
First a quick note on the process… We made 4 batches of chocolate, differentiated mostly by the roast profile, but also partially by grind time (purely due to circumstance). This was the first time we had both of our Premier Wonder Grinders going at the same time, which was quite an experience. Together, they are significantly noisier than one on its own, and they have slightly different frequencies, resulting in interesting table vibrations all night.
We also left the liquor in the melanger for less time than usual. This worried us at first, but upon tasting the chocolate, we’re pleasantly surprised that our micron size seems to have reached the point where the tongue can no longer distinguish them. After melanging, we also left each batch in a container for a few days before tempering the whole lot. We usually temper immediately, so that was a bit of a change from our typical process as well. Our tempering method was mostly that of heating the solid batch slowly to about 90 and pouring quickly then. If we accidentally raised the temperature beyond 90, we carefully dropped it again to 80 before reheating to 90 to pour.
Though we’ve successfully avoided bloom since we learned the refrigerator method (thanks again, Thomas, for your tip!), we still have some white markings on the final chocolate bars. We think it’s related to one or more of these issues: watermarks from the molds, the shape of the original pour before we shake the molds, or the way we pop the chocolate out of the molds when it’s done hardening. Any thoughts, readers?
Keep in mind, these are all Madagascar beans and each batch started with 1 kilo of beans in the Behmor 1600 Plus. My notes below begin with the basic stats on the batch and end with our comparative tasting notes on the final chocolate of each. The notes come from the tasting palette of Richard and me, as well as Dan & Sarah, who shared a picnic in the park with us yesterday (thank you California weather in February!). A quick disclaimer: Richard thinks these are all too sweet – he prefers dark dark chocolate!
Batch 1: P2
- Roast Profile: P2
- Roasted & winnowed cocoa nibs: 500 grams
- Sugar: 166 gram
- Percentage: 70%
- Grind/conche time: 11 hours and 30 minutes
- Flavor notes: toasty, less fruit flavors
Batch 2: P4
- Roast Profile: P4
- Roasted & winnowed cocoa nibs: 500 grams
- Sugar: 166 grams
- Percentage: 70%
- Grind/conche time: 11 hours and 30 minutes
- Flavor notes: quite fruity, bright pop, lots of interesting flavor highlights, cherry, Landen’s favorite
Batch 3: P5
- Roast Profile: P5
- Roasted & winnowed cocoa nibs: 500 grams
- Sugar: 166 grams
- Percentage: 70%
- Grind/conche time: 14 hours 30 minutes
- Flavor notes: almost too sweet, slight acidity at back of throat
Batch 4: Blend