Post #4325157

2026-08-01 21:07 UTC

So the penultimate step is called "conching." The chocolate mixture is put in a machine that fundamentally reproduces the action of a mortar and pestle, and continuously ground for hours or, in some of the finest high-end chocolates, days. Industrial conchers (or "melangeurs") are typically the size of a small bus, but for home use it's possible to buy a machine originally designed for making dosa batter that works as a concher. A bowl with a stone base has a central spindle with stone rollers. The bowl turns, the rollers roll IN a pool of chocolate, continuously crushing the chocolate in front of them until the entire mixture reaches the texture you want. During this process, the whole thing outgasses. It gives up moisture, especially at the beginning, and also there are various smells that come off that really aren't lovely. (Remember, fermented food. Some notes are, I'm sorry, reminiscent of urine.) These are nice things NOT to have in the finished chocolate. (7/9)

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@stevegis_ssg@mas.to 2026-08-01 21:13

Once you're happy that what you have is good melted chocolate, the final step is tempering. Chocolate is a suspension of finely ground flavorful things in cocoa butter. And cocoa butter is, chemically, a complex mixture of different fats. It can take on various crystal structures, depending on things like the exact cooling profile, agitation, the presence of seed crystals, etc. And these structures can have very different properties in terms of mouthfeel, stability, melting temperature, etc. If you just let melted chocolate set back up again, it won't be nice. The default crystal structure that the cocoa butter adopts will get soft and sticky at even moderately warm room temperature, and has a gummy feeling when chewed. It will also develop grey, powdery bloom very quickly, and turn chalky over time. So instead, you cool it *past* its normal freezing point, but with continuous agitation. At another, lower freezing point, it starts to form better crystals. (8/9)

Open ##4325156