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My son in Toby is now branching out into making chocolate, right from the bean to the bar and I had the dubious please of helping with the first batch. I say dubious as I thought that if all went wrong, then I would have to share the blame!
This venture is taking place at an area near Ubud called Antap and it’s stunning. It is where Toby’s wife Inda has the elephant trekking and white water rafting camp. If you come to Bali you must come here. “A True Balinese Experience” is the company and as well as going on a great trek on elephants you may be able to taste Toby’s chocolate.
First I was shown a few batched of cocoa beans being dried in the sun. They have already gone through the fermentation process and this was the next stage.
After they have been fermented and dried they are roasted. Toby has what looks like a microwave oven which has a cylindrical cage inside which holds the beans to be roasted. This is slipped into place and the cylinder rotates and the beans are roasted for 16 to 18 minutes, then they go through a
cooling stage.
When completely cool they are ready for grinding in a mill. This not only grinds up the beans but loosens the outer husk which has to be removed. This is done by ‘winnowing’ very much like what happens with rice along any country road in Bali. The beans are put on bamboo trays and tossed into the air and the waste will float down slower than the actual bits of cocoa bean (called nibs). If you have the knack – I haven’t, you pull the tray away before the husks can go back onto the tray. The grinding and winnowing needed to be done a few times as it was difficult getting rid of all of the outer shell.
Next the nibs of chocolate are put through a juicer. I though this a bit strange as there sure didn’t seem to be any juice in them there cocoa beans! Sure enough soon out of the bottom of the juicer dripped pure chocolate goo and from the waste tube came what looked like……well, we called it poo, I mean really, just look at it. This poo went back through the juicer o few times to get all
of the chocolate extract from it. The cocoa butter was also put through this machine before adding it to the ‘melanger’
Ah, the melanger, this is where real chocolate is born. Into the melanger went the chocolate liquid, the cocoa butter, milk power, sugar and lecithin then it is switched on and what we saw appear started looking just like the real McCoy.
Alas we still had some time to wait as the machine needed to be left on all night to do it’s wondrous job.
But the next morning we were back at Antap and it was tasting time. Mmmmm! We had made chocolate from bean to bar and it had been fun, especially when you employ people to clean up all the mess, and there was some. At one point the melanger decided to toss a spray or two out – it was full of 9 litres of chocolate and Toby got a lovely spray pattern over his white pants.
If I look a bit ‘tubbier’ when I get back, you will know why.
See you all soon, back in a few days time!
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Sue
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ENVIOUS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!