PROTO

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: In the hot room, chocolate _{For an online photo gallery of TCHO’s chocolate} is poured and molded by hand. Adjacent to the hot room _{factory, see makezine.com/14/proto.} is the cool room, where the bars are demolded. Stackable bins hold a variety of chocolate samples that are bagged and labeled by batch.

FROM POD TO PALETTE By Timothy Childs, founder and chief chocolate officer of TCHO

Chocolate starts from cacao beans, which grow inside strange-looking, geometrically complex pods that sprout directly out of the limbs and trunks of cacao trees in the tropics.

There are four main phases for transforming cacao beans into finished chocolate, and each phase generally has 3– 4 steps:

1. Growing: planting, harvesting, fermentation, and drying.

After the cocoa pods are harvested, the beans are placed in boxes or heaps where they undergo active fermentation for 5– 7 days. Fermentation cooks the beans in their own juices to around 50°C ( 122°F).

Proper fermentation first stops the bean’s growth, and then chemically alters its composition. It’s this chemical transformation that coaxes out the more complex and delicious flavors of cocoa beans. With proper fermentation, you can make a good bean great, and a great bean spectacular. While most

beans processed in the world are fermented poorly or not at all, I only use very well fermented beans.

2. Processing: cleaning, roasting,
cracking, and winnowing.
Once the bean has been harvested, fermented, dried,
and roasted, we crack open the bean to separate the
shell from the meat of the bean (called nibs) in a
process called winnowing. When heated and crushed,
the nibs turn to a molten state, called cocoa liquor.

3. Refining: mixing, refining, and conching. Sugar, additional cocoa butter, and vanilla are mixed in with the liquor, then this mixture is refined down to sub-20-micron size. Next, the almost-finished chocolate is conched (a process that blows off excess acids to improve flavor) for up to 72 hours.

4. Molding: tempering, molding,
cooling, and wrapping.
The finished chocolate is then tempered (a process
that forms crystals that help it solidify nicely when
cooled) on its way to being squirted into molds for
making bars. Yum!

32 Make: Volume 14