Anuttama (Farm to Bar) Chocolate is Made
The journey from cocoa Farm to chocolate bar is not complex, but it requires several steps, each of which require careful treatment to get the best from the finished product.
We Anuttama Product makers often deal directly with cocoa farmer cooperatives, giving them a say in how the beans are treated from the moment they’re harvested and ensuring the best possible price for cocoa farmers.
How Farm to Bar chocolate is made, looking at every step of the chocolate making process.
Harvesting
The Chocolate journey starts from Harvesting, Riped cocoa pods are harvested twice a year The pods are cut open with machetes and the white pulp containing the cocoa beans is scooped out. Not all cocoa harvests are created equal. Everything from geography, to soil type to the climatic conditions of the harvest have a huge impact on the beans and the chocolate’s flavour profile.
Roasting
Roasting done by the chocolate maker rather than the farmer. The process and equipment used to roast the beans vary considerably from chocolate maker to chocolate maker. The exact temperature and roast time are part of the chocolate maker’s recipe, and will have been worked out with careful experimentation and lots of tasting
Tempering
Chocolate should have a shiny finish and a good “snap” – that clean clicking sound when you break a piece off. These are created by tempering, the controlled process of raising, lowering and raising the temperature of the chocolate to form exactly the right kind of crystals. If you were to let the untempered chocolate cool naturally, the chocolate would be soft and crumbly and would not melt evenly on the tongue. Tempering can be done by hand
Fermenting
The pods and pulp are placed into containers, where the pulp is allowed to ferment for 5-7 days. During the process, the beans are turned to help them ferment more evenly. This is the first stage in developing the flavour of the chocolate, and part of the reason why a farmer can have a direct impact on the quality of the finished chocolate.
Cracking & Winnowing
The beans are cracked open and the shell is removed in a process called winnowing. The lighter shells are blown away with fans, leaving behind pieces of pure cocoa bean, known as “nibs”
Moulding
Finished chocolate bar is poured it into a mould. The tempered melted chocolate is simply poured into plastic bar-shaped moulds and agitated to remove any air bubbles and then kept inside the refrigerator or cooler.
Drying
This is usually done by spreading them out into a single layer in the sun. Most beans are transferred into sacks and transported around the world after drying, so in order to prevent mold, it’s important that they’re completely dry at this point.
Grinding & Conching
The cocoa nibs are ground with stone grinder until they become a paste known as cocoa mass or cocoa liquor.
It’s during this process that sugar, milk powder (for milk chocolate) and other flavourings are added to the chocolate. The conching process can takes few hours affects the chemical structure of the chocolate,
Wrapping
Once cooled after 20 min-30 min, the chocolate is wrapped up ready to be sent out. We wrap their bars completely by hand