Uncovering the manufacturing process of chocolate
Whether you’re a Willy Wonka admirer or not, you must admit that chocolate is one of the best things in the world, but making it has become one of the most controversial internet topics. Many modern manufacturing processes have negatively impacted the environment due to massive deforestation and have fueled child labour issues in developing countries.
Given these problematic aspects of chocolate, numerous customers decided to boycott certain chocolate companies in an attempt to put an end to social issues. At the same time, the number of sustainable and ethical chocolate businesses is on the rise, and they’ve been contributing to the transformation of the industry, where workers are paid fairly and chocolate is organic from the growing phase to manufacturing.
Making chocolate may not be as easy as portrayed in children’s novels, but it is surely a big deal. So, if you want to approach it as a business, here are some of the steps necessary to manufacture chocolate.
Finding a respectable cocoa supplier
If you want to make chocolate, you need cocoa, which must be acquired from an ethical cocoa supplier whose ideologies align with your company culture. Generally, these businesses offer full
transparency on how the cocoa was grown and harvested, the work employees have performed, and the processing in adequate facilities.
Cocoa comes from the cacao tree, which makes pods containing the raw material. The cacao beans inside are scooped out and left to ferment for a week, an essential process that every cocoa manufacturer must do to ensure high-quality taste. Later, the beans are dried in the sun to avoid mold, and the supplier will deliver the goods.
Roasting the beans to develop the flavor
Roasting is a critical step in making chocolate because it will later affect the chocolate’s taste and flavor. Moreover, roasting gets rid of bacteria from fermenting, ensuring the final product is safe for consuming—finally, roasting puffs out the shell of the bean, which has turned dark brown.
After roasting, the shells must be removed from the nib through a process called winnowing done by an automatic appliance, which can also be used to combine different varieties of cocoa to enrich the taste.
Grinding nibs into chocolate
After winnowing and combining the nibs, you must grind them with a particular machinery that will turn them into liquid form, resulting in an unfiltered cocoa filter that will have the consistency of liquor. The final result should not have any shell parts floating around as they will alter the taste, even if it’s currently quite bitter.
But we’re not even close to the end. A hydraulic press is used to eliminate all the cocoa butter from the liquor, which looks like regular butter but has unique properties. What we’re left with will be transformed into cocoa powder through crushing, milling, and sifting. Then, the treatment process unfolds.
Adding ingredients to your chocolate
In many cases, only sugar is added to the raw chocolate to make it more bearable, but since chocolate is considered netter when sweet, other ingredients can be added without compromising its quality. Non-fat milk and even the previous cocoa butter will be added in accordance with the recipe, which can vary depending on what kind of chocolate you want to sell.
But the process of adding the ingredients is also essential, because temperature and time intervals will determine the chocolate’s success. Many other steps are involved, such as conching and finding the best ingredient proportions.
Conching the chocolate to make it smooth
To refine the flavor and texture of the chocolate, conching is used to combine all the separate flavors with heavy rollers plowing back and forth for a few hours or a few days. While some chocolates do not go through this process as a part of serving another purpose, Swiss chocolate is conched for about four days.
If you can notice the flavor difference in chocolates, know they are achieved during this step when the cocoa is aerated. These types of machinery can support nine tons of chocolate, and they’re most efficient since they allow the chocolate to emulsify.
Tempering the chocolate to correct the molecular arrangement
This process might be the most complex because it requires professional guidance as it involves knowledge about chocolate chemistry, particles on a molecular level and other complicated information. However, tempering the chocolate will influence its final texture when solid, which can make it easy to snap or crumble. At the same time, chocolate that’s not tempered accordingly will be left with white impurities in it from the cocoa fat.
Hence, the chocolate must be melted, crystallized, and solidified, then retempered once again to harden for the final form. During this process, it can be poured in any form you’d like to sell, but all the previous steps need to be done correctly to provide high-quality chocolate.
The first chocolate batch might be a failure
Let’s face it―making chocolate for the first time is complex, and there are many challenges along the way. You must find the right melting point, which is different in white and brown chocolate. When the fat bloom appears, you must temper the chocolate again and again until it disappears. However, if the fillings used are not compatible with the cocoa butter, the fat bloom will never go away.
If there’s too much humidity in the chocolate, the sugar will crystallize on its surface and solidify if not handled in time, so chocolate must be stored with great care. Viscosity is another essential aspect to consider because it will affect the final product. But what’s more dangerous is cross-contamination, for which you must use separate tools and mixers during manufacturing processes.
So, are you ready to make sustainable and ethical chocolate?
Chocolate is one of the best things in the world, making millions happy every day. However, due to child labor issues and sustainability, there is a need for companies to switch to moral and customary ways of manufacturing chocolate to protect workers and create a better world.