If there are four great inventions in the field of food, chocolate must be one of the greatest inventions! Whether it’s the delicious chocolate board or hand-made chocolate, it makes people feel happy when they look at it. It is also the existence of dopamine secretion. But you can never think of cocoa pods, the “mother” of chocolate. How it changed from cocoa beans to chocolate. To find out, we will introduce the chocolate manufacturing process in the next article?
Where are cocoa beans grown?
The crop cocoa originated in South America and was later brought to Africa by colonists. Ghana, C ô te d’Ivoire, and other African countries are now major producers of cocoa. However, cocoa planting is not a profitable industry. According to statistics, growers can only get 6% of the final price of cocoa, while most western countries that turn cocoa into chocolate can make huge profits.
The whole chocolate manufacturing process
Fermentation
The cocoa beans with pulp are piled together and placed in a special fermentation wooden box. Many growers cover it with banana leaves for natural fermentation. The whole process will last for 5-6 days. Fermentation can prevent the bean from sprouting and remove some of its bitterness. In this process, the cocoa bean can absorb the flavor molecules including acid, sweet, fruit, flower, and wine from the fermented pulp to produce the top note of aroma.
Drying
After fermentation, the beans may become moldy. Therefore, we need to dry it immediately to reduce the moisture content from 70% to 7%. In order to mass-produce chocolate, chocolate manufacturers use cocoa bean dryers for drying. After the defective beans are removed, these cocoa beans will be put into container bags and transported to the factory for the next step.
Breaking
Cocoa beans are packed in container bags, starting the journey from the plantation to the factory. After being poured out of the container bag, people will clean up the dust and residues on the beans. Then, the shell and germ of the beans need to be removed through the cocoa bean crusher to leave the nuts.
Roasting
This step can be carried out before crushing, and the bean shell will gradually fall off during baking. It is also under the action of the cocoa bean roasting machine that cocoa can absorb the aroma and bake out the cocoa flavor.
Grinding
Broken and roasted beans are called cocoa beans. After grinding by the cocoa grinder, the cocoa bean crumbs will get a semi-liquid paste, which is called cocoa puree. At this time, cocoa could be sold directly to chocolate factories. The chocolate factory will use a complete set of chocolate production lines to make chocolate.
Pressing
Cocoa butter and liquid can be separated by putting cocoa puree into a press equipped with a filter. After removing the odor, pour it into the mold and crush it into cocoa powder.
Mixing
After the cocoa butter and cocoa butter obtained by pressing are mixed, chocolate can be obtained. Different dark chocolate can be made by adding sugar in proportion, and milk chocolate can be made by adding milk powder. White chocolate does not contain cocoa butter bricks. At this time, the finished product is the smooth chocolate we eat every day.
Refining
Heat the cocoa butter brick to 70 ℃ and stir it slowly to make it more silky and flavorful. In this step, cocoa butter or soybean lecithin can be added. Adding these emulsifiers can make the raw materials mixed more evenly.
Temperature regulation
Temperature regulation is a very fine step. It needs to be cooled to 28 ℃ to harden. Then it is heated to 32 ℃ to make the chocolate get a silky texture, which can keep crisp and delicate in the mouth at the same time.
Injection molding
Pour the liquid chocolate into the mold to get the shape you want. After shattering the bubbles, the chocolate will shrink and crystallize to facilitate demolding.
Summary
The above is the chocolate manufacturing process. If you want to know anything else, please feel free to contact us.